Day 11: A Sorting Kind of a Day

After such a busy day yesterday, there was no surprise that there were lots and lots of things to get sorted today. We always manage to make time for some fun as well though!

Pictures 1 and 2: The first job today was cleaning and tidying the Music Room after the chimney had been done yesterday. This was an "all hands on deck" task, and we got it done very quickly as a result. The Chimney Sweep had made a really good job of cleaning up, but there was one particular place he had missed: under the chair! When I pulled the chair out, there was so much soot and dirt there, we were able to write little messages!!

Picture 3: Since we got Orlando in October 2013, he has been (mostly) allowed in only half of the downstairs for the house (it's a hard life!!). But in mid-January, he will be getting the run of the whole house. It looks like he was practising a bit for this...

Picture 4: We do love our Pay-As-You-Go shopping at Tesco, but we're really bad at remembering bags! Fortunately, we put a plastic wallet to good use! We are great at being inventive!!

Picture 5: As we've mentioned before, Orlando hasn't been feeling well as he's had a nasty little dog-cough. Fortunately that seems to be much better now, which meant he was absolutely wild after his walk this morning! Here he is waiting (im)patiently for a pine cone:

Picture 6: The Railway Room is one of the hugest interior design and decorating tasks that we've taken on since we moved to Wick nine years ago on this very day! It has involved many, many hours/days/weeks/months/over-a-year to get it to this point, but the new carpet has just gone down. This may not look like much, but it is actually going very, very well!

Picture 7: A black hole! Actually, this is looking down the tube that the carpet was wrapped around, which you can see on the picture above.

Pictures 8, 9, 10 and 11: Games Night! One of the highlights of the week. Tonight we were playing The Game of Things, and eating wine gums and revels! (Note the pencil that says "Alex is a poop" because we are charming sisters!!)

#300GoodDeeds - Day Two. LEGO and a Helping Hand

Today's good deeds were slightly different - especially the first one!

We headed off to Puffin Croft Petting Farm and Farm Shop to choose our Christmas Tree (although it won't be delivered until the 15th December). Puffin Croft was where we got Orlando from four years ago, and we haven't been back since it changed hands.

Puffin Croft - different ownership, still fantastic.
Also, scene of one of our #300GoodDeeds

The new owner has carried on the ethos of a farm that cares about animals and the wider environment, and developed the idea for a petting farm that the previous owners had just started to explore. It's a lovely little place, and well worth a visit! It's always good to shop locally and ethically, although that wasn't the good deed for the day...

The good deed was helping someone to locate the vegetables they were looking for. I hope the owner of Puffin Croft didn't mind, but this lady was looking everywhere for her three neeps and three kilos of carrots, and couldn't return later in the day when the owner would be back, due to other commitments. Don't ask me how, but it seems I have a neeps-and-carrots radar! It didn't occur to me until about an hour later that helping the lady find her veggies was a good deed, but that just shows how easy it should be to get to 300 (hopefully!).

Our second good deed was to donate a small Lego toy to Caithness fm's Toy Appeal, which distributes toys and items of interest to underprivileged children and young people around Caithness. Our region has some very underprivileged areas, one of which is just round the corner from where we live: it really is a place of two halves. To give something to a local charity like this - not just money - means that you can really imagine a child being presented with the toy. And who doesn't love Lego?!

Caithness fm Toy Appeal.
People in Caithness always give generously to this great cause.

J. x