Thursday 16 June 2016

It's been a long time...

... Since I last did any drawing or painting. I used to quite enjoy it in my teenage years and have doned  few small paintings for family members as gifts over the years, but I haven't sat down and put brush to paper for simply ages so I thought I would break the fast, as it were.
I used watercolour pencils (borrowed from my daughter) as it was quite fine work and my eyesight is not what it was. Once the picture was completed, I used a fine brush dipped in water to soften it all together.


Not too bad for a first attempt in a long old while. I might try a robin next?

We collected Jet from the vets yesterday. He has had his second op which went very well. He is now lying on my feet with the cone of shame on his head feeling very morose! I suspect I may be glued to this seat most of the day. Mr D was meant to be off today and tomorrow so we could share the babysitting duties, but he was offered an extra 2 days of work. We could hardly say no considering the scary vet bill we have just paid! The vets have been good at keeping it to a minimum, knowing we were paying direct this time (last time the insurance paid for most of it), but the veterinary hospital  seem to like spending our money willy nilly- they gave Jet pain relief which costs £120 for a few drops on then back of his neck! As our vet said, it's good stuff BUT there are many other far cheaper options, so she took that off our bill and will fight it with the hospital direct. She also took an extra 10% off as we are regular customers. It all helped but it was still over £3000. Hey ho, we have a titanium filled bionic dog now :)

Terrible photo but the light is so grey :( 

I had a day of phone calls yesterday! It was my volunteering day, so it's the only point in the week where I have 2 hours when I absolutely DO NOT look at my phone. I had 8 missed calls, two voice mail messages and two texts. I don't normally get that in a week. I then realised my emails weren't working. I tried BT but (as many of you will know), they were more chocolate teapot than help. I still cannot get on to my emails this morning despite being told I would be able to log on after the 12 hour suspension. It's bloody inconvenient with all the solicitors using email to communicate.
I think we exchanged on my Mums house and our house sale yesterday...I would know for sure if I could get to my emails...BIG SIGH.
We are no further with our purchase though. This is going to take some heavy pushing on my part. We get paperwork sent through from their solicitors that is partially complete, some that is not compliant with what we need and some that is incorrect full stop and it all seems to take forever. This could take a while, but if it doesn't tie in, it won't be for want of me trying. One question for those of you with more rural properties.....did any of you have restrictive covenants on the property and if so have they been an issue? There are some with this property which I don't think should worry us, but is a new thing for us - semis in suburbia don't often have covenants attached.

11 comments:

  1. Beautiful painting! I can see where I get my artistic flair from! xx

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  2. It is a beauiful painting, you are very talented, would love to see a Robin painting.
    Poor Jet all the suffering will pay off for him to have a better life, he is well loved x

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  3. Don't know about England but every piece of property we've ever had, had covenants and restrictions. We're on about an acre here and have loads of restrictions.

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  4. You certainly have a talent, beautiful art work. Not too sure about covenants, a good solicitor should be able to advice you.

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  5. Gorgeous painting.
    Sending healing hugs for Jet from Smudge dog.....and me too of course-x-

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  6. Lovely art work. You are certainly talented.

    God bless.

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  7. we had covenents even in the town, you could have pig but not chickens that was a 30's semi. it also had a parish covenent that we had to hep pay the up keep of the local parish church, that was got round with an insurance policy a one off payment. the solicitor sorted that for us.

    this house we cant change width of the entrance to our property and the height of the walls we are allowed.

    Most houses have them and if they have an AOC for a house with acreage this is to safe guard housing for farmers etc who couldnt afford otherwise to live in that area. This maybe something like you have to have 50+ sheep and 4 hens. all weird and wonderful combinations. Welcome to the country where anything can happen.

    your picture is lovely

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  8. Fabulous painting.
    Doesn't it feel terrific when you just sit down and just spend some time with your art. I always feel so much better.
    I know it is sad because they are hurting but I love when our sweet ones want to be near us and nap with their heads on our feet. They put all their trust in us to keep them safe and loved.
    It makes me feel better also.

    cheers, parsnip and thehamish

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  9. I hope Jet gets back to feeling more himself soon. I have just submitted our application for a CPH number as our house came with a field of about 4 acres. We didn't bother asking anybody about keeping our chooks at home but we are bordered by our neighbour a sheep farmer, the road to Aber and then another field owned by the farmer. We hope to keep a couple of pigs on the field. I read to other day that you should always have at least two pigs - something to do with their sociability I think? so glad we want two. You can always check the Defra website to see if they can put you in the right direction for finding out about covenants etc. Not sure if any of this is any help.x

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  10. There were a couple of covenants on our house one in our favour and one against.

    We had to be available to share costs of any parish works when needed, we got that one removed, and we only found out about the other one when we had a HUGE water main burst. It turned out that when water pipes were laid along the back of our land high on the hillside when pipes were first put into houses in the area, the owner of this house and land was promised that no bills relating to water repairs would ever be received. We signed a document rescinding this after they had done all the repair work for us and didn't make us pay the humongous water bill caused by the leak. It seemed only fair.

    Love the bird picture, you definitely have a talent there.

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