No Knuston!

So, this weekend I should be here:

This is Knuston Hall, where I was going for a bookbinding & repair course.

 

Instead, I am here:

bed...

 

I've been nursing my mother through a nasty fluey cold thing, this week. She's been feeling pretty poorly and has a bad cough etc. 

Today I had to stay in bed, because I also have the lurgy.  My mum phoned this morning and said she was feeling a little better.  Her carer was due at lunchtime and tea time, to make her meals, also her friend was coming round to help her.  She said I was to stay at home and not worry.

 

Of course, staying at home was necessary, as I wasn't fit enough to go anywhere and had only had about 4 hours sleep into the bargain. 

Worrying is a different story...

Aftermath...

Dear Readers,  when we last heard from our heroine, she had suffered a bit of a disaster:

What used to be the shelves in my Studio...

Having removed the remaining shelf fittings and picked up the stuff that was thrown onto the floor, we had been left with this:

A load of stuff all over the desk and a precarious work table and "supporting" metal strips...

... piles of stuff all over the floor...

... boxes piled up in the hallway and shelf-boards leaning on the bookcase.

That was Sunday. 

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Thursday

Yesterday afternoon I started work to clear and re-arrange the studio, so we could replace the lost shelving and put all the stuff away properly.  I carried on today and  DH helped me to take down the work table, that was clipped to the metal rails on the wall.  We took the bent and useless metal bits down too.

This is what it now looks like:

Sigh...

Sigh again.... I'm trying to "Keep Calm", but I must admit that "Eat Cake" is the best advice I've had all week...

I have taken the stuff off the three remaining wall shelves, so I could re-arrange them, to hold the more important stuff.  However, they are not supported by a bracket at the wall end.  So, the far end of each shelf is not properly supported - we need to put another support up in the corner.  I can only put very light things on the corner end of the shelves and not-very-heavy stuff everywhere else.  

Sigh...

Some progress has been made - but not very obvious.  I have measured and thought, consulted with DH and decided to buy an 80cm wide bookcase from Ikea, which I will put in the gap at the end of my desk, where my worktable was.  See the white drawer unit in the photo? The bookcase will go behind that, against the wall.  It is 28cm deep and the drawers (and worktable top) are 60cm deep.  

Still with me?  Hmm... So.... I can buy another white drawer unit too, plus a tall 20cm wide cd/dvd unit, to match the bookcase, which will make the whole bookcase-wall-thing 100cm - same width as the worktable.  I can use the drawer units to support the table top, making a pedestal desk (yay!). 

If it is placed right in front of the bookcase, the whole thing will be 88cm deep, meaning it will stand out 8cm (about 3.5")  from the edge of the big desk; but as it's by the window, we think that will work ok.  I won't be able to alter the height of my table any more - but then, I never did do that anyway... and the part of the bookcase behind the drawers will be difficult to access (the dvd shelves will be totally buried), but I'll still have 125 x 100 cm of shelves to use for storage, plus a work table again (and another set of drawers - yay!).

Hmm.... So that's all very nice... But we still have the problem of the Studio Needing to be Tidied Up First.

These are two of my current Bookbinding projects...

and this is my desk, where I'm supposed to be making the books...  Sigh...

...and the rest of the room, that I'm trying to tidy up...

bigger sigh...

So, overall, I am feeling rather overwhelmed by all the mess, clutter and confusion.  I have filled half a rubbish bag and most of a recycling bag, yet hardly seem to have made any difference.  There is just stuff Everywhere.  I was trying to "put away" the things on my desk, only there is no "Away" just now.  I want to clear the messy side of the room, so I have a large and clear patch of floor - where we can build a new bookcase, then put the boxes of stuff while I re-organise the room...

It got to the point where I couldn't do any more.  I just don't seem to be able to work out where to start or what to do.  

The stuff that fell down from the wall didn't bury me - yet I somehow feel that, really, it did...

Further Adventures in Blog(ger) Land

Hello All,
* * *
Firstly, if you're looking for - or interested in - my post about the Blog Party blog hop on 6th November, see it here

* * *

Now then...

Sorry I haven't posted for ages... I have a serious problem with Blogger's Editor, which makes any post that contains more than one or two photos virtually impossible to write, without it taking me hours (literally, I do not jest!).

I have a pile of stuff to tell you, but all of it involves photos in order for it to make much sense.  For instance, we have a new pet - photos required; we went to London for 4 days - many photos taken, several ear-marked for blog post,  can't load them, driving me nuts; I made a batch of great books for my stall on 6th November - more photos of pretty notebooks; DS and DH have been conducting "scientific experiments" in the garden, involving fizzy drinks,  mints and potential explosions/ geysers of fizzy pop - more photos; the Scrap Club had a birthday a couple of weekends ago - photos of people eating cake. 

See what I mean?  I confess to feeling seriously frustrated - to the point of tears last night, after attempt no. 3 at my London Part 1 post was an abject failure. 

I have a cunning plan (my lord)... but it needs patience and careful thinking out, so I load the photos in the right order, using the Old Blogger Editor (which loads them backwards and makes it almost impossible to move them around in the post afterwards, but at least it loads more than one in any editing session).

I have posted my problems to Blogger several times, in various formats - forum comments, feedback form, problem report.  So far they have failed to respond at all, yet I know that lots and lots of other people are having similar / same issues.  I feel very angry with them - they have imposed the changes on us, without any warning or consultation, but they are not dealing with the problems they have caused.  They have even asked for feedback, yet there seems to be no action after the feedback has been given. I know this is a free service, but it belongs to Google and you'd think they would take more care of their customers - many of whom are potential, or existing sources of income for Google. 

So, please bear with me. I will try to write a post with something interesting in it.  The last picture-heavy one was my notebook tutorial, which took many hours of work over 3 days.  I need to find the patience to do this...

Back soon - I hope!