Butchering my Brooks B67 saddle

 Here's the result of that butchering -

and here's the story behind it -

I haven't ridden my Koga much this year, owing to the Brooks saddle becoming uncomfortable again. When I first had it, once I had got the tilt and height correct for me, it was extremely comfortable, and I could ride long distances on it without needing any padded underwear. Then I had some trouble with it last year when it became very uncomfortable, and also creaked a lot, and on that occasion tensioning resolved both issues. Did it now need more tensioning? I tightened it up a small amount while it was on the bike, but it didn't really help. I was a bit mystified as the change seemed quite extreme. I had read one or two cases of people finding their Brooks saddles uncomfortable after having been comfortable, so thought that perhaps I was unusual in this, but maybe not unique.

I decided to take the saddle off, and have a good look at it to see if I could see any reason why it might have changed. Amongst other things I found that underneath it wasn't quite symmetrical, and that the tensioning bolt didn't run parallel to to the rails, but I couldn't see why this would affect it now and not have done in the past, unless perhaps the extra tensioning that it seemed to need now just wasn't happening due to this. I had tightened the nut quite a lot more  and tried it out again, but although the creaking was much improved, probably due to my having given the saddle clamp and seat post a good wipe (though they weren't very dirty) it was still uncomfortable.

Tension bolt not parallel to rails

I should explain that the discomfort was at the front of me (that's quite enough explanation...). At the back under my sit bones was fine. Another important thing to take into account was that the saddle on my Trek, which I have had for years, was also not quite as comfortable as it had been, so I was beginning to think that maybe it was me and not my saddle that had changed. So I started to look online at saddles with cut-outs, thinking that this was what I probably needed. In the end I bought this Bontrager one from my local bike shop, as it was only £20, had good reviews online and I knew I could get a refund after 30 days if I didn't like it -

Bontrager saddle

According to the width measurement, 167mm, it wasn't as wide as I needed, but with the 30 day comfort guarantee I thought I might as well try it. As it turned out, it was surprisingly comfortable, but in the process of tightening the two bolts, which I should add I had always found very fiddly compared to adjusting the saddle on my Trek, which has one bolt, I managed to break one of the washers, although I didn't realize what I'd done until I went to adjust it more - 

Broken washer and underside of seatpost

I contacted Cyclesense where I bought the bike and asked if it was possible to get new washers. The answer was no, and the only solution was to buy a whole new seat post, for £30. That seems to be the case with a lot of things these days - you can't get a tiny replacement part for something and have to buy a whole new one. My local bike shop hadn't got any similar washers either. However, Husband is very handy and cleverly managed to fix the saddle back on by using a different washer and a bit of wood. Very Heath Robinson. It worked, but although I had made sure it was in the right position before he finally fixed it in place, I could no longer make any adjustments to it at all should I want to, or swap the saddle again, without having to ask Husband's help again. Although this new saddle was pretty comfortable - and on the whole I'd recommend it - I knew the Brooks was more comfortable under my sit bones. I really sit "in" the Brooks, rather than on it, which someone somewhere on the net said was what you should be doing. Maybe, maybe not! Not all experts agree, as we have all been finding lately.....

After some more weeks of thinking (slow thinking is good sometimes...) I wondered what I would now do with the Brooks saddle. Sell it? Probably hardly worth the bother. Keep it and maybe try it again at some point in the future? Or - have a go at butchering it, which I knew some people had done? I really wanted it back on my bike, for the comfort under my sit bones, so I thought I might as well go for the latter, and after reading anything I could find on the subject (not a lot to be honest) I got out my Stanley knife..... I made a stencil of the cut-out bit on the Bontrager saddle, drew inside it on the Brooks, and then began to slowly cut through the leather.

Just in case you're wondering, Husband had written "Haven't seen cat"

I was expecting the cutting to be difficult, but it was quite easy. Once done I skived off bits to make sure it wasn't too rough. I did a bit of filing as well using the emery board (I'm not a nail filer - it came with  corn removing stuff!!) and the grater that came with a tool kit -

After this photo was taken I did enlarge the cut-out slightly at the front.

Now I had to try it out, which of course I couldn't do on the Koga, so I put it on my Trek. I did a bit of riding up and down the road, and it seemed pretty comfortable, so a few days later I rode it a few miles. Still seemed good, so after another few days I rode it about 14 miles to go shopping, adding on more miles to give it a better trial. I also altered both the height and tilt of the saddle en route. I was very pleased! The next step was - put it on the Koga..... but to do this I'd have to ask Husband to go through his Heath Robinson thing again, and I wouldn't then be able to adjust the saddle further. I decided then to bite the bullet and buy a new seat post, not the £30 one from Cyclesense but a Bontrager one I had looked at earlier in the year (£22) but which I had decided against partly because it did not have as much setback as the Koga one. This was important to me as I had had the Brooks set back as far as it would go and even that at times didn't seem enough - a common problem with Brooks saddles owing to their short rails, and the position of them on the saddle. I looked at seatposts online with more setback but there wasn't one that would fit my bike (31.6mm). However, knowing that I had possibly not had the saddle as high as I needed it, which would give me more set back - as you raise the saddle, it goes back further -  I decided to buy it and hope for the best. Here it is back on the Koga, higher than it was previously -

It actually makes adjusting it easier, as you can see what you're doing from the top -

Note the trendsetting combination of Keen sandals, socks, and rolled up jeans...

I rode it up and down near our house and am now pretty confident that all will be well. That's as much as I can say at present as I haven't been able to ride it more this week as my lovely little granddaughter kindly gave me a present of a cold last weekend, since when I have done very little, but am now on the mend and am looking forward to trying out the saddle properly.

Just for comparison, here is the Bontrager saddle on top of the Brooks -

Actually, now I come to look at them both, there doesn't seem to be much difference in the length of the rails, but if you imagine that the Bontrager saddle were set as far back as it would go according to the rail markings, then you can see that the rider would be sitting further back on the bike.. It's not just the rail length that counts, but the position of them on the saddle.

So hopefully I have now got an improved version of my Brooks saddle! I wonder why Brooks don't make a version of the B67 with a cut-out as they do of some of their other models? If this really works for me then I'll suggest it to them.

I would love to hear of anyone else's experiences and opinions of butchering their Brooks, so if you have any please let me know in the comments!

And here, for your delight and delectation, as they used to say on some old TV programme, is another little bike bag I made from a rucksack I got from Freegle. Not at all waterproof, but useful on dry days! I might try a waterproof version.

 

Home made bicycle bar bag

 Before I get on to the bar bag, here's the reason why I decided to make another one: I treated myself to a second pair of panniers to go on my Koga, the bike I use for longer touring or just longer day trips, and because these new ones don't have any outside pockets, having extra and easily accessible space to put small bits and pieces in is even more important. The panniers are Ortlieb Back Roller Plus, bought from Spa Cycles (delivery was quick, despite Covid) in lime green, and it took me hours of poring over the internet to decide which ones to get. My old Karrimors  are excellent, and have two good outside pockets on, and I just wish that someone would make some exactly the same. I don't think I'm the only cyclist to think like this as similar style ones go for good prices on Ebay. I did in fact have my eye on a pair of Carradice panniers on Ebay but they went for more than I wanted to pay for something I wasn't totally sure about. At first I didn't want to even consider any that hadn't got outside pockets, and I came close to buying these Carradice ones, which are a very good price, but for various reasons in the end I went for the Ortlieb ones. I nearly went for the Bike Packer style, as they do have one outside pocket, but I thought it looked a bit flat and slightly awkward to get into. There were lots of other factors that influenced my choice, too. Maybe I'll do a whole blog post on that later.


In my very first blog post I wrote about a bar bag I made from a musette bag. You can read about that here. That very simple bag is still going strong, but I decided I wanted to try to make one that was a bit stronger, and, frankly, a little more professional looking..... I very much like these from Ornot, and other companies do very similar ones, and thought I'd have a go at copying the style, but in the end I just couldn't see how I'd fix it on without squashing my cables. I'm sure there are ways to work around that problem, but I thought I might as well just make another version of the one I've already got which I know works and doesn't get in the way of cables.

As the Karrimors are now permanently on the Trek, the cheap panniers which were on there are now spare, so I cut one up and had just enough material from one of them to make the bar bag. The fabric is some kind of ripstop. I had the design and measurements in mind before I started, but made alterations to those as I went along.

On the bike - 

The back, and no, that's not a bit of unstitched binding at the bottom right. It's just where I had to re-do the yellow stitching on the front and  didn't quite catch in the binding on this side, and so I did it by hand - 

The green lining came from an old windbreak I had acquired for free, knowing it would come in useful one day! I was vaguely trying to colour co-ordinate with the lime green of the panniers.... The green tape is just to fix anything else to if I want, based on the military molle attachment system which I came across on YouTube - see explanation here - 

Dog clip inside for attaching things like keys or safety pins to -

Don't look too closely at the stitching....

I was originally intending to attach the bottom Velcro strap round the stem, and the bag was going to sit right behind the cables where my old one did, but I decided it was better attached like this - 

Everything that I used came from the old pannier, or was saved from something else (like the tape and the dog clip), except the Velcro and the zip, both of which I bought.

I'm really pleased with how this bag turned out. I'm also making a waterproof barbecue cover for my neighbour out of Cordura type fabric, which is a whole new area of sewing for me - different fabric, different thread, meaning lots of internet research - and these two projects have really got me thinking about making bags from more outdoorsy fabrics, as opposed to the upholstery or dressmaking fabrics I've used in the past. And so then I got on to looking at vintage industrial sewing machines.... 

I would still want to re-use things, as with the old pannier. I just hope that charity shops will open up properly again soon, by which I mean unlimited numbers of customers and therefore unlimited browsing - essential in charity shops!

Just an everyday shopping trip....

My mileage is well down in the last couple of months. Because of the lockdown restrictions I have not gone out on long day rides, due to not wanting to have to call out Husband if I got a puncture, or some other problem. Not that this has ever happened to me, except very near home, so my reasoning isn't really logical... However I have had some really lovely short rides, finding some routes I either didn't know about or had forgotten.

One lovely sunny day - there have been so many! - I decided to take a route along our local Wilts and Berks canal to go shopping in Wantage. The canal is being restored in places and is a lovely quiet route to walk or cycle. In the winter it's too muddy but at the moment it's perfect. The surface is reasonably good for my hybrid bike, though in dappled sunlight the tree roots can be hard to see. Before I start, here's an interesting thing; I realized when cycling along the Kennet and Avon canal a couple of years ago that I much prefer to cycle with a canal on my right - it feels slightly weird cycling with it on my left.

Back to the shopping trip. I got onto the tow path about 2 miles from home -

 It's so lovely at this time of year. Who would want to drive along a road when you can walk or cycle along here?

Now I'm approaching Grove after about two miles on the canal. A few years ago this was just a field with a footpath across, which I used to enjoy walking. You can see a new housing estate on the left; they have at least done a reasonable job of landscaping the area, putting in trees and good paths. I don't know whether the paths are designated for walkers only but no-one has yet objected to me cycling on them. This is also part of what was once Grove Airfield, an important WW2 military air base, hence the aeroplane on a stick - that curved thing in the distance. Apparently it's a De Havilland Venom! (now I know...). There are some excellent photos of it here.

Here I am in the middle of Wantage, but still roughly following the route of the old canal. It's only in recent years that I have discovered just how many quiet paths there are between the houses in Wantage. There are quiet short cuts everywhere. In theory most of them are not for cyclists but I always give way to pedestrians and nobody seems to object to a cyclist being on them. Here the canal is just a ditch -

Now through a housing estate -

And here I am, after about 5 miles, finally back on the road and nearly at Sainsbury's, and even this road is much, much quieter than normal, due to lockdown.

Then through to the market place, which would normally be full of cars, both parked and moving. It does seem very strange once you get here, where most of the shops are shut - quite dead. There are not just few cars but very few people -

My bike was the only one parked here in my usual spot outside Waitrose (I truly do get a bit miffed if someone else parks there....) which is strange; we all know there are more people cycling at the moment and even the usual bikes aren't here.

 Now I'm back on the canal path between the houses on my way home, with very full panniers -

Sneaking through a gap by the stile and back on to the old footpath near the aeroplane -

Now, after cycling round the edge of Grove Business Park, I'm heading across the old airfield. It was many years since I'd walked this path and I couldn't remember how rideable it was, but in my relaxed and exploratory mode I just thought - oh well, I can always turn round and go back.....

It turned out to be rideable all the way to this lane  at East Challow. The photo below is of the site of what used to be a country club, and where I believe Elder Son wasted some of his youth. When I first came across the derelict buildings some years ago, and didn't know of this fact, I snooped around and came out with a haul of several beer glasses (some used by him perhaps) and a very nice stainless steel bucket, which we still have! This was also where a friend showed me Poplar Balsam; some time later when passing a wood close to home I realized from the remembered smell in my nostrils that it was growing there too.

Now past the church at the lovely village of West Challow. There is a stream that flows past the church wherein I once dipped my feet on a very hot day, after a day's riding. Nothing like it....

And now back up the bridlepath to Childrey, and then a short distance on quiet back roads home.

How many people's shopping journeys are like that? Just had a thought - I wonder if Husband would let me use his Go-Pro to film it? If I could manage the technology.....

Cycling, corona virus, and decorating....

I have been meaning to write a post for weeks - I think the longer I go without writing the harder it is to get back into it, but I don't intend giving up. From the beginning of November until the last week of February, every spare minute was taken up with decorating our kitchen, but more of that later.

Over the winter I have kept cycling, but mostly just for transport, as the weather was not exactly conducive to pleasure rides.... It was so wet that several of our club rides were cancelled. Many local roads were flooded enough to prevent passage by bicycle. Even when the rides were on I confess I chickened out a couple of times as I just didn't fancy riding in wind and rain, and I do have the excuse that I have to ride nearly 6 miles to the start. I wasn't always the only one who chickened out either!

In fact the last ride I had with our local CUK group was way back in February, when I rode with the 2* group - the next one up from my normal 1* - on a ride to and round Oxford, led by one of the group who knows lots of interesting routes through Oxford. I've done two of these before and they are very interesting. This time we actually rode to Oxford, rather than going there by car and starting from a car park.

As the leader is also bursar of one of the colleges, we were able to have our refreshments within the college. It was an exceptionally warm and sunny day, but also very windy, and on the way back, into the wind, I really struggled to keep going. I ended up having to leave the ride early, for the first time, although in fact it was only about 2 miles earlier than I would have done anyway.  Total mileage for the ride was about 47 miles, over about 6 1/2 hours for me. I know, I know - nothing compared to what some people do. I was only riding a Trek hybrid though, and I am not exactly a spring chicken.... I had worked out from the times advertised before the ride that there wouldn't be very long for lunch, but I was a bit shocked when the call came to set off on the return journey as I had only just managed to finish my sandwiches, and later I simply ran out of the energy to fight the headwind. I hated having to give up, but I told myself that sometimes you just have to admit defeat, and not be ashamed of the fact.

At the end of February, as the corona virus was creeping into the UK, I went by train to Devon to visit Elder Daughter and middle granddaughter, while her Royal Marines husband was away. It was a good job I went when I did, as had I left it any later the travel restrictions would have been brought in, preventing me from going. While I was there I managed a couple of train rides, combined with walks, on the Exe Estuary Trail, otherwise known as NCN Route 2. One day I visited Topsham, a village on the route, and found Route 2 Cafe, and an excellent little bike shop round the corner. I would recommend both. I also found a lovely secondhand bookshop - a house basically, with each room full of books, and all very well organised. There I found a real gem, published in the 1970s, called "England by Bicycle", by Frederick Alderson. I have since discovered that he wrote several other bicycling-related books but I have not been able to find out much about the man himself. Here's an extract -

Methinks that the likes of Strava has taken over from the chart!

As I was walking the Route, I planned to return on my bike, either by cycling all the way down there, or by putting my bike on the train and getting off at Exeter, whence I could cycle the last 10 miles or so of my journey on the Trail. I haven't put my bike on a train since my early twenties (quite a long time ago...) and the tales I read of people who do it nowadays aren't always encouraging, so it remains to be seen whether that will happen.

However, we all know what has happened to our plans this year..... they have all gone awry! We are not used to our lives being disrupted as they have been in the last few weeks. I must admit that whenever in the past I have seen people on the news at airports moaning that their flight has been delayed, cancelled or whatever, and their holiday plans have been ruined, I think - yes, it is disappointing for you but worse things have happened. Life on the whole runs pretty smoothly, especially here in the West, and we should not be surprised that sometimes it doesn't; we can't always have what we want, whether that's a packet of loo rolls (or yeast, at the time of writing!!) or a holiday....

On my return from Devon I came down with what I thought was going to be flu, but wasn't. I know that because I was tested for it in hospital the next day. I had come over hot, sweaty and nauseous and then fainted in front of Husband, he'd called 999 when he couldn't get me to respond, and after I had come round they told me to go to our nearest walk-in centre. I was a bit surprised that they were telling me to do that, as even then (end of February) people were being advised NOT to go to such places if they thought they had the corona virus. I didn't think I had but was clearly infectious with something. I also thought it was a bit over the top, but did what I was told and allowed Husband to take me to hospital in Swindon. They swabbed me - or rather they got me to swab myself  - for flu, and put a mask on me, and then I waited in the waiting room. They also checked my temperature, blood pressure, did a chest x-ray, and did blood tests. My temperature was normal when I got there but I wondered if the paracetamol I had taken had affected this, as later it had risen, but still wasn't high, although I know that my normal temperature is on the low side. The flu test came back negative, and the nurse who told me this also said -

"And you haven't got corona virus either."

It was only in later days that I realized that this must have been just her diagnosis as at that time the virus was not being tested for in hospital labs, and anyway test results were taking days to come back.

I was then allowed to remove the mask, but then sat in the waiting room for 4 hours sneezing and blowing my nose.....! Germs, anyone? The x-ray was fine. The blood tests showed everything was OK too except that I had raised levels of something or other, indicating some sort of virus. After about 4 hours there we came home. Altogether my symptoms were runny nose, sneezing, a cough at night, and aches in my back and legs, for which I took ibuprofen to help me sleep. While these are not typical corona virus symptoms, I do of course wonder now whether that "some sort of virus" might have been it. Within about 2 weeks Husband got a sore throat and sore eyes - both possible symptoms of Covid-19. He didn't feel particularly unwell and they were not symptoms we were told to isolate for. He is still at work, in a Tesco distribution warehouse. 

About 4 weeks after the start of my illness, but after I had recovered fully, I woke up one night with a horrible churning in my stomach and my heart was racing and pounding like never before and I thought - this must be it.... This went on for the next few hours, during which time I was glad that we had not run out of loo paper as I had three trips there in that time, but by the next day, although tired, I was better. Husband and I had both eaten the same things so it wasn't food poisoning.

I have included all this because I know that many people are wondering if something they had earlier in the year, or even last year, was Covid-19, and thought it might be useful to share my/our symptoms. I wish that we could both be tested to see if we have indeed had it.

For me, the new restrictions to life aren't really that bad; the fantastic weather has meant that I have been able to do lots of gardening, which I love. Unfortunately Eldest Son and Wife will not be visiting from Austria this month as was planned, we will not be visiting them in June, as was planned, and we cannot see our grandchildren. Having said that, I was out for my daily exercise one lovely sunny day last week and thought I'd cycle up to the end of  Younger Daughter's road, text her and say - "Can I come and wave to you all at your windows?" And just as I came to a halt - there they were, out for their daily exercise too! So we chatted, at a distance of course, and that made my day!

I am not using the bike to go shopping as often as I would normally do, as I have to make sure that I get enough for a week on one trip, to avoid going to shops too often, and that means using the car. Husband and I are not the types to be going out and doing lots of social things, or eating out a lot, enjoying instead our cycling, walking and (him) paragliding, but I really miss my trips to the charity shops, and my free cup of coffee while people-watching in, or outside, Waitrose! My daily exercise now is more often a walk than a cycle as, strange though it may sound, I rarely cycle purely for the exercise. When I cycle I normally do so either because I need to get somewhere and the bike is my mode of transport, or because I have got a whole day to go out exploring, and cycling is the way I love to do that. I take food, and stopping at a cafe for coffee is always part of the pleasure, but of course that's not possible now. I did actually have another reason for my ride last week, which was to return 2 books, which I had had since last year, to a library in a church a few miles away. Unfortunately it wasn't open, so I hung the books on the door. I then sat on a bench in the churchyard enjoying a flask of coffee and cake, which was later pointed out to me is a bit against the restrictions, but it wasn't as if I was in a busy park.....

Not being able to cycle with my group has again made me think about whether I actually do like  cycling with other people......if anyone from the group happens to read this, it's nothing personal! - I do enjoy the social side. It's simply that cycling in a group is a completely different ball game to cycling alone; it's faster than I would go alone, there isn't the same opportunity to look round, and you can't stop whenever you want for rest or refreshment, or the call of nature - this latter has been know to be quite a cause of concern to me on some rides! Some people simply don't seem to need to go very often as even when we are at a cafe, they don't go! I think they are the same ones who don't drink much either, which follows.... And there are weeks when I can't afford the time to go out for a ride of my choice, as well as a group ride and shopping trips etc.

As to the re-decoration of our kitchen, just to remind you, we lived in this house for 3 years after we got married in 1981, and moved back into it after 32 years in another one a mile along the road. I still miss that old draughty cottage but know it was an eminently sensible decision to move back to this smaller one, and we are very happy here.

Ever since we moved back here, I have hated the brown kitchen cupboards. When we first lived here there were fewer cupboards (and not brown...) but there was a lovely larder, a sensible double drainer sink (one of the criteria on which I would base my choice of kitchen sink would be - is it big enough to bath a baby in?) and a Rayburn. The house was one of four built in the 1970s for farm workers. About 10-15 years ago,  the metal window frames were swapped for PVC double glazed windows, the Rayburn was ripped out and central heating installed, and new kitchen cupboards and a new sink put in. Admittedly that sink is not as bad as even more modern sinks, which are clearly designed with the assumption that EVERYONE these days has a dishwasher (we haven't) and therefore doesn't do much washing up by hand, but it still annoys me.

Anyway, to return to our brown kitchen cupboards. The wall tiles were also brown. The surfaces were a dark bluish grey. The whole kitchen felt dark, but despite thinking about painting the cupboards soon after we came here, I couldn't get round the fact that even if I did the surfaces would still be what to me was a horrible colour, and we couldn't afford to replace them. And how would I pick a colour for the cupboards that was an improvement on the brown, but also co-ordinated with the horrible colour of the surfaces? In the end, my colour choice was brought about by my sitting and looking at the colours on our calendar, and having an ah ha! moment, and then getting matching paint colour strips and sitting with those for ages to see if they felt right. Plus, and this was the big game changer really, I had read about the use of sticky back plastic for covering work surfaces, which meant we could completely change the look of them.

Dark kitchen with untidy shoe shelves on the right

The pile of cookery books on the table was there because I had recently removed the corner shelf,  to the left of that doorway, where I kept them. Ages ago I had also removed strips that went along the top of the cupboards, and the same underneath them. Those small changes had made a difference, but not enough.

This is how it is now - the worktops on the left are covered in the sticky back plastic, which Husband did. The brand is d-c-fix, and this is the one we used, though we got ours from B and Q. He sent me out of the room while he did it, so he could concentrate properly. You have to be careful not to get air bubbles under the plastic, as although you can remove them, it's just better not to get them in the first place. The worktop to the right I decoupaged, using a 30p charity shop Jamie Oliver cookery book! - I've kept the rest of the book! I put 4 coats of varnish on it, ignoring the fact that some people say do 10!!!!

Here's a few more pics - I repainted the tiles twice before I was happy with the colour, ditto with that kickboard, and ditto with the knobs, which replaced the old metal knobs. You may notice that the carved out bits on the drawers have disappeared too; I didn't like them and stuck mountboard over the top, and then Husband made the wooden strip handles to replace the old metal dangly ones.

Doors being painted

The decoupaged worktop, before varnishing -

Notice that bike bits are already appearing....

After varnishing (4 coats).

I even painted the compost bin - previously green. Actually, because I didn't have any primer specifically for plastic, I glued newspaper all over it first and then painted and varnished it. Originally the lid was joined on and it didn't have an inner liner, so I was always having to wash the whole thing out, lid and all, so I cut the lid off, and made an inner easily-washable liner out of an old 1 gallon plastic container.

Compost bin

The untidy shoe shelves have gone - the shoes are now in the cupboard just inside the back door, where we kept them 39 years ago! The cupboard came from the hall. The new shelf was the side of some shelves that Youngest Son gave us. The brackets are the scaffold plank type.

There's another one down the other end, for my cookery books -

I've found that we have to be very careful about what we plonk down on the newly covered surfaces. I put an old tin opener, blade down, on it, and it caused slight damage. But having to be careful is a small price to pay for something that has made such a difference.

Just about everything downstairs has been changed or moved around! Husband always hates it when I start changing things around; if I don't know exactly what I'm going to do next, e.g. "So where are you going to put the shoes now?!!"then he thinks I shouldn't do it, but I find that even if I don't know how I'm going to achieve what I want, once I have made that initial change the way forward becomes clear.

I also painted the walls, in a shade that was only a little lighter than the original colour, but again  made a big difference. I now like walking into our kitchen! When I came back from Devon after those few days away, I thought - ah, lovely! So glad I did it!

Apologies for such a long post! I hope you have enjoyed it....