Things have been extremely muddy and dusty chez nous the past week or so. We've been doing some ground works in preparation for an extension on the back of the house, which has meant removing a couple of hundred tons of earth from the garden. It's been an 'interesting' process. For example, whoever would've guessed that 3 natural springs have been slumbering peacefully under our lawn? This soggy discovery resulted in numerous site meetings, long silences and shaking of heads before an elaborate (and expensive) drainage plan was settled on. Why are these things never straightforward?!
It wasn't all doom and gloom though, it also turned out that the residents of our cottage at the end of the nineteenth century were massive slobs! We unearthed scores of lovely antique bottles, earthenware pots, a broken stopwatch and some old shoes.
There's all kinds of different bottles, my favourites are the grandly named 'Ellimans Royal Embrocation for Horses', Pearce Duffs Lemonade Crystals and a smaller one embossed with a single word 'poisonous' (gulp!) A quick google dated the bottles between 1890 and 1910. They look pretty good in their new home on the kitchen mantlepiece.
On Saturday we escaped the water feature for an hour to watch the Olympic flame pass through St Stephen. Though it was heavily guarded by a crack team in cycling shorts, we managed to get right next to the torch as it was lit. In seconds it was gone, hussled through the village at breakneck speed before disappearing off in the huge convoy, logos and music blaring.
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