Do You Know These Men??

Our "new" place, is a late Victorian home, built in 1882 according to the landlord.  Current landlord is the fourth owner of the house.  He and his partner (a lot of people just have partners, and don't get married, even if they have kids together--very common) lived here for awhile, then started to rent it out.  Reportedly, when they purchased it in 2002, it was pretty overgrown, and needed some attention.  They gave it some, then started to rent it out.  It had been sitting vacant nearly a year before we came on the scene to rent it.  They were going to completely re-do it, but we asked them not to.  If they re-did it all, they of course could ask for a higher rent, and we have three children, who would not fully appreciate the work that went into the home.  I still question if they appreciate the piece of history they are living in.  Probably not.  Probably just a place to hang their hat.

We were doing some investigation prior to moving in, as to who built the house, etc.  We did some, but then the urgency of packing, and taking our summer holiday, and our annual trip to the US took precedence, and we took a break from our investigations.  A house of this age accumulates a lot of things, and landlord was good about removing most of it.  However, there were some pictures that were all wrapped up left in the cellars.  We asked if we could use them to hang onto the walls.  The answer was yes, so we dragged them up, and this is what we found:

Plaster around frame is crumbling:(  Paint also seems to be disintegrating



That's a bit of mildew on the bottom of the frame.  Seems these portraits have just been in the dampness too long.

The first portrait is 44/45 inches x 38inches, the second is 49 x 42 inch.  They are proper portraits.   We'd love to hang them up--in the front hall, or in the drawing room, or anywhere really.  But.  When we opened them up, the frame on the first is beginning to crumble, and the second had some mildew on it that's not the most attractive.  They both have seen better days.  It makes you wonder who the portraits are of.  No identification on either portrait.  We'll probably hang them up in the cellar.  Its pretty dark down there, so the light won't harm them.  As far as dampness, I think those pictures have been in the cellars for awhile, and I don't think the coverings around the portraits were protecting them from the dampness any longer.  If anything, they were holding the dampness TO the portraits, and not letting them breathe.  Some year....(when?? not sure...) we'd like to have a haunted house in this house, so we can have people go into the cellars, where these old portraits will be hanging, and freak people out.

The books in front of portrait number one the landlord recently brought over.  There are three tubs of the books.  The oldest books are from 1866, but most of the books are from 1904-1907 (the first owner of the book wrote his name and year in them), and then several more from the 1940's, from someone I am assuming is his daughter.  I'll have to investigate when I've got a chance, but first, probably should unpack all the boxes from the move......

If anyone has any ideas about the portraits, please send them my way.
Thanks for reading!

Mrs Tiggy-Winkle

Although living in the UK seems, on the surface at least, pretty similar to living in the US, there are differences.  The language (a popular saying here is that the US and UK are divided by a common language) and some of the customs, but also some of the flora and fauna, as illustrated below.

Before we moved into our current house, we needed to "camp out" for a day there.  The internet/phone (yes, we still have a landline!) needed to be hooked up, and based on G's experience when he first moved here, as he moved over the pond first, it takes a few calls before things get done.  The kids and I came to the new place for our camp out, to wait for the internet man, who was to arrive between and 8 and 2. (Someone show up at 8am here?  That'll be the day.  Everything, and I mean everything, starts at 9 am.  From schools, to coffeeshops, to service hours at various shops, to earliest Mass times, etc.  Things just start at 9 here.  G and I joke that's its island time.)  And we needed to be prepared to sit all day, as if the man arrives at the end of our window, he may go over the allotted time.  I received a phone call at 10, saying our internet couldn't be hooked up, but our phone guy might still show. (I'm not real savvy on computers, but isn't it all the same lines??)  They just looked and figured out that there was no way our internet could be hooked up that day, due to something in the wiring.  Rather than looking at this ahead of time to avoid inconveniencing the customer, they look at it the day of the appt.  The woman who phoned me wasn't sure if our phone guy would still show up, so I was to stay put.  The phone guy did show up, and said he'd do my internet too.  (Really??)  After putzing around forever, he couldn't get internet on my ipad.  Sometimes, he told me, it goes on after he's gone-it may be 24 hours.  (Really?? Not likely, but ok, you're the professional.)  Needless to say, no internet after 24 hours.  I scheduled a second appt (the next available appt was 3 weeks later), with another 6 hour window, and at that appt, it was ready in 5 minutes.

It was during one of those camp out sessions, that the kids discovered a hedgehog hiding in the bushes.  I've never seen a hedgehog before.  That was August.  G reported seeing one last week or last month or so.  This morning, I happened to glance out the window, to see one scurrying about, so I tried to grab the camera quick, but man, those things move fast.  It was just wobbling around, and finally disappeared into the trees.  The pictures are kinda rough, but document it anyway.

Profile of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle

Foraging

 The kids know I like Beatrix Potter, and always seem to name animals encountered after the characters in her books.  We had a lot of Peter Rabbits at our last place (TONS!!), but haven't seen so many here.  We had Jeremy Fisher (frog) in the cellar here for awhile (can you believe we have a cellar--most modern UK houses don't have basements), and we have MANY Squirrel Nutkins here (look out the window at any given time and there'll be at least 3-5 squirrels running around), and now we have Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, the hedgehog.

As you can see, autumn (not fall) is upon us here, with the days getting shorter.  Sunrise this morning was 737 am.

That's all for today.  Don't forget to comment, if you are still reading this blog!