The water in Majorca don't taste like what it oughta

The one small thing I have encountered here in the countryside that is so different from living in the city, is the water. Sounds odd, but the water in Birmingham is piped in from mid Wales, tastes lovely and is soft! Here, our water is sourced from a bore hole about a quarter of a mile from the village and is pretty hard, and has been tasting and smelling of chlorine lately. So much so, that we've had to buy a water filter jug. I'm quite surprised that something we take for granted normally, now has implications for our appliances too. We were getting build up in the kettle, and no doubt the washing machine and shower too.  I did notice it had an effect on my hair as well, but as it is classed as fairly hard, it's actually given my poker straight, and rather limp hair, some body.

We had a lovely walk around the village on Sunday morning, here's a few shots  

The grass in all the meadow fields is now more than knee high on me, and full of clover and buttercups as well as those pretty grass seed heads which ripple in the breeze and have a lavender hue.

As far as the house goes, we are still waiting on the architect to deliver plans the builder can work from, but now we are allowed to convert the garage, building regs have been applied for.  It is so frustrating, all this waiting around, as the house layout is so bad. Unbelievably, the house was extended 12 years ago and the layout was done then, the downstairs loo and utility are off the one rather oversized lounge and the walls are thin, need I say more!  We will be creating a second lounge, by sacrificing a bit of the oversized one and utility/loo, and moving them into the garage.  There is room for a shower room and an office too. 

It has suddenly dawned on me that we need to think about tiles for the utility and shower room, and I'm trying to stay away from black and white, as these colours just don't suit a cottage.

Anyway, back to this week's shopping.  I had a bargain on eBay the other day.  I love zip up cardigans, I think they are such a useful piece of clothing, and managed to snap this one up for just 99p plus postage.  Of course the postage was £2.80, but the cardi is lambswool and mohair and feels brand new.

 I'm a big snowflake fan, so was pretty chuffed that no-one else bid on this!

I didn't actually wander around the charity shops this week with the intention of buying.  Although once I had been to a couple and found nothing I started getting a bit impatient!  So I was delighted to find this Peter Ellis 100% polyester gown for a fiver, and it is in perfect condition.  It actually fits me perfectly, although the sleeves tend to fall down, and I have seen examples without the sleeves and just a strap online, which are probably better for me. 

The lining is 100% nylon, which of course gives you a free static electricity display when you walk around!

I am trying to figure out why it is dry clean only though.

On to my favourite chazza, the one I used to help out at until I moved.  Here I found this lovely Morgan blouse for 50p and Per Una knitted jacket, or jacket style cardi, whichever way round you prefer, for £2.50.

 The blouse is black, and looks a lot better in the flesh than this!

The cardi/jacket has got lined sleeves, and as the outer sleeves appeared too long for me, I unpicked the cuff stitching and sewed the edge directly to the lining, now the sleeves are around an inch shorter, which suits me much better. 

Well, that's all the news for this week, I am hoping that we will be able to move on something in the coming week, even if it's just buying drawer boxes for the unit we need to complete the kitchen, they appear to be out of stock everywhere at present!