Sofa So Good

I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog but whilst we were away in Bequia in January and February we had our lounge decorated and new curtains and blinds fitted. Angie from Ashby Designs has done a great job and the room is starting to look very good. We've decided not to rush the room so still have no pictures up and accessories like rugs and occasional tables aren't yet on order but we need a new sofa after using the current ones for about ten years.

The internet is great but we didn't want to buy a sofa without looking at it beforehand so, in the last couple of weeks, we've been looking around and have visited Westfield and Norwich without any luck. We finally found a couple of sofas that we liked on the websites of Camerich and Sofa.com and headed into London to check them out. Both were perfect.

We opted for Sofa.com purely because it was easier on their system to use our designer's fabric. The alternative involved shipping fabric to China and fairly long delays. On the plus side, furniture in Camerich's own fabrics can often be delivered almost immediately. The sales people in both stores were excellent.

I mentioned Bequia at the start of this post. We've had withdrawal symptoms and checked out the availability for next January/February. It is already booked up so we've made a reservation for January 2021. I know there are thousands of other places that we've never been to and life is short but we love Tropical Hideaway and rather than chance somewhere new and be disappointed we know that will be something to look forward to that won't let us down.

We've met some wonderful people in Bequia and are happy to call a number of them friends. 

Steve and Chris Clarke run an art gallery in the beautiful village of Corfe Castle. We got on like a house on fire sharing their love of art, snorkelling, humour and politics. We arranged to meet up with them for lunch in London this week.

They recommended Gauthier in Soho. You may have seen Alexis Gauthier on the recent series of Masterchef. The restaurant is outstanding and we enjoyed a fabulous lunch. 

We had time to catch an exhibition before catching the train back to Ipswich. Steve and Chris suggested the Martin Parr Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It was another inspired choice.

As someone who enjoys photography but mostly uses an iPhone I found this exhibition an inspiration. These Brexit themed photos were just a few of the many highlights of a superb exhibition. If you get the opportunity to visit don't miss it.If you are not familiar with Martin Parr, he does all the BBC indents with groups of people (wheelchair basketball, Indian dancers etc etc) and these are included in the show.

In other news, we've got a new car to pick up on Saturday. We've gone for a 4x4 this time. We're getting older and the last Mercedes, though beautiful and stylish, was quite low and difficult to get into. The 4x4 (another Mercedes) is a lot higher and, though not quite as stylish,  has easier access for a couple of old fogies.

You can't beat the view from the garden when the oil seed rape is in flower.

Speaking of the garden, our super robotic mower "Mo" expired. We had the mower for six years (although it was replaced under guarantee after two) and it did a great job but one of the penalties for being an early adopter of this sort of hi-tech equipment is that early models soon become obsolete and finding spares for Mo was nigh on impossible. So we've gone for Mo mark 2.

It's made by Flymo and does exactly the same job at half the price of the original. Apart from the somewhat garish colour, it looks like it's going to be a hit. At least Flymo parts should be easier to source than OleoMak's.

I mentioned my eBay trading in a recent blog. I've had some successes (the beautiful Spode cup and saucer sold very well and a Belleek pedestal bowl also flew) but a fair few have resulted in a break even after costs (including the outstanding pearlware jug I had high hopes for) and I will have to be more discerning in my buying in future. Oh well. It's been fun.