23. The kitchen - Part 2

I arrived ready to carry on with the kitchen.

Stella led the way down the hall saying, 'I've bought some stuff for the garden; bags of gravel and mulch that we'll have to move out the backdoor before we can start'

'Okay. What are you doing out there?'

'I don't want the weeds to come back after all the work with the gardener and I've planted up a few flower pots. After that we'll see'

We started working on the kitchen drawers. Stella had inherited quite a bit of kitchen equipment from her aunt and she wanted to compare anything that duplicated what she already had. The best we kept and the others went into the charity bag.

A proper coffee break had become a regular feature of our sessions. Today, Stella said, 'I bought us croissants this morning from the bakery around the corner'

After doing all the drawers and finishing the cupboards, we started on the Welsh dresser. Stella has an interesting collection of decorative crockery which we arranged on the open shelves. Throughout the two sessions in the kitchen we'd found lots of candles and tablecloths which we stored in the dresser's cupboards.

'They're just a few more things I won't have to buy for years,'

When we finished, the kitchen looked pretty and welcoming.