Furniture

After a few years of regular use our chairs and sofa in the reception area were looking a bit sad, and the padding was beginning to sag, so we called in the man . . . .

He stripped off the old covers and added new foam before recovering with new material.

The final result.

So we also got him to recover the suite in the living room, and decided to move it into the spare room I use for teaching.


So having done that we needed a new suite. We designed one based on the one we already had, but with a higher back and more solid seats. We also want a large footrest cum seat that we can move when we want to lie back and watch TV. We drew the design and explained what we wanted. The completed frames arrived 48 hours later along with the foam.


The next day the man arrived to start covering the frames. He worked in our garage attaching webbing and ticking. He brought his sewing machine and set to attaching the foam and making the covers.

Next the webbing and ticking was added to the frames.

Followed by the base board and the first layers of foam.

Then the covers were sew and fitted. All the tools including the sewing machine arrived on the back of the motorbikes the men were using.

The finished sofa with oversized footstool in place.

The Creatures who share our life

Indonesia is famous for the diversity of its wildlife. Even in such a huge and bustling city as Surabaya wildlife is everywhere. Each evening bats appear and swoop and whirl around the trees and streetlamps outside our house. Indeed when caught in a sudden downpour the bats have come into the house. During the day many different butterflies float around. They are generally larger than we see in the UK and they fly slowly, the occasional wingbeat and then glide.

Everyone has gekos in their house. Normally these are small green and brown lizards from an inch to six inches long. They emerge from holes, crevices, behind pictures and cupboards as night falls and climb the walls in search of insects. Occasionally these gekos reach giant proportions. We have had one such monster in our house for a few months. Recently he began lurking behind the fridge in the evenings. Finally at the weekend he came into view behind a cupboard in daylight and Alex and I caught him with the aid of a cardboard box and a broom. He was over a foot long and very colourful. We released him in the garden of a nearby empty house.

We also see small rodents in the house from time to time. People here call them mice but they look more like a vole or shrew. They have a very long nose and hairy tails and legs. Whatever they are they have been to fast to photograph so far.
There are other lizards about in a variety of sizes. This one lives in the front garden and tries to come into the house from time to time.
Another colourful geko from our house.