a little splash of colour

Well Himself and I have painted the shower room. Bear in mind it's a small room with three walls with white tiles and a white ceiling, so there was only half a wall, above where the sink and loo will eventually be installed, to go mad with. Yesterday I chose a muted aqua colour from B&Q. When I got up this morning I looked at it again and thought noooooo. It wasn't the impact I was looking for.

Over breakfast I studied the colour charts once more. Colour picked. Himself reluctant at first before resigning himself to my 'good taste and design skills' (tongue in cheek)

So back to B&Q with the offending pot of colour and home with the new choice. Its promptly opened and splashed on the wall. Didn't take long to cut in and fill. Whoooo, well, that certainly makes me smile. It's certainly "in your face" just what I was aiming for. I wonder what Ma will think! OK I know she won't approve, but how about the kids? Who cares. I like it and I can change it if I tire of it.

The colour.......... well, its a bright raspbery pink!

and non-progress

....Oh dear, I spoke too soon. More delays........The Electrician chappie fell through a loft hatch this morning (not ours) and is now slightly incapacitated. Luckily no broken bones but bruised, battered and shaken. Apparently some idiot moved the ladder he was using to get into a loft. He called on his way home to rest to tell me and see what work we need doing. Seething inside I had to accept with good grace that he wasn't up to the job at the present time. He assured me he'd be here 8.30am prompt on Monday morning.

Do I believe this????

Is there much more than can go wrong with this job????

Will I ever get this shower room done????

Oh well we can take our time painting the little bit of wall that needs paint. I had a root around the garage this morning and found the special undercoat paint for new plaster so at least I don't need to buy that. Oh yes, and that's a job we shouldn't have been doing, but the team of Guys sent to do our job don't actually decorate. I definitely chose the wrong Firm to deal with.

Other things to worry over..........do I need any more? Er it's Mothers Day on Sunday and I haven't even thought about a card or pressy...... no wonder my blood pressure refuses to settle. I'm not sure how much longer I can con the Surgery Nurse into giving it more time to go down. She wants the Doc to see me to up the medication and I don't want too. I had to talk my way out of standing on the scales last time I saw her. I'm trying desperately hard not to stress eat! I got just another week to get it to settle. The way this shower room is going I don't stand a cat in h...s chance.

Oh Joy!!!!

Progress

I've had to forgo my daily swim once again as I'm waiting for the Electrician to come and wire in the shower pump, the extractor fan and the lights. As soon as he's gone I'm going to christen the shower. Whoope. Oooh, I HOPE it doesn't leak as Tony the Plumber has reluctantly been dragged of to Krakow for a weekend break by his long suffering wife. He didn't mind the break but he would have preferred to go to somewhere warm after our long cold winter. Mmmm.... I'm with him there!

It's looking good. I've come to terms with the tiles and I'm going to get Tony the tiler to put a special treatment on the grout to prevent any black mould occurring. He has to come back to lay the floor tiles when Tony the Plumber gets back to install all the other stuff, like a loo and a sink. Trying to get downstairs during the night with sleep stiffen joints is a big pain. Literally! I'm hoping the delays will have all been worth it. Himself's not as agitated about the delays as I am.

We've been debating what colour to slap on the small area of wall left untiled. It needs to be strong I fancied a in your face lime green but Himself rebelled. I've narrowed it down to a bright rather acid yellow or a strong aqua shade. I need to get bought today so I may just toss a coin!

A Day Away from chaos

Yesterday Mad Moose and I took a break from the building chaos at home to spend a day in Peterborough. Being mindful of saving money, quite a laugh if you think of the amount we're spending on renovations, we waited for the morning rush hour had passed and travelled in to the City on the bus with our free bus pass.

Our first job was to go into John Lewis to look at the choices I had made for the next Reno job. Carpets and curtains for the lounge plus a few other bits and bobs. Decisions made, we took a break in John Lewis's 'The Place To Eat' before heading for St Johns Parish Church in Cathedral Square.

I had never been in this church before despite it being slap bang in the center of the city. I'd often wondered why a church had been build so close to the Cathedral until I realise the Cathedral had been an Abbey and the church was there before the Cathedral was built. Inside it's really nice with big stain glass windows all around the building. We were there for one of the Lunch time lectures. This one was by the Landscape manager of the Nene Valley Park and was looking forward to how they expect the park to develop over the next 10 years. As we live within a stones throw of the Park this was of interest to us.

After the Lecture was over we headed for the Town Hall for the annual lecture given by the Peterborough Local History Group, hosted by the present Mayor with the profits from the talks going to the Mayors Charities.

This years talks were by Neil Mitchell who gave an interesting look into his personal photo and postcard archive. He had put together a slide show and talk on the buildings many now long gone of the city. The second talk after a tea and biscuit break was by Steven Perry and was an entertaining look at the history of Cowgate.

We have attended this event for several years now and have always enjoyed them. When a city is constantly changing it is sometimes hard to recall how things use to look. I remember coming to the city as a child with my Grand parents and having afternoon tea at Adcocks Tea rooms. Dave remembers the Dance Halls and Pubs that he came to as a teenager. My teen years were spent in Kings Lynn so I don't have quite so many memories if Peterborough.

Bathroom Disasters

Early in 2009 we decided in our wisdom that the little stash of money we had managed to accumulated would be better spent on doing some much needed renovation work to the house. I figured that spending the money on a brand new car that depreciated by the hour was not a cleaver move and that bringing the kitchen and bathroom up to modern standard was going to be a much better use of the money and should appreciate the value of the house.

So with not a jot of knowledge of what would be involved I set about planning .........and planning.......and planning.

Accurate measurements and a floor plan of the rooms seemed to be the first move so I measured all the walls from every angle. On my old computer I used the the Publisher program to draw up plans. Then we visited nearly every kitchen and bathroom showroom in the area. Choosing, rejecting, debating, until we had refined our wish list. The next move was to get quotes for the work we wished to have done. That step was an eyeopener. It's amazing on how the same set of plans and a wish list varied when the quotes came back. Eventually I sourced and purchased all the kitchen myself at a far more reasonable price. To help keep the cost down my builder Brother in Law agreed to come down from Yorkshire and with my son as a labourer they fitted a new kitchen.

July last year saw the completed the kitchen and I was very pleased. It looked as I had visualised it and is so much better to work in. It had come in just over my original budget.

A little while later I started to tackle the bathroom. It seemed to take me much longer to get my head around what was needed. Advise from a plumber friend was asked for. Showrooms visited and revisited, more quoted were obtained. For some reason these plans were taking much longer to refine. The budget escalated. I realised to get the quality and finish I wanted I had to up the budget. I decided that for this job I needed to get a firm that could do a complete job from start to finish. Builder Son wasn't always available and Brother in Law was busy building his Grandsons homes. That pushed the budget up further. Eventually after several unexpected, unrelated delays I chose a firm to do the job. Work was schedule to commence on March 1st 2010.

The Catalogue of Errors Commences.

The Bathroom firm guy decided he didn't need to survey the job. First mistake, I should have insisted he did it. The Thursday before the job was to commence the plumber hadn't made contact to see what the job entailed. First phone call to the Bathroom Firm produces a call back from the plumber who promptly visits to reconnoitre the job. He turned out to be an efficient softly spoken Irish guy who turned up promptly on March 1st and striped out the old bathroom and disposed of it.

Tiles clattered off the walls showing flaws in the under rendering. This indicated a mistake in the make up of the original rendering mix and is most probably the reason hairline cracks have appeared in the rooms.

Plumber Tony went to the Bathroom firm to collect the good that we had been assured were already in waiting to be collected. Wrong. The Toilet unit was not the design I had indicated that I wanted, so that was returned. Worse still the shower tray hadn't arrived. It was vital that it was in positioned before the plasterers commenced their work. Two days delay followed.

Enter the Plasterers. They hadn't been primed on the full extent of the job. Far from the simple one day job they expected this would be a two day job which took them into their weekend. Oh yes somehow they managed to cause a pipe to start pouring water. They stopped it somehow and wedged a tilted bucket under it. A little later the when off to 'get some bits'. While they were gone I heard water running and investigating found to my horror water running through the ceiling into the lounge. As fast as I found a bowl to catch it, it cascaded through in another place. four bowls and buckets later I realised I had to give up and dashed upstairs to try and stop the deluge. Water was pouring from the pipe and cascading out of the bucket in to the floor space. I yanked the bucket out and threw the contents out of the window and shoved it back. A desperate call to the plumber got his answer phone. A call to 'Himself ' was the only answer I needed help desperately. Struggling with the controlls on the pipe I actually managed to get it to stop and I went down to survey the damage. My saviour in the form of 'Himself turned up and fixed the pipe so it couldn't leak again and we set about mopping up.

The plasterers eventually returned after the emergency was dealt with and did their job. Some of the original render had to hacked off the walls and replaced. The remaining original render just sucked up the PVA applied to it before the plaster could be applied. The guys weren't the tidiest of workers. The dust I sort of expected but plaster from back garden through the house to the front garden I didn't. They did clear up. Well, in their fashion. It took us both, several hours to clean after they had gone.

Tony the Plumber turned up again Monday morning to experience another another setback. The lovely smooth glossy white wet wall shower panels I had hoped for would not sit against the walls as hoped. The walls were just too irregular. The original builders obviously didn't know what a plumb line was for and the plasters had follower the original contours of the wall. Enter Tony the Tiler. A lovely little Italian guy. The plumber and the tiler had a conflab and came to the conclusion that the wet wall panels would not be suitable and leaking problems would soon develop after the job was completed.

Severely disappointed and dispirited at 4.30 in the afternoon I got in the car to search for suitable tiles before they all closed for the night. After a search of the Tile Warehouses I eventually arrived home with 12 square meters of white tiles and another box of floor tiles as the original estimation of the amount we needed for the floor by the sales person was wrong.

Tony the plumber had also returned with the replacement loo. Ok, it still wasn't right but I can live with it but It didn't have a soft close lid which we wanted. Another replacement is being awaited for.

Tony the Tiler arrived promptly this morning and set to work tiling the wonky walls. It's not proving to be easy for him but he so far doing a great job.

Well thats the tale of woes so far. Please, please let the rest of the job go smoothly!!!

A Cold Winter Shock

I've just downloaded the January fuel bills and did some comparison with last year’s usage. Oh my goodness what a shock. The cold weather has played havoc with our fuel consumption and hoicked the bills up to toxic shock level.

Even taking into account the fact we were not here last December and only Dave was here in January last year they did not look any better. Then I compared the actual fuel prices and got another shock by how much they had risen

All our efforts to reduce our fuel usage seem to have been in vain. This is despite our new efficient gas boiler, up to date replacement electrical equipment and lighting the lounge fire and burning wood to save the daytime gas heating

I think I'll just have to turn off the conservatory heating and our orchids will have to take their chance on surviving the cold. If we have much more cold weather maybe we ought to do what many Seniors do and decamp to Spain for the winter!

Global warming………what global warming. We haven’t seen much of it during the last year!

Sun Sea & Snow

Sunday was a beautifully blue sky day, but boy was it cold. In need of a change of scenery and R&R we decided to have Sunday lunch at the coast. Winter togs loaded in the car we headed off for our favorite county and coast destination. Wells Next the Sea in Norfolk.

As we cruised deeper into Norfolk it became obvious that the east coast had suffered overnight snow. Just a light dusting in most places but a slighter deeper covering in some places. During the day we were grateful for our warm coats, gloves, scarves and hats. The north wind was raw.

It was one o'clock when we arrived in Wells and our stomachs were grumbling so we headed straight for the Village Green and a Hotel called 'The Crown'. The hotel had been renovated by a Kiwi and called Chris Coubrough who had a successful television cooking program a couple of summers ago. He went along the Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire coast meeting local people and cooking local seasonal food. On previous visits we had favoured The Globe hotel as a food stop, the other pub on the Green but today we thought a change was in order. Good choice, the food was top notch. Cooked to perfection as delicious.

After lunch we walked along the quay side watching all the different the sea bird feeding on the sand banks of the estuary while the tide was out. I was glad we had eaten our lunch or we would have been tempted by the smell of the fish and chips frying and being eaten alfresco on the quayside.

We then wandered up the village shopping street. Not many shops open on this cold January day but alterations and improvement were taking place in several of the old shops ready for the summer season. For a January Sunday there were a surprising number of people about enjoying the sunshine and the bracing air. Although the street looks quite empty in this photo!

Just to prove there was snow! It was still lying, late in the afternoon, on the book shop roof, as fresh it had fallen the previous night.

We thought we'd better drive to Sunny Hunny, 23 miles is a bit far to walk!

This old bird was enjoying the air!

A bit cold for messing about in boats today.

Crab pots piled up on the quay side.

Later in the afternoon we drove north towards Hunstanton along the coast road and had a walk along the Cliff top in Hunstanton

and watched the sun go down over the sea.

To a beautiful red and orange sunset.