Patriotism

Imagine our delight to discover that the clematis in our garden survived being ignored for a year and having building waste dumped on it... and is now flowering. Actually this isn't the exciting bit... the exciting bit was that we found a plant name label near its roots and it turns out it is called "Princess Diana". It's almost just too much to think that we have a part of the Princess in our garden. Needless to say, tending of "Di" has been upped.
On a mildly distressing note, having enjoyed (??) our neighbour's England car flag, extra large England flag draped out of upstairs window, and England T-shirt (worn when exiting his house on a Sunday morning), Ant decided that he did NOT want to be outdone. So on one of his regular outings to B&Q he decided that it would be a fabulous plan to purchase 2 England Car flags, and apparently they have to stay on the car until they fall off. I am sort of amused by the irony (neither of us like football, know when the world cup starts, who is in England's group, who is in the England team etc.)... however somehow I don't quite think I can drive around with the flags hanging out of the car windows. I think this makes me a snob???
Please see evidence below (and note that our car has TWO flags where as Mr England Fan over the road only has one. HA!

Mini mini break... to the beach

Am in Dakar this week for a meeting.

The hotel claim there is no internet in the rooms. This is true... but I have discovered that there is internet on the balcony. Perhaps its not such a bad think to have to be chained to my laptop every evening this week? The sea breeze is nice... I just need a G&T.

Hazy Dakar morning

The alternative balcony view. More wasteland than beach.

View from the bath... the window is one way glass (I think) but it's still slightly disconcerting

Gardening

It may not win garden of the year, but after sweeping, pressure washing, chucking out of rubbish, removing the random wooden rail that seemed to make a feature of an old electrical cable etc... it looks much better... and is less of a health hazard too after I unblocked the drains. Nice.

Evening watering at the allotment...

Time off from DIY = a chocolate making workshop. A lovely wedding gift!

We ate a lot of chocolate... and made a range of exciting creations... some more "Hotel Chocolat-esq" than others!

Our new... most fabulous origami style kitchen light... its amazing! (and not from Ikea) ... and no we didn't make it either (alas)...

The lovely light!

Santiago the tap... for Sadie's benefit x

No more nasty fireplaces out the front

The front of the house has been transformed... after at least 7 months of bringing down the tone of the road our old fireplaces have been removed from their rotting position by the front door! Hooorah! The front of the house now looks slightly less like a building site. Alas the annoying builders managed to knock a large piece out of the stone window sill... they say they will make it good... but am suspicious about their ability to do this... we will see!

We now have a working sink (oh the wonder), wall cupboards, and an oven hood that isn't quite finished... this weekend is tile shopping time. What fun! Still lots of little finishing off things to do but it looks a lot better now!

worktops in

Kitchen looks sort of almost finished... haha... the sink needs plumbing, work surfaces need sanding and oiling, wall cupboards need fitting, tiles need choosing and tiling, edges of flooring need to be done... windows need varnishing... lights under wall units need buying and installing... and everything needs cleaning...
but it is quite exciting as it actually looks like a kitchen now!
oh how wondrous the OOG is... alas the gas bit is working, but waiting for electrician to wire up the electrics, so no actual baking can take place... just use of hob!another exciting step... Hils helps remove the nasty, dusty, brown carpet in the back room... revealing the long hidden floorboards we stained back in the Autumn....

OOG is working!

Goodbye electric hobs and cardboard boxes...

Hello Oven of Glory... at last I can now attend to wifely tasks such as cooking meals for my husband...

whilst he gets on with the DIY. We are very traditional with respect to gender roles as you can see.

Progress

Ant and Mist drink tea, eat chocolate and pear muffins (baked by Judi), and ponder about cupboard fitting.

Our plasterer came and sorted out the problem wall. This however also involved putting a nail through a water pipe... which was less than pleasing... think we saved the new floor from any drastic damage.
Oven of glory (OOG?) is now in position, but still not fitted... curses for overworked plumbers. The big question now is will it be ready for The Ware Delegation on Saturday????
Work surfaces are being oiled and are looking lovely... kitchen sink and Santiago (our tap, not my god-dog) are also still in their boxes... the novelty of washing the dishes in the bathroom is somewhat wearing off.

Anthony "safety specs" Geer, cures his hangover by bodging another kitchen unit. The holes (for the mains stopcock) are intentional and not a result of excess consumption of what must be the most expensive vodka ever... which is another story. All I can say is think of the most ridiculous amount of money you would pay for a magnum (why???) of vodka and multiply that number by 50 and you might possibly be vaguely close... this all resulted in great distress on my part when hearing of such stag party antics... give me a £2.50 bottle of Chinggis any day...
[In his defence the boy didn't personally purchase a fore mentioned magnum of vodka, or consume it all himself... but still the mind boggles!]

Electrics, floor and kitchen construction

Saturday: Ant - master electrician hard at work. Result - we now have 6 shiny spotlights at one end of the kitchen. Note: As per previous observations he is always safety first with mask and goggles (electricity was of course switched off).
Monday: Rangemaster of glory waits patiently for the time to come for installation... and more importantly use... oh how it teases us sitting there in the corner. It is however at least now sitting on a new floor. Quite a bit of fiddly tidying up still to do on that front, but we have now done the bulk of the work.Tuesday: Kitchen unit construction commences.
Ant was of course the DIY mastermind... I devised various simple tasks for myself such as (a) removing old dishwasher door and installing new one (a task stalled by a scratch in the new door), (b) recycling all of the boxes the units came in, (c) putting handles on kitchen unit doors (which is actually quite tricky to get everything lined up without drilling multiple holes in shiny new doors), (d) general tidying/ hoovering type activities, (e) working out what went where (I conclude kitchen construction is like origami with wood), (f) passing Ant screw drivers/ spirit levels/ tape measures etc. etc. (g) eating biscuits...