Life under lockdown, new discoveries and unexpected progress on the renovation.

Six weeks in and we have a new normal. Who would have thought that the nation would be obsessed with PPE, graphs and flattening curves? Reducing the R rate to below 1, standing outside on a Thursday evening at 8.00pm to clap for front line staff and a trip to the supermarket was the riskiest thing you did?  Could you imagine a war veteran raising £32 million for the NHS, have a number one record, a special postmark, a train and a boat named in his honour and achieve status of National Treasure all by his 100^th birthday?  Respect to Colonel Tom Moore.

When we wrote the last diary entry we were left in a building site with a ‘temporary’  kitchen set up in the hallway, all work ground to a halt and the realisation that this could be it for months to come.  We had just entered the strange world of lockdown and getting used to all that meant to daily life.

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As you would suspect in the current circumstances there’s not a lot to report on Seaton life.  We’ve been enjoying our walks in what has been an extraordinary run of sunny weather, and we have been exploring some of the residential streets as well as the usual walk along the Esplanade.  The town has been pretty quiet and most are observing the social distancing rules with a friendly nod or hello as we pass by. 

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Being selfless types we’ve done our bit to help any businesses which are still managing to operate.  The Ship at Axmouth has provided Sunday roasts, Gary at The Hat drops off beer twice a week and Passiflora delivered a vegan salad lunch and chocolate brownies.  It’s been tough but someone has to do these things!!  We also donated the face value of all the film night tickets we bought for the Gateway. 

Reasons to be Cheerful – Part 1

Our garden just never ceases to amaze us.  We knew the previous owners were keen gardeners and we are really appreciating the results of their hard work and considerable expense. It just keeps on giving week by week with magnificent blooms with a variety of colours.

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With little prospect of getting on with the renovation we had time on our hands so decided to get some veg planted and use the greenhouse.  The garage at the top of the hill supplied a mega bag of compost and we found seeds in a shop in the town which mainly sells pet supplies.  The hunt for tomato plants lead us to a very small garden centre in the nearby Village of Colyton.  There’s a local Facebook page which has been great for finding out which businesses are still trading and helped when we needed a few more seedlings but didn’t want another trip in the car.  A very generous lady was offering her surplus plants for free and we collected ours from outside her house as part of our daily walk. 

We’re also  are getting to know the delivery guys by name and usually have a chat when they drop off a parcel.  Items from Toolstation, Screwfix in fact anywhere that will supply us what we need.  We’ve even got Mark the gardener to collect stuff for us as he lives in Honiton where most of the bigger shops are.  

With no chance of work continuing downstairs we focused on what we could do.  Cheryl has been busy stripping……..mmmm….. wallpaper that is.  Lots of it and mostly well and truly stuck and under several layers of paint…….she has the patience of a Saint.  The back bedrooms which had previously been low priority provided lots of scope for work. 

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In the process she found some interesting writing on the wall of bedroom 3.  A signature was revealed beneath the fourth layer of paper. 

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Tim Moulding had signed the wall while hanging the wallpaper in October 1957.  It was the tradition, in those days, (and possibly still is) when wall-papering, for the decorator to sign the wall beneath the last piece of paper he hung – which was obviously the case here.  We put his name into Google, found an obituary which led us to his son who is a local councillor in nearby Axminster.  When Tim came out of the air-force at the end of WW2 he worked for the family building contractors, R Moulding & Sons Ltd, as a painter and decorator.

We’ve also had time to start loading some of our old travel blogs onto this site. When we started back in 2008 we used ‘Get Jealous’ which was a popular site for travel blogs. We would like this site to be a complete record of our travels and change of lifestyle so over the coming months you will see these early years being added. Our very first blog – Chapter 1 Carpe Diem has been recreated under the previous chapters heading on the menu. If you would like to see where it all began, and have a snigger at Cheryl’s hair turning grey and Neil’s old teeth, take a look!

Reasons to be Cheerful – Part 2

We found that some of our local tradies were prepared to work as long as we kept the social distancing rules.  Hurrah!

The work to waterproof the chimneys got finished off and the builder, Stacy, was also able to open up the original fireplace properly and move the surround with only minimal damage to the stonework. 

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Whilst he was doing it we found yet more evidence of workers from the past.  On the back of a piece of skirting board near the fireplace was a signature of W F Goddard, May 1960.  Sadly Google couldn’t help us this time. 

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Before the redundant fireplace opening was sealed off, we decided to follow the example of the signatures we found and hide our own time capsule.  Our surprise package, should it ever be discovered in the future, contains lots of ‘stuff’ about Seaton in 2020, a leaflet on the local measures taking place for Corona Virus and a letter from us explaining what we have discovered about the house and why there are two fireplaces side by side!

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The original doorway into the living room was blocked up and two dodgy bits of crumbling plaster & render hacked off, the cause of the damp fixed and the walls rebricked all now ready for plastering.  Stacy also had a chippy in the family and he came along to refix the door jambs for the two sets of double doors.  This is as far as we can go now with the living room as until the French doors are fitted to replace the existing window we can’t start on the finishing off.  We were on a 12 week lead time for the doors before lockdown started so we could be waiting quite some time for that to happen.

More excitement for us when the kitchen fitter wanted to know when he could start.  Slight problem, we said, was that even if the worktop manufacturer started production and Howdens started deliveries again, nothing could happen until the walls were properly finished off and most of the kitchen was re-plastered.  Well, he said, I was a general builder before specialising in kitchens, and, as I need the work I could do that for you.  Woo Hoo! 

He also managed to get the materials from the local builders merchant delivered the week before he could start.  The only downside was that due to the social distancing rules the delivery was to the bottom of the drive.  We had our daily exercise at home that day as we moved 20 huge sheets of plasterboard, several lengths of wood and bags of plaster up into the house.  We hacked the tiles off the walls and got the plumber back in to move the sink & dishwasher to their new position.  It wasn’t pretty but it would be functional for as long as it takes to get the proper kitchen in.  We got him back again a week later as we realised that despite our best planning we forgot to allow enough space to get the plastering done on the wall behind.  Well – you can’t get everything right first time!

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The transformation was awesome as the bare brick, steels and lintels were hidden beneath the plasterboard.  The ceiling was also a bit of a mess from the AGA flue and the spotlight that was removed, and of course the textured finish, so that was also boarded over.  Once the top coat of plaster was applied we had a proper room again. 

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Paul the fitter had a mate who is a plasterer, also called Paul, who was needed to get the boards in place for the ceiling and to get some of the plastering done.  He was keen to help out with the plastering needed in the bedrooms where the sinks were taken out and the doorways remodelled, but here our luck ran out as all the local suppliers were out of the materials we needed.  From what we can understand there probably isn’t a bag of plaster in the entire UK!!  Paul Arnold is the plasterer and its obvious he likes to go to the gym.  When Cheryl came down the stairs on his first day and caught sight of him in the kitchen she remarked in private, ‘shit, he’s got muscles on his muscles!’  As we have two Pauls we call him Arnie, and we hope he’ll be back!

We had planned to use a local spray painter, especially for the messy mist coating of the bare plaster but he wasn’t working during lockdown.  As regular readers know, we have been decorating the rentals over the past few summers so it was time to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in.  It took a week or so to get the painting done – and to make a start on getting rid of the 70s pine sauna/ski chalet vibe in the former breakfast area.  Neil also surprised Cheryl on Friday afternoon as she was listening to Steve Wright on Radio 2.  We got a shout out, including the fact we had no kitchen since lockdown, ‘Serious Decoratin’ – no G’

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What a month it’s been.  We started quite despondent but determined to make the best of it, especially as our problems were minute compared to what some families have been going through.  As it happened we have been lucky enough to get further ahead with the renovation, and, if the lockdown is gradually lifted in the next month we won’t be massively behind schedule.

Neil also stumbled across (and nearly stood in) this amazing nest – Philomena has laid a clutch of 18 eggs so fingers crossed that next month we may have the patter of several tiny feet in the garden.

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Stay safe.