A packed month of socialising and surprises.

November began with an unexpected visit from Alex who needed a break from London to relax and rest as he was still suffering from post covid fatigue.  Cheryl enjoyed some quality time as they went on gentle walks and had lunch out together.  His visit also coincided with a rum tasting event at The Shed.  The evening consisted of 11 different rums paired with 11 different BBQ inspired dishes.  We really enjoyed playing with the different tots of rum and the mixers and had a lot of delicious food which we just couldn’t eat so we brought home our leftovers in a goodie bag.  It was a really good evening and we happened to be on the next table to the very entertaining Paris and Carl who we had met previously in our local micro pub The Hat.  Sadly this is one business which hasn’t made it through the pandemic.

The garden has gone completely mad.  Tomatoes and sweet peppers were always likely in November from the greenhouse but to pick strawberries from the garden is absolutely bonkers.  Harvesting the squash and pumpkins is expected at this time of year but something very weird happened whilst we were away in Bristol last month.  We had lots of pears on two trees plus a few Cox apples on one tree.  Now last year we did lose a few to the squirrels but this year we’ve lost the lot!  They are not on the ground half eaten as the squirrels would leave them, they have just totally disappeared. It’s a mystery.

As covid numbers appeared to stabilise we focused on socialising again.  We had a night with Eric and Laila, Eric being one of Cheryl’s fellow councillors.  He cooked us a delicious curry with lots of side dishes and we did drink far too much wine whilst putting the world to rights.  It was a late night so when we return the meal next month we’ll start earlier in the hope we finish earlier….yeah, right!

Doris, our lovely neighbour opposite is now 92 and following the death of her husband Allan a year ago she’s very lonely. So, armed with a bottle of fizzy and some chocolates we went a calling for an afternoon of chat and fun.  Physically she’s not great, using a Zimmer to move around, but she’s as sharp as a tack in her mind and made us laugh as she told us stories of when she was younger including the fact that she worked at Radio Luxembourg and knew Horace Bachelor, young folk you’ll need to put this name into Google and find out why it’s synonymous with Keynsham where Cheryl grew up.

Then it was time for some 007!  We headed off to The Gateway with 6 neighbours to watch No Time to Die.  Taking advantage of the picnic night we enjoyed our picnic food and drinks from the bar before the film started.  The evening was good, the film not so brilliant but, once again, it was great to be socialising again.

Then another surprise visit from Leanne this time who was on her way down to visit an old Uni. Friend in Brixham.  We had time to go out for a walk, have lunch at The Anchor in Beer, find a geo cache in the park and then wave her off.

Next night it was a quiz to raise funds for the Hospital League of Friends with Bob ‘n Sheila and  Matt and Tracy, who used to live in Lone Pine.  We came fourth but managed to have a lot more fun than any other table as we all sang along to the answers of the music section which contained lots of 80’s stuff.  We were very noisy.

The following day we decided on a day out by bus to Lyme Regis to enjoy a community lunch put on for members of the Good Food Club.  This is an initiative run by The Old Dairy Kitchen which provides meals of restaurant quality using local produce.  Week by week the amount of food delivered ready to eat reduces and more ingredients are added so participants learn new cooking techniques.  There was also a range of charges per month so that anyone, regardless of income could participate with some receiving the meals for free subsidised by the other members.  It’s been an interesting journey, some recipes easier to follow than others, and it’s certainly made us try things we wouldn’t normally eat.  The lunch was to bring together the members so we could meet and enjoy food provided by the organisers.  A great initiative and the food and company were excellent.  We ended the day with a walk around Lyme before catching the bus back.

A few days later and another fun packed night with neighbours Bob, Sheila, Paul & Maureen.  Early dinner in The Shed followed by The Polar Express.  As volunteers we were offered free tickets for a couple of guests each for the technical run through of the Tramway’s premier event.  This attracts thousands of visitors and is the equivalent of Panto in terms of the revenue it brings.  The whole evening is themed and follows the format of the film The Polar Express which starred Tom Hanks.  Professional actors are employed and the stations are transformed with Colyton becoming The North Pole.  The opening song and dance routine was spectacular and the Trams become The Polar Express itself.  A great evening, the kids were enthralled and we did our bit to participate in any singing and dancing required.

It was soon to be Cheryl’s birthday and we took a 3 night break at a country hotel between Bodmin and Padstow.  It was bed, breakfast, 3 course evening meal including a bottle of wine.  The price was great, the hotel staff and guests very friendly and it was all going swimmingly until we had a text from Karen next door just checking ‘that you two are OK after the huge tree fell down’.  It was definitely an ‘oh shit’ moment thinking that we would have to leave immediately to go home and fix whatever has been destroyed by Storm Arwen.  In a bit of a panic we tried to call Karen but she didn’t answer so we contacted Bob over the road.  He went to look at the damage and met Karen who had since called us back.  Fortunately, the 40ft Eucalyptus had politely fallen in the one place where it didn’t cause any damage – miracles do happen.

Not having to cut our trip short meant we could continue with our plan to visit Yvonne who lives near Bude, just a 40 minute drive away.  Before Covid we used to meet her and husband John in Goa at the same complex, Micon.  They were neighbours and we enjoyed lots of laughs and meals and, of course, party boats.  It was great to see her.

On the way home from Cornwall we stopped off at the vaccination centre outside Exeter to get our Covid booster.  All good with Neil OK and Cheryl having some minor after effects.

Neil has been desperate to get some proper travelling back on the agenda.  However, the prospect of us flying to Goa after Christmas was looking increasingly unlikely as although scheduled flights had been announced as starting mid month, India refused to issue long stay visas or allow the flights to resume.  Then BA, trying to rationalise their flights, ended the uncertainty for us by cancelling our outgoing flight. We could either reschedule or take a voucher to rebook flights to any destination without incurring any loss.  So, we took the voucher option and we are working on plan B, Mexico.  We were meant to be going a few years ago but covid put pay to that.  The planning is already underway during quiet times and wet days so we should have 7 weeks of exploring a totally new country.  We’ve updated our travel jabs, Diphtheria, tetanus et al in the hope that Covid permitting, we finally get somewhere, anywhere, please? 

As if Plan B Mexico wasn’t enough we’ve also booked something else for October 2022……a cruise.  Cheryl has had Egypt on her bucket list for years so we’re off for 4 nights in Cairo, 7 nights cruising the Nile and 10 nights wallowing on the Red Sea, 5* all inclusive.  Sorry to shock our regular readers – yes you did read that correctly, former cheapskates have booked a 5*, and you thought there couldn’t be any more surprises, ha ha.

It has been a strange and eventful month and it’s also the start of Chapter 14.  We start a new chapter in the story of our lives to coincide with the start of a new season’s travelling.  Regular readers will know that we originally set off for a six month trip of a lifetime back in October 2008 and that as our circumstances and outlook on life completely changed, we continued our nomadic alternative lifestyle for the next 12 years.  We spent the summer touring the UK in our caravan and set off for adventures overseas when the weather turned cold and the nights started to draw in. 

We knew that taking on the renovation project on the house would mean a disruption to the pattern we had become used to.  However, no one could predict the events of the last couple of years living through the pandemic.  This now feels like a tentative return to normal life whilst keeping an eye on the current high number of daily cases and slowly rising hospital admissions. 

We have certainly been busy and have had some good times but October has been a chaotic time of unexpected work, stress, long journeys and sadness.

The month started with our first volunteering for The Tramway on The Story Tram.  These are for children under 4 and involve story telling & nursery rhymes on the Tram ride and more stories, songs and activities at the station in Colyton.  It’s not our favourite event as most of the children are very young and tend to have an attention span shorter than Neil’s.  However, we’re doing our bit for the community and helping to keep up the profile of The Tramway which goes on to assist with the funding they get.

We’ve started to eat out a little more often now, perhaps getting a little bit blasé about Covid despite the soaring number of cases.  First up was Ragini with Diane and Glyn for a curry to celebrate Diane finally getting the proceeds of her inheritance after nearly a year of hard work.  The fizzy was on her!

Flu jabs followed a few days later at the same time that Bill & Sue arrived for the weekend.  It was great to have them back as they were our first visitors before all the renovations took place.  We ate out quite a bit, The Shed for one evening and several lunches out following visits to Seatown and Lyme Regis.  

We also had the welcome return of our favourite builder, Stacy. Readers may recall that in March he carried out some remedial work to the chimney stack which was causing the damp patch in bedroom 2. He planned to return to carry out the same work to the stack on the other side when he had a suitable gap between major jobs. However, his building firm is in great demand so we have had to be patient, and on the bright side this also gave us time to put together a small list of other jobs for him to do. Stacy started by going into the loft to check his previous repair was holding out……….there was silence…….followed by cursing and then a grim faced Stacy. ‘Right’ he said, ‘now it’s personal!’.

He was back up the long ladders which could be used to reach the chimney on the loggia side and back at work. Repairs to the other chimney required a scaffold tower in the drive and that was booked in for the following week. He also tiled the base of the fireplace in the study to cover over the mess of broken tile and concrete which was exposed when we replaced the old log burner with a smaller one last year. We will post some pics of the final result next month when the fire is refitted.

Bill & Sue left on Sunday morning and we were expecting the arrival that afternoon of Alison and Paul, friends we met one season in Goa.  They have spent most of the summer travelling the UK in their motorhome and we invited them to stay if they were planning to be nearby.  Setting up the date of the visit had been straightforward as they always answered emails quickly.  Our last exchanges were to ask what time they would arrive as it was on the day Bill & Sue were due to depart and suddenly there was no response.  Oh well we thought, they’ll contact us when they can, especially as they didn’t have our address!  No response and they didn’t show up.  We thought we must have upset them in our emails but really couldn’t see how.

Then it was back to hard graft for us decorating and managing the upgrade of one of the properties in Bristol.  We thought we’d finished with doing all this ourselves as we had used tradies for the last few refurbs on the rentals, but another outcome of Covid times is that with everyone wanting to improve their homes you can’t get a tradie for love nor money.  So we just had to roll up our sleeves and get on with it.  Like all tradies, plumbers were in short supply and with a bit of pleading Matt who did the plumbing in our house during lockdown agreed to make the 1.5hr journey from Exmouth and back to fit a new bathroom suite. 

Matt could only spare one day so we called on our old plumber in Bristol to spare an hour on the Friday  we arrived in the flat to take the shower off the wall, remove the sink & take out the toilet cistern.  Flushing with a bucket is no problem for a couple of days we thought. Our Carpet supplier arrived to measure and was booked to fit carpets and bathroom vinyl as soon as the plumbing was all complete. 

However, the precision planning on delivery of the new suite on Saturday was the first thing to go wrong. With no suite, there was no point Matt arriving on Monday.  A few calls later the Bathroom was set to arrive Wednesday, Carpets rescheduled to the following week and Matt was rescheduled for Thursday.  Luckily for us there have been a number of delivery issues which affected Matt’s other customers. 

We started the decorating, sanding, prepping & painting all whilst trying to maintain a clean space for the bed and our belongings in the tiny one bedroom flat.  Wednesday morning the suite arrived – yay! Then we howled with misery after Victoria Plumb delivered a smashed up bath and toilet pan…..arrrrgh!  More time wasted yelling at Vic Plumb and frantic calls to Matt.  Thursday morning and full undamaged suite arrived, old damaged stuff collected and Matt rebooked for Friday.  Phew! 

In the middle of all this we also travelled up to Sheffield to attend Sandra’s funeral.  We stopped off with Leanne and young Neil on the way up and then travelled to Sheffield next day.  If you can ever say you ‘enjoyed a funeral’ then this is one that we did.  There was standing room only by the time we arrived and the whole service, which was a celebration of her life was both emotional and uplifting.  We went to the wake afterwards and decided to stay on for the evening to have dinner with some people from Goa who were also staying overnight.  We had a lovely evening with what were really just acquaintances but now we consider them friends and look forward to seeing them again on the beach in Benaulim only this time without their clothes on!

It was then back to Bristol for the finishing touches to the flat before heading home for The Twinning Association cheese and wine evening.  There was a quiz and our quickly scrambled together team of 4 came a handsome second place.  It was a fun evening and a chance to relax after the stress of the previous two weeks.

The crazy year in the garden continues.  We picked tomatoes and peppers in the garden and greenhouse plus courgettes, apples, squash and pumpkins from the garden.  It’s mad to be so far into the year and still harvesting. 

Then it was a weekend of more volunteering on Saturday and Sunday, this time on The Halloween Tram.  Great fun after we dressed up, Cheryl as Countess Dracula and Neil as Uncle Fester.  The kids had a good time with craft items to make, colouring in and quizzes.  The parents and grandparents also gave us a few giggles with their reaction to two very strange looking people stalking them on the station platform.

Then we had some devastating news.  Neil was passing one of the many picture galleries that we have hung all over the house.  He noticed a picture of Alison and Paul who should have visited us on October 10^th.  Curiosity got him thinking so he went to the computer and put their names into google.  What he found shook him to the core.  They had been killed on September 7^th in a tragic accident with a motorcycle as they walked along a road in Herefordshire.  They had died 3hrs after their last email to us confirming their visit.

We are ‘glass half full’ people and have found a positive or two.  They came to visit us in Brecon a few years ago when we were in the caravan.  We had a really good day and that’s where we took the selfie of us all.  They too loved the lifestyle and were always getting away in their motorhome.  In fact, they loved it so much that they spent more time in it than they did in their house.  In a way they were lucky, if you can be in a situation like this, they died together, pretty much instantaneously and doing what they loved, walking with their dog and exploring new places.  RIP you two, you are on our picture wall along with the Welsh Love Spoon in the kitchen that you gave us in Brecon– and that’s where you will stay.

On the return journey from Newcastle we took the scenic route across The Peak District to Leanne’s house.  It was a beautiful drive.  We hadn’t seen her for some time so it was good to  catch up.  She was working in the daytime so we headed off to walk around Rudyard Lake stopping off at The ‘Spoons’ in Leek for lunch.  The long drive to Seaton was uneventful and after being away for a week it was good to be back home again. 

Events in the Town continued with the final Seaton Eats in Cliff Field Gardens the following evening.  We went with neighbours Maureen and Paul and Sheila and Bob.  It was again a popular event and the queues for the different food vendors were long but worth it.  As it got later it started to get chilly so we all headed off to Sheila and Bob’s for a few more drinks and chat.

Saturday evening brought us back to Cliff Field Gardens for the annual outdoor cinema event.  This year it was Bohemian Rhapsody.  We volunteered to act as marshalls and to help with the tidying up after the event.  We’d missed the last two outdoor cinema nights so this time we were determined to take part.  There was an unplanned drama during the set up when the inflated screen slowly started to collapse.  It was clear from the body language of the professional crew that this was clearly an ‘oh shit’ moment, however, the screen was soon back up with some hasty rewiring and diverting all the electric supply to it.  Numerous phone calls were made to track down any available generators, but as this was 5pm on a Saturday evening there were none to be had.  Eventually the supply for the catering vendors was obtained via a hook up into a friendly neighbours garden supply!  The audience started to arrive, set up their chairs and picnics, the sun went down and the performance began.  It was an excellent night and we’re looking forward to next year.

While we had been away, Maureen and Paul looked after the greenhouse and picked the excess courgettes, runner beans and raspberries.  The garden is now in full flow so we continue to feed them, give courgettes so Sheila and Bob and even give some items to the local food hub.  The freezer is filling up and we are experimenting with courgette soup.

We had a couple of days of catching up on garden, house and ‘admin’ before Neil’s sister June and husband Roy arrived to stay for a few days.  We had a lot of fun, plenty of walking and going to two attractions in nearby Beer.  First was Train themed Pecorama which showcases Peco model trains and has a miniature train providing rides around the meticulously kept gardens. 

This was followed with lunch at the Anchor in Beer overlooking the beach.  Next day we went to Beer Quarry Caves for a guided tour of the historical caves.  The Romans discovered the stone that is quite unique in that when freshly excavated it’s soft enough for stone masons carry out intricate cutting and carving in the cave.  Soon after it’s exposed to the atmosphere the stone goes rock hard.  It has been in demand for churches as it’s easy to shape for statues and gothic style windows.  Some of the stone has gone as far as the USA.

Our volunteering for the tram this month started with the Heritage Open Day.  This is a nationwide event where many attractions are asked to put on free heritage based events to encourage wider participation.  The tramway offered two sessions which gave a behind the scenes tour of the depot and a bird watching tram through the wetlands nature reserve.  Both sessions were fully booked and as we ushered the attendees around the depot it was an opportunity for us to listen to the operations manager Gareth’s talk about the conservation and restoration of the various tram carriages and associated structures.

The next session was The Memory Tram, where with an extended team of volunteers and event staff we hosted around 20 older folk with varying levels of dementia plus their carers.  The garden room at the station in Colyton was transformed into ‘All The Fun of The Fair’ as we manned a selection of six games that you would have found at an old fashioned fairground.  Refreshments included hot dogs and popcorn along with the tea & coffee and we had lots of laughs with the attendees.  We heard later that the feedback from the home that they live in was excellent so well done to the Tramway Team.

We then had a visit from Alex and Freddy for a couple of days before we headed up to Bristol.  They stayed on for a few days to escape from London and their own house rebuild for a while to enjoy the sea and their paddleboard.

This next trip for us started with spending the night in Keynsham before Cheryl headed off with Tricia and Miranda to join a group of family and friends for some pampering and relaxation at Champneys Health Spa.  While Cheryl was having fun with the girls, Neil stayed in Keynsham to spend time with Paul and to help out with grandson getting his breakfast, getting to pre-school and then trips to the park after school.

After a couple of days Neil drove to Champneys to pick up Cheryl and June to head for Manchester.  Earlier in the summer, June asked Neil if he would like to join her on a trip back to Manchester to look around the various houses the family lived in when they were little. We had a superb time, visiting the various streets where they lived and discovering the graves of grandparents, great grandparents and great uncle Bert who was a professional boxer.  We knew pretty much where to find the grandparents but the others were an amazing bonus discovered with the help of Derek The Grave Digger who was pleased to share his recently completed charts documenting the locations of all the graves in the cemetery. 

The day ended with a long walk around nearby Heaton Park which is absolutely stunning.  It has a tram line in the park run by a group of volunteers and, as we are now official Tram Geeks we got chatting and were swiftly invited for a private tour of their depot.  They have a much wider gauge and were in the process of restoring an old Blackpool Tram which seemed huge in comparison to the ones in Seaton. 

The next morning it was back to school for Neil.  Before the trip he contacted his old primary  school that he attended from the age of 5 in 1958.  He sent them pictures that he had of his class, pictures of The Harvest Festival Queen who was also June’s friend and Bridesmaid and pictures of Neil as a cute pageboy to the Queen and of him on Whit Walks.  The school has a ‘vintage’ page and they were so pleased to receive the photos that they invited him to visit the school for a tour and a Q&A with some of the children about life in Crab Lane in the 1950’s. 

At the end of the month we heard the very sad news of the sudden and unexpected death of one of our old Goa friends, Sandra.  Our thoughts are with Tim and the family.

Reasons to be Cheerful

1. We were very lucky to get to know Sandra and share so many laughs and good times along the way.
2. It’s been a great time for family this month, seeing all three children, grandson and quality time with June on our trip down memory lane.
3. We’re still picking strawberries and raspberries – amazing.

Sunday August 1^st brought us our first batch of summer guests, all 10 of them!   Neil’s sister June, her daughters Tracy and Anna, plus their children Ol, Fred and Heidi.  An old friend of Tracy’s, Emily, also arrived with Mae, Tom and Eve.  Bedlam ruled instantaneously and the vast consumption of cold beers and Prosecco began. 

They enjoyed the paddle board on the sea, eating out at The Ship and then it all ended just as quickly as it started.  On Tuesday Tom woke up complaining of a headache and a cough…….oh shit.  We were all tested and Tom proved to be Covid positive.  Ten minutes later Emily had bundled the three children into the car, said her tearful goodbyes and set off to drive back to Warwick.  

We had previously planned a surprise for everyone for the last night of their stay.  With the swift departure of family Dilley, spirits were low so we decided to put the plan into action.  The remaining guests were sent off to the quiet end of the beach with instructions not to return until 5pm. We quickly set about decorating the loggia with a Christmas theme.  Baubles, Christmas trees, a reindeer, crackers and Christmas Dinner including Christmas Pudding and Arctic Roll.  The family were greeted by a medley of Christmas music as they walked up the drive and the smell of Christmas dinner wafting from the kitchen.  The surprise was a great success and the finale was that Neil appeared dressed as Santa and proceeded to offer his sack of the usual low cost secret Santa presents.   It was such a good evening but so sad that Emily and children couldn’t be there.

We continued to test on a daily basis, and thankfully we all proved to be negative.    The remaining guests left on Thursday and the house seemed so empty and quiet.  With the help of neighbour Sheila who brought round some milk and our very first online shop we resigned ourselves to the 10 days isolation as per the guidelines.  We did have a laugh the following weekend when we put the enormous amount of recycling out.  The glass and tin containers have never been so full.  Thankfully, the silver lining, we stayed uninfected.

Having had to cancel our volunteering on the tram during our ten day self-isolation, once we were free we were eager to attend the second of our allotted sessions, The Dinosaur Tram.  We help out with the kids activities in the garden at the station in Colyton. The kids seemed to love it with a ‘dig’ in the giant sandpit to look for fossils and the arrival of an extremely large Tyrannosaurus Rex that roared loudly.  Most of the children took to it immediately, some took a little time to take it in but one boy who apparently is mad on dinosaurs was extremely frightened, hey you can’t win ‘em all!

August 12^th brought us our next visitors, Tony & Brenda.  We met them in Goa a few years ago and have remained friends ever since.  We had a number of walks planned including catching the bus to Lyme Regis and walking back along the coastal path.  It’s about 8 miles and took almost exactly 4 hours.  

Their visit also coincided with Neil’s birthday which needless to say took in a few celebratory drinks and the following day we took the twilight tram to Colyton for a meal and a few more drinks.  It was great see them again after almost 2 years.

Our next volunteering event was to be The Pirate Tram.  By now we’re really getting into the theme of each trip so we dressed the part.  The kids really got involved and the games were a big hit as they involved lots of water….say no more!   There were plenty of challenges for the kids to show bravery by walking the plank and team games involving water.  Luckily it  was a hot and sunny day as the ‘assisting’ we provided, aka cheating, resulted in us getting very wet.  On the second trip Neil was put in the stocks for ‘plotting a mutiny’ and as it was very hot he actually found the wet sponges very refreshing. 

No sooner were we finished with the tram we headed off to Newcastle to get to Connie’s delayed 70^th birthday party.  To break the journey we stopped off in Bromsgrove for the night and had a very good curry just around the corner from the Ibis.  The food was good and the added bonus was that it was a BYO meaning that the overall bill was very low.

Next day we travelled to York to stay with Colin and Jan who we know from our travels to Goa.  They gave us a couple of tours of the city which is much bigger than we remember.  So many little streets filled with eateries and independent shops, very pretty.  It was great to catch up and we’re looking forward to hosting them in Seaton and also in Goa as they too have flights booked to go out in November.

We decided to stop off in Sedgefield on the final leg of our journey so that we would arrive in Newcastle for the party fully refreshed.  Newcastle has a reputation for being full on party so we weren’t expecting the Travelodge to be quiet, hence the overnight in Sedgefield.  Right next door was an Indian restaurant which was very overpriced but the food was good. 

Final stop Newcastle Travelodge on The Quayside.  We managed to get one of the limited free underground parking spaces, big result, and the room was clean and comfortable.  Showered and ‘glad rags’ on it was off to the party later that afternoon.  It was great, lots of people from Goa, a bar delivering some superb cocktails and endless BBQ food, buffet food, cheese and deserts.  Dancing and silly games followed.  Well done Connie and her children for laying on a great bash – when are you coming to Seaton?

We decided to break the 7hr journey home with a couple of nights staying at Leanne’s. Despite a mix up on our arrival day we had a great time catching up with her. After a long day out walking around Rudyard lake we had an excellent meal out at a local pub.

Covid case numbers in Devon and Cornwall have shot up, largely due to being inundated with with staycation tourists. We’re used to being well below the national average but during August we had some of the highest cases per thousand in our region. Thankfully the hospital admissions have remained low so we are hopeful that this pandemic is becoming manageable. Sadly near the end of the month we heard that both Freddy & Alex tested positive in London. They have both been double vaccinated but at least their symptoms were mild and both have recovered.

Reasons to be cheerful

1. Despite having a positive case in the house we didn’t get Covid
2. We’ve had a lot of fun with friends and family
3. We have more visitors coming in September

Our social calendar is getting back to something like normal.  Don and Pat hosted a lunchtime get together where we met new neighbours from just up the road, Harriet and Steve.  We arrived at 12.30, had a drink followed by a delicious lunch.  The conversation flowed and then somebody announced that it was 7pm……wow, where did the afternoon go!

Our volunteering for the tramway began with Cheryl helping out with the story tram.  This is a special tram event aimed at under 4’s.  Lots of stories, songs and activities for the kids and for the yummy mummies a chance to get back to socialising.  Neil’s trip was for young folk with behavioural and learning issues.  Really nice kids and one in particular was highly intelligent and it seems such a shame that he has to attend a special school. 

Next up was a night out at The Kings Arms with Diane and Glyn for their Friday night steak night.  The food and wine were very good but as it was quite cool we weren’t able enjoy the lovely garden with stunning views over the River Axe….maybe next time.

A few days later we drove to Bristol to our grandson’s 3^rd birthday party.  It was a BBQ for family and his friends plus parents.  The weather wasn’t kind so due to covid restrictions on indoor contact most of us huddled under a very small gazebo.  The kids didn’t care, they just ran around in the drizzle and for those of us joining in the fun also got a tad damp……it was a good day!

Whilst all this is going on Cheryl has been a regular at the twice weekly outdoor Zumba classes in the gardens by the tennis courts and once a week Animal Flow Yoga, or as Neil calls it, Yoghurt.  It’s a challenging class but each week it gets a little easier and flexibility and muscle tone is definitely improving. 

Whilst not the preferred way to meet more neighbours we did meet Jerry and Carol at Mike’s wake.  They live on the other side of Mike & Karen’s house.  Due to number restrictions we weren’t originally invited but the rules changed and it felt good to raise a glass to Mike in Karen’s company rather than sitting in our own garden.  One nice touch, which Neil wants to adopt for when he gets the call, was that they had a projector showing photos of Mike over the years with friends and family.  When it first started you could hear a number of toasts and ‘RIP Mike’ from the crowd.  We think he would have approved.

The following day we hosted a BBQ for 12 neighbours.  The weather was set fair and forecast to be very hot so it was with confidence that we could invite so many people in the knowledge that we could all be outside.  It was a great day with us providing the BBQ and others bringing the pre-BBQ nibbles, salads and desserts. Of course we forgot to take any pictures!

This was quickly followed next evening by a trip to The Shed Steak House.  They advertised a very special evening of a 7 course taster menu accompanied by a wine flight comprising 5 natural wines from Italy.  It was meant to be hosted by the owner of the vineyard but due to Covid he couldn’t come over from Italy.  Instead, the importer of the wines took us through the wine flight whilst Andrea took us through the taster menu.  The new owners are trying to move away from being just a steak house and are keen to move into the ‘fine dining’ arena which we are fully supportive of.  You can get a steak anywhere but having the option of a special treat once in a while is very appealing.

You may remember that shortly after we bought the house, and whilst we were away in Goa, 30ms of wall collapsed at the front of the house.  This was fixed whilst we were away but on our return we carefully looked at other parts of our perimeter brickwork.  One area was identified as being quite dangerous, which we fixed, and some at the back of the garden was seen as less urgent.  Alistair, the guy who did our lovely patio area, called to say that he had a cancellation and that he had 3 days to demolish the leaning wall and erect a new fence.  Fab, something else off our ‘to do’ list.

We even got round to the final job – cleaning up the porch, repairing & cleaning the light fitting and painting the front door.  With everything done we invited another Alistair, the estate agent that sold us the house, to visit and see what changes we had made to the house.  We thought he would be interested and he definitely was, what we thought would be 30-45 minutes turned out to be 2hrs!   Like most people’s budget for renovation projects we broke ours but by just a few percent and we are extremely happy with the outcome. 

The revised valuation which Alistair gave us was beyond our expectations so now we’re even more happy!  We are in line with price rises that have occurred over the last 18 months, mainly due to more and more people working from home and realising that they don’t have to be in the city near to their office.  Now they can live by the seaside or in the country and this has seen prices escalate in East Devon.

The last day of the month saw us both back at the tramway to help out with the Fairy Special.  July 31^st brought us our first tram volunteering together, The Fairy Tram. The weather wasn’t kind and the kids on the first tram just had time to be greeted in Fairyland before the heavens opened and we were forced into the cafe inside. The sun came out for the afternoon session and we enjoyed being part of the fairy magic.

Reasons to be Cheerful

1. Olympic medals are flooding in
2. Covid case numbers in East Devon continue to decline
3. Next month we have lots of visitors coming to stay

FFFing good! – Freakish weather, First strawberry and Family Fun.

After possibly one of the wettest Mays in years the sun finally made an appearance at the end of the month just in time for Alex & Freddy to spend a few days with us before we set off for our annual trip on the canal boat. The boys stayed on to house sit and enjoy a break from London. The sunny weather continued and we had long sunny days with perfect temperatures in the early to mid 20’sC.  Cape Parrot was to be our boat, Gail was to be our usual shipmate and we started in Alvechurch. 

We cast off late afternoon from Alvechurch and cruised for just an hour or two as the first full day would be a toughie.  Tardbigge lock flight is a boaters right-of-passage as it’s the UK’s longest flight and when you add it to Stoke and Astwood flights which almost follow on, you are doing around 40 locks in a day…….that’s a lot.   We did it, surprisingly easily and the crew were rewarded with a generous G&T. 

Next day we visited the National Trust at Hanbury Park and after a couple of days we arrived in Worcester.  We had 2 nights in the town to do some sightseeing and for Cheryl and Gail to get some retail therapy……’yuck’ says Neil.  We have been to Worcester before but never really explored the city but we’ll probably be back as there is so much more to see.  Hopefully without the therapy! 

From Worcester we entered the River Severn and headed upstream to Stourport and onwards to our next National Trust, Kinver Edge and Rock Houses.  Absolutely fascinating, but in a nutshell, they were about a dozen houses hewn into the sandstone rock by troglodytes which continued to be homes for families until the early 1960’s.  If you are ever in that part of the country go and take a look.

The sun meant BBQ’s and more BBQ’s which were interspersed with a chilli night and a few cheese fests to break the monotony of grilled food.  Needless to say our livers took a bit of a hammering and as this year we had no set itinerary we availed ourselves of long alfresco lunches that stretched and stretched.  Cheryl and Gail would start the evening with a G&T and snacks before the main event with yet more wine. 

From Kinver the days had to be planned quite carefully as we were entering the Birmingham conurbation. Many places are OK to moor for the evening but some are not so safe and some of the ‘inmates’ look less than welcoming.  It was here that we broke a few mooring rules to stay in better surroundings.  Firstly, we moored in a picturesque spot which was screened by trees and hedges from the nearby sewage plant but we were upwind so no problem.  Next we moored close to a railway line but it wasn’t busy and we were sheltered by a bank of trees, again no issue.   The amount of graffiti along this part of our route is staggering and Neil in particular found this time quite depressing. 

Once through the Netherton Tunnel it’s plain cruising to the centre of Birmingham which is really pretty.  Many of the old warehouses have been turned into residential property and lots of bars and restaurants.  Once through the centre it’s then onto the Stratford on Avon Canal to head for the long flight of Lapworth Locks where we were to visit NT houses at Baddesley Clinton on the way down and Packwood House on the way back.

Two wonderful weeks, great company, lots of laughs, a few ‘oh shit’ moments, too much beer and wine and some lovely food.  Here’s to next year!

Covid has a lot to be blamed for not least of all closing all the pubs and restaurants.  With things getting better we met Glyn and Diane in a pub garden in Beer to celebrate his birthday.  It was a lovely evening and so we got carried away and went for a curry in Ragini just a few days later.  We went early to avoid it being too busy but the tables were well spaced and it was just a great feeling to be out and about again.

We are keeping in touch with friends in Goa and during one exchange Priti sent us a link to Amazon where we found that Aditya’s book, Quest, was on sale.  It’s all about his round the world trip on his Triumph Bonneville that he took a few years ago pre covid.  His route included the UK and we met him when he was in London and took him to The Red Lion near Downing Street, a pub once frequented by Charles Dickens.  We bought a copy of the book only to find that we had a mention and our photograph taken together in London was on page 170……we’re world famous!

The weather hasn’t been great since we got back from the boat trip not least of all on June 21^st, the Summer Solstice and apparently the first day of summer.  It was very cold, so much so that in the early evening Cheryl said ‘can we put the heating on’?  We did, just for an hour and just enough to take the chill off what was a very miserable day.  There is an upside, we had several cold and dull days so we got stuck into selecting the photos that we want in the gallery in the hall, stairs and landing.  12 years of photos to choose from so we inevitably went around and around in circles trying to decide.  We did it, got them printed and now they are in the frames.  You’ll have to visit to see what we’ve chosen!

The scheduled family party at June’s took place and was a great success.  The weather played ball, sunny intervals and not too hot.  We were 25 in total and it coincided with her birthday so June was blown away by the presents plus the huge cake that Leanne made.  What a fab day.

This time last year we were suffocating under a mountain of raspberries, redcurrants and gooseberries from the fruit cage we inherited in the garden.  This year we’re struggling, very few raspberries and those we have are minute, redcurrants still to come and gooseberries still weeks away.  The blackcurrants are coming, at their own speed, but not looking like we’re going to have too many. The one success story has been the strawberries. None at all last year as any promising young fruits were eaten by some critter before ripening. This year we planted some inside the fruit cage safely guarded from whatever beastie was feasting on them last year – hurrah!

Sadly, at the very end of the month we heard that our next door neighbour, Mike, suddenly passed away.  Due to covid we never got to know him other than chats over the fence.  We had invited both him and Karen round for lunch so we could get to know them better only to get a call from his son to say that his father had died the day before.  RIP Mike, we’ll get to know each other better one day.

Reasons to be Cheerful

1. We are now open for visitors – make your booking now!
2. Despite the Delta variant it’s looking good for all Covid restrictions to be removed next month.
3. Our social calendar is filling up fast with visitors, meals out, volunteering at the tramway and generally getting back to normal life.

We made the most of the new freedoms at the start of the month to start socialising with the neighbours. The road map out of lockdown allowed us to meet with 6 others outdoors so first call was across to Don and Pat’s to celebrate their 35^th wedding anniversary along with Bob ‘n Sheila.  Next day it was across the road again to Paul and Maureen’s also with Bob ‘n Sheila.  The weather wasn’t great so we kind of broke the rules by being partially inside with windows open.  We’ve all had at least one jab and we’ve all been very cautious throughout the pandemic so it wasn’t quite so naughty.  The freedom was short lived as the good old British weather decided that the really dry April would be followed by endless cold and rainy days…..pah!

Concrete & Clay  

It’s been an exciting month and we have managed to finish off some things.  Not everything, of course, but enough for us to feel like we are getting our lives back and devote time to things other than the renovation.  We didn’t include any landscaping work in our original plan but as soon as we installed the French Doors near the kitchen we saw the potential to remodel the ugly concrete no-man’s-land outside which we had totally overlooked when viewing the house. 

This scruffy neglected space between the greenhouse and the loggia was actually a perfect suntrap in the late afternoon.  These two areas were divided by a low wall and a screen of very dangerous plate glass.  You may remember that Neil in Destroyer mode removed the bricks and glass (without a single scratch….a miracle!).  This left us with the opened up space with a low step up to the loggia with a terracotta tiled floor and another area of mixed concrete surfaces with steps sideways to the garden which were way too high.  We spent a lot of time in the space over the summer with BBQs and entertaining so decided it deserved a revamp.

This was time we decided to get a man in and ‘Alistair the Miracle Worker’ arrived to give us a smart new extended patio where once a totally useless bit of space had been.  After almost 4 weeks Alistair had demolished, dug, barrowed and filled a 6 yard skip and laid a stunning new patio area and smart new steps. 

Remodelling the steps has given us about 30% more useful area, provides us a sunny afternoon and evening space to enjoy alfresco eating and looks superb as against the previous shite!.  Whilst this was not ‘in the budget’ it was money well spent…..thank you Alistair. 

Dave the spark followed on shortly afterwards to give us some outside lighting and sockets.  We put up zillions of fairy lights meaning that you now need sunglasses to sit outside at night.    (Neil blames Cheryl who got carried away and says you can never have too many fairy lights).  We put out the new teak furniture we bought from the man with the van and finally the Tibetan Prayer Flags went up (thanks Gail who brought them back from Nepal on the last flight out before they locked down last spring).

Magic Carpet Ride

Regular readers will recall the catastrophe we faced last month.  The local carpet supplier managed to get hold of a close match and at last arrived to fit the study carpet.  Hurrah! Another room with furniture back in, curtains up and a few homely touches added.  Ten days later the hall, stairs and landing were scheduled.  The day before we made a trip to the tip with the odd bits of old carpet we were using to keep the dust levels down in the hallway.  Goodbye swirly green carpet, farewell last bit of Red Axminster – we won’t miss you!

The fact that it’s not exactly the same carpet as the rest of the house isn’t so bad and it’s wonderful walking on nice soft carpet rather than noisy wooden stairs.   After Paul the fitter left Cheryl decided to celebrate by performing a carpet angel. 

Yup, it’s all over – apart from painting the outside of the front door and patching the odd blemish or two the renovation is just about complete and groundhog day finally came to an end………yeeeeeeehhaaaa!  Neil also took great delight in binning the shorts and t-shirt that have appeared in so many of our pictures over the last few months of the paintin’ ‘n sandin’. 

Whilst we are ‘living the dream’ in our beautiful house by the seaside we still keep in contact with friends in Goa.  We all know that India is really going through it as far as Covid is concerned and despite the government being in denial we know that the number of cases and deaths is probably at least 5 times the official statistics……..just read about the hundreds of bodies floating down The Ganges.  All of the people we know who live there don’t go out of their complex unless they really need to.  They did venture out to get ‘the jab’ but gave up because there was no queuing (yes, this is India), no social distancing (difficult when there are over a billion Indians) and no face masks.

Boris’s road map out of lockdown brought another bonus for Cheryl which in turn brought a bonus for Neil.  Cheryl went off to Champney’s with the girls in the extended family and friends.  Champney’s is meant to be a health farm and the girls have options to join exercise classes (maybe),  swimming & spa (possibly) and pampering sessions (definitely).  It was a great opportunity to catch up and laugh, gossip and consume multiple bottles of Prosecco.  The bonus for Neil is that he got quality time for a few days with son and grandson. 

Ticket to Ride

We’ve volunteered at Seaton Tramway which is a top tourist attraction in the town.  Our friend  Diane we know from the French Twinning Association is an employee in the office.  She called to tell us they were looking for volunteers to help out with the many events that are held throughout the year.  ‘Why not?’ we said, ‘renovations just about done it’s time to do something useful in the community’.  We started with an afternoon of training with her boss which was a gentle introduction to the way the tram runs and an outline of what the events entail.  The following week we were back again to meet the 4 other new volunteers and rode the tram to Colyton to get to know layout of the group spaces used for events, the café, shops and the location of toilets etc.  Then a quick behind the scenes tour of the engineering workshops and it was done.  We are now awaiting our first assignment. 

Reasons to be cheerful

1. We’ve now both had our second jabs……..jabber jabber two!
2. We love silly jokes and Tony Blackburn on Radio 2 has more than his fair share of pretty bad ones, however, this one stood out –

‘The Devon and Cornwall Music festival has been cancelled as the organisers couldn’t agree whether to put The Jam or Cream on first’.  Boom boom!!  (For our overseas readers, unaware of our regional rivalries and the importance placed on baked tea time treats, look up ‘Cream Teas’ on google

3. Our annual 2 weeks on the narrow boat are looming……aye aye Captain!  ….…it’s also stopped raining and the sun has got it’s hat on……..yay!!!

It’s definitely a good news month. We’re jabbed up, bathrooms & cloakroom complete, hall stairs and landing nearly there, the last room is underway, the garden really starts to come alive and we had the first taste of freedom. Woo Hoo! 

Got to get you into my arm……

OK we hear you say, enough of the terrible song puns, but we’re afraid its nonsense like this that has kept us going, so that means brace your self for more! My vaccination? WHO said that? tee hee. Neil kicked the month off, as he is in his own words, an old fart. He got the call from our community hospital and had his armful of finest Oxford with no side effects at all. Two weeks later and Cheryl was jabbed, again at our wonderful local centre and again with no side effects.  We do know some people that have felt really grotty for a couple of days so we count ourselves very lucky.  Hopefully, we’ll finish the process in time to go on our planned narrow boat trip in June.

Mirror in the bathroom

We finally managed to get the bathroom finished (well, apart from the blind). Matt the plumb came back to refit the sink, and to final fix the new sink & toilet in the cloakroom. Dave the spark returned to install the lights over the sinks and to help Neil fit the beautiful old mirrors that we found stored in the loft.

We also got creative with the window treatment for the hallway. We never draw the curtains here, and the window is an awkward size which doesn’t fit with standard curtain lengths. A bit of internet inspiration and we made our own window scarf using three voile panels. We can’t get the carpet down until we finish the last bit of decorating which should be complete in April. Then we can get started on putting up the pictures on those bare walls.

We’ve also been on the lookout for some interesting bits of furniture and decorative touches and came up trumps with this little beauty. We just need to find an old fashioned jug & bowl to finish it off.

Regular readers may recall that as former cheapskates, having to invest what seemed like an eye watering sum on some large sofas last Autumn was a big step for us to take and we spent months dithering over the various options. We were concerned that if we got it wrong, it would be a really expensive mistake to make. We opted for a bold colour choice and placed the order last August and waited as the sofas arrived in stages from December through to February.

Well, it didn’t go smoothly. The corner sofa arrived and it had a couple of issues which couldn’t be fixed by the supplier, so we negotiated a refund of 40%, not bad.  Within a couple of hours Neil had fixed the problem.  Then the large sofa arrived weeks later but this also had a problem, the seat foam was of a different texture making the sofa extremely firm and nothing like the corner sofa.  The supplier sent their technician to inspect, and he agreed they were different. We waited another 4 weeks to get replacement cushions – but these were exactly the same. After many phone calls and emails we seemed to reach an impasse and the discovery that the factory had changed foam supplier between making our sofas.  We really wanted comfy sofas and this new stuff was like sitting on a brick.

We were given options by the supplier, who was very sympathetic and desperately wanted to make us happy. We could have a full refund – but that would mean starting the whole process of finding new sofas all over again. At this stage we were in full lockdown without even a date for reopening of non essential shops so that wasn’t going to happen. It was time to get creative and see if we could resolve the problem ourselves. Neil went to see a local upholsterer and she confirmed that she could get some different foam but suggested we try taking out one of the thin layers of foam to see if it improved.  It did and so we hassled with Next and got another settlement of 40% off that sofa too.  Result! Great looking sofas which are comfy and a refund which would top up the renovation funds.

Paint it green

With spring in the air we took time off decorating inside and gave the garden some attention. Neil replaced the trellis at the front which was in a poor state of repair utilising a mix of the original support posts and some new ones  Whilst it was good to re use what we could, the end result was not overly pretty despite the brand new trellis panels. Cheryl took on the task of staining the whole lot, a tricky and time consuming task as anyone who has ever painted trellis will understand, and definitely not something that Neil has the patience for. Part way through, despite the stain being sage green, the air was blue as Cheryl initially regretted what she had taken on, but she was committed and saw it through.

In the end it was all worth it and it looked superb. We just hope the jasmine which had to be unpeeled from the old trellis will recover from its shock and grow back. Then she was on a mission and turned her attention to the tired looking Veg Trug – a giant raised planter which was left behind by the previous owners and was looking very sad. Neil emptied it out, put in a new plastic liner to protect the wood sides from more decay, and Cheryl set to with the stain. Another result it now looks smart and has a lot more years of use to come. Finally, the covered bench seat under the Cedar tree got a much needed makeover. What looked like a gloomy & grubby bench now really stands out as a welcoming spot to sit and enjoy the garden.

Neil meanwhile gave the grass a good trim ready for feeding.  He also cleared the pond of zillions of dead leaves and weed that had collected.  We didn’t touch it last year and as we didn’t see any life in it assumed that all we had was plants.  How wrong we were.  As the heaps of pond debris were stacked at the edges of the pond, we watched as various critters emerged and made their way back into the water. We discovered that we have lots of newts and dragon fly larvae.  Last year we had lots of very large dragonfly in the garden, and in the house, so we were hoping they came from the pond.  Apparently these little blighters have huge appetites and this would explain why we don’t have any frogs or toads.

Please release us, let us go……

The best news this month was the roadmap to freedom. This lockdown has been the hardest to endure for many, but we at last could see the light at the end of the tunnel. We waited patiently for the official Covid numbers each day, and started to get excited as the graphs began to show that downward curve at last. Dealing with a pandemic has not been easy and with the benefit of hindsight we could have done things differently. That said, our vaccination programme has been truly outstanding, and we are beginning to reap the rewards.

Writing this blog it seems incredulous that an entire year has passed since we wrote the entry describing how we went into the first lockdown on March 23rd 2020. We’ve been thinking about the events back then and how they completely changed our lives. For us, the immediate impact was a halt to our renovations leaving us with gaping holes where walls had been taken down and not having a kitchen for 3 months. We have been extremely lucky that all we suffered was really inconvenience and delay. Others have had to cope with losing loved ones, illness and losing their livelihoods. We have certainly realised that being with people we love is the most important thing in our lives, and will never take the simple pleasures of life for granted again.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

1 – Freedom is coming, we can meet in groups of six out doors and the social calendar is already filling up with invites from the neighbours.

2 – We’ve started work on the final room of the house – yay!

3 – We still have one pheasant in the garden – sadly, we haven’t seen our favourite Piotr Pheasant for several weeks now.  It looks like he’s moved on to avoid Rufus who occasionally shows his face.  He’s incredibly touchy so not sure we’ll ever get him tame enough to feed. We are content just to watch him strut around the garden looking beautiful.

Stay safe

Cheryl & Neil

We’ve gone stair crazy! We couldn’t put it off any longer so it was time to tackle the big one.  The problem was we didn’t have a specialist ladder for the stairs but we had a cunning plan.

Most of the hallway had vinyl striped wallpaper but the largest wall up the stairs was covered in a loud flower pattern.  This was of course teamed with a red patterned Axminster on the stairs and a green plain carpet on the top landing…..nice.   We’ve had to re-plaster almost every other wall in the house owing to damaged patches from alterations and removal of fixtures, but we decided we’d had enough of the expense and the mess of plastering.  On top of all that we would have had to strip all the paper off first and given the height of the hallway over the stairs it just wasn’t going to happen.  Fingers crossed that we could get a reasonable finish we ripped out the remaining carpet and started work on painting the wallpaper.

It took several coats of emulsion but eventually the flowers disappeared.  Strange greasy spots appeared in various places, mainly on the half landing and these were eventually dealt with using a can of spray stain block.  There are some strange lumps and bumps on the walls which the paint just can’t hide but we have another cunning plan up our sleeves to hide this…..you will have to wait and see.

We didn’t have time to get started on the woodwork before we had visits from various members of the Dack family.  Jake came back to fit skirting in the cloakroom, rehang the doors and fit new locks.  Of course we hit the inevitable snag as the door to tiny toilet was as you would expect, just that little bit narrower and the locks which fit perfectly in the ensuite and bathroom were too big.   Ho hum, back to internet trawling for a smaller lock and yet another room unfinished.   Jason returned to get the tiling done in the cloakroom while Jake completed the boxing of pipes in the utility. 

The toilet problem last month was resolved by getting the only pan connector sold by the supplier – not the sleek design we wanted, but it did stay on the waste pipe so it had to do.  Matt the plumb returned to finish off the plumbing and install the sink and WC in the bathroom so all we needed to finish off the en-suite and bathrooms now were the wall lights for over the sinks then we can put in the mirrors.  However, the lights we chose won’t arrive until March so we couldn’t get those rooms finished off either.  One other thing we hadn’t realised until the WC had been fitted – when you are seated you not only get a wonderful view of the garden, you can also see a window in the house opposite which had previously been beautifully screened by that cherry tree we had cut down last month!

Regular readers will recall we spent a lot of money on scaffolding towers, repointing and weatherproof coatings for both chimneys last year.  We thought that had done the trick until Neil’s discovery last month of an ominous and growing damp patch in bedroom 2.  Stacy had a closer look and confirmed that due to the design, water had been collecting in the gully between the roof and the chimney.  This meant that the felt was knackered and the battens rotten.  He quickly stripped off the tiles and fixed both sides of the chimney so, hopefully, we’ll have no more problems and then when the wall is dry we can re-decorate…….deep joy.

It was very windy when he did it but fortunately he was on the sheltered side of the house.  We asked him to look at the chimney on the other side of the house but as it’s much higher we suggested that he use a tower rather than a ladder.  He decided to put it off until we have  calmer weather but then our suspicions were confirmed before he could get up there – we spotted the staining starting to appear in our bedroom which showed us that we had the same problem.

The end of the month was spent ordering the sanitary ware for the cloakroom and getting it decorated ready for Matt to return in March for a final fix.  The window frames in both tiny toilet and the bathroom got a final clean off with all the final traces of the old badly done paintwork painstakingly scraped off and the edges neatly painted.  Did you know that the special long handled brush with slanted bristles that Cheryl’s been using actually has a name – it’s an angled fitch?  Not a lot of people know that. 

The remaining woodwork in the hallway was sanded, primed and painted, including the inside of the front door which we had been putting off for some time.  While sanding the skirting on the stairs Cheryl had a try at taking off the flaking varnish from the wooden handrail.  It’s dark stained, shiny varnish and has considerable grimy patches on the edges which ordinary cleaning just wouldn’t shift.  No problem for the power sander!  Wow – what a result, the wood is probably oak and looks so much better stripped back.  The weird wrought iron & wood may actually look quite good when it’s finished.  Messy work but worth it.

Reasons to be Cheerful

1. We have a road map out of lockdown which looks good for our boat trip in May and the arrival of June’s family in August
2. The days are getting longer, the sun has been shining and the spring flowers are starting to show – summer is on the way!
3. It’s a Sunday and the end of the month so we’re having it off……….that’s time off from decorating and a long walk you smutty lot!

Dodging Covid, dodgy dealings and a damp patch.  It’s been a strange start to 2021.

Like most people we weren’t sad to wave goodbye to 2020.  Resigned to our fate in Lockdown 3 we decided to focus on work in the house and garden so we would be ready for when all those visitors start to arrive……well it will happen at some point.

As if we needed it, we now have more logs!  A cherry tree very close to the house was a disaster waiting to happen as it was old, didn’t look too healthy and if it were to fall it would wipe out the greenhouse.

Harry ‘the tree’ and his apprentice arrived and had it down in no time. It was rotten through and through. He also pollarded a willow which was in danger of getting out of hand.  It also cast quite a lot of shade on our little patio outside the French windows so it was a double whammy.  More logs to split and stack but, hey, it’s good exercise. 

Renovation update – part 1

Work continued on the bathrooms but at a very slow pace as we limited numbers in the house to keep social distancing rules and we kept ourselves out of the way in the study (which was also a handy excuse to not start any more decorating…..tee hee).

The kitchen fitter, Paul, returned to fit the units & worktop in the utility.  A bit of inspired forward planning meant we had already got Dave the spark to move the ugly fuse box just a few inches to allow it to sit neatly inside one of the new wall units.  Over the Christmas period Cheryl spent a few days painting the floor as we’re not quite sure what to do with the flooring as it’s such a busy and mucky area incorporating the back door and entrance to the greenhouse.  Painting it will buy us some thinking time. 

It’s amazing what a bit of plastering, painting and a few cupboards will do to what was a dump. It looks so much better but we still need to get new skirting fitted and the pipework over and under the boiler neatly boxed in when Jake the chippy returns.

Stop right there

Monday 11^th January brought a shiver down our spines.  We had a text, the one nobody wants to get, from Stacy the builder who had been with us the previous Friday.  His wife works in the local pharmacy and her boss got the dreaded  lurgy.  She wasn’t feeling 100% either.   Whilst we had kept away from the tradies as best we could, it still gave us the heebie-jeebies. 

We immediately cancelled all the tradies due to visit and went into 10 days lockdown which was pretty easy as we had shopped just a few days earlier.  Milk was the only thing we would run out of.  Next day Stacy’s wife was tested and the day after she found out she was negative…..phew!  However, we decided to play safe and carry on with the 10 day isolation.  Kate from the little Axmouth bakery was due to deliver some of her delicious bread and we messaged her to say just drop at the front door.  A few texts later she volunteered to nip into the Co-op on her way and bought us 4pts.  It’s simple things like this why we are loving Seaton so much.

Buy one……get 9 free!!

Just as our 10 days was up a strange thing happened.  We weren’t expecting a delivery but we noticed a large van reversing up the drive.  Neil went outside and the young man, Sheldon, got out and asked if we needed any Teak Garden Furniture.  He pointed out that most of his business came from trading at local shows but obviously due to Covid this wasn’t happening.  So, to stay afloat, he had resorted to good old fashioned door knocking and to his surprise his luck was in.

We do need some better garden furniture but it wasn’t going to be on our radar for several months.  This was a golden opportunity to just get it done without shopping around and going round and round in circles as we usually do when there is too much choice.  This was to be man shopping. 

We had a poke and a prod at the samples in the back of his van – it looked good but we needed to check out the prices and we told him what we wanted.  He came back a few days later with 6 stackable chairs to go with the big table we bought last year, a table for our new patio plus 4 matching chairs and a Lutyens style bench for the front terrace. 

He unloaded it and went away for an hour for us to check it over and choose the best items.  Then we did a deal on the cardboard packaging!  He would have to pay to dispose of it, we don’t, so we kept hold of the packaging and in return we got a folding table for free that goes with the bench…..result! 

Whilst we wouldn’t normally pay cash to some ‘diamond geezer’ who appeared in the drive from nowhere, it seemed like a deal not to miss.  Anyway, his van wasn’t painted with Trotters Independent Trading Co so it was bound to be kosher.  The same furniture on the internet was around 30% more expensive.  The real plus point was that we got to choose the best items from the van.  If we had shopped on the internet or local garden centre we would have had to accept whatever furniture that was delivered.  We haven’t had a visit from the boys in blue……..and the furniture is still in the garage …….so all seems well for now.

Double Vision

Piotr the pheasant is now a regular feature in the garden.  Neil is trying to get him as tame as Phileas who last year was ‘outfoxed’.  He is able to get to within a couple of feet as Piotr pecks away at his food.  Hopefully, he’ll get him feeding from his hand before the summer is over.

Surprise!  We spotted two pheasants together so not only do we have Piotr we also now have, most days, Rufus the Red. 

It wasn’t until Rufus arrived that we realised that Piotr has got quite a lot of beige/brown especially on his wings.  Rufus’s redder colour is spectacular, especially when it glistens in the sunlight, he is bigger and it appears that he is the dominant one although we haven’t seen them fight.  Piotr roosts next door in the top of the conifers but we’re not sure where Rufus spends the night.  One day Piotr wasn’t anywhere to be seen and when Rufus couldn’t find him he was frantically pacing up and down the garden looking for Piotr like an expectant father.  We don’t really understand their relationship yet as we thought males were territorial, but these are probably juveniles and seem to tolerate each other quite well.  Let’s see what happens when the mating season starts and hormones start to kick in. 

Renovation Update Part 2

Not really a great deal more to report as work had to be put on hold while we isolated.  Jason finished off his excellent job on the tiling and we rebooked the floor fitting in the bathroom.  Matt the plumb returned at the end of the month for second fix for the bathroom and to connect up the utility sink.  All was going well until we hit a snag with the toilet in the bathroom in that the pan connector will not stay on.  We think it’s a design fault, as he had no problem with the other 2 he fitted, but this one is a different model.  We have to wait until the technical team at the supplier come back to us. 

On the positive side, Matt had enough time to strip out the old wc and sink in the downstairs cloakroom so we can get started on that one when we have time.  That’s of course when we finish the hallway we have been putting off.  We ordered enough tiles for the upstairs bathrooms to allow for wastage during fitting and managed to blag a couple of extra boxes of tiles because some of them were broken on delivery.  Jason managed to use virtually all of the broken ones where half tiles were needed, and he didn’t break any more so the upside is that we should have enough to do the downstairs cloakroom.  We’re now waiting for the first bad day when he can’t work outside.  We’re really pleased with our choice of bathroom flooring and we’ll probably put that into the downstairs loo.

We’re so pleased with the way it all looks so far and hopefully we can get these rooms finally completed next month and share pictures with all fixtures in place and the finishing touches like blinds, lights & mirrors.

Neil has been testing out the plumbing in the ensuite (details omitted for the faint hearted).  It was all going well until he broke the bad news that he had spotted that the top of the wall behind the bed in bedroom 2 had a large and growing damp patch – b*gger!  We seem to have a new problem as we think its to the side of the old chimney, and it could be the explanation why that particular part of the wall took so long to dry out when it was replastered.  We will have to get Stacy back to investigate.

Reasons to be cheerful

1 – We didn’t get Covid!

2 – Probably the best news we’ve had in months is the arrival of the vaccine.  The rollout is going really well in Devon, and we are lucky to have a local vaccination centre in the old Seaton Hospital site, as well as 2 mass vaccination sites within a 25 min drive.  Neil should get it around March and Cheryl a month or two after.  The UK is well ahead of the rest of Europe because the ‘Gnomes of Brussels’ took several weeks longer than us to place their orders and longer to approve the vaccines.  Well done UK!

3 – On the back of the good news on vaccinations and in a moment of unbridled optimism & recklessness we’ve booked flights!  We’re heading to Goa, we hope, for what should be a massive reunion with our friends to celebrate New Year 2022.  Hurrah!

A very quiet Christmas and New Year thanks to that pesky Covid……Bah Humbug!

December began with the return of The Destroyer, but this time the action was in the garden. Mark brought his chainsaw and he and Neil got to work taking down some hideous conifers at the back of the garden adjacent to the vegetable patch and fruit cage.  In tribute to the late Dame Barbara Windsor, Cheryl didn’t miss the opportunity to ask Mark to trim her bush at the front which was also getting a bit overgrown…..tee heee!!

It was whilst Neil and Mark were bringing down the trees that Neil noticed half a dozen raspberries on the canes.  They were small and a tad sharp but, hey, raspberries in December?  Our tomatoes continue to amaze us.  Our Christmas Day breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled egg also included the last of our greenhouse tomatoes.  It just seems unreal to be picking tomatoes in December.

A still evening was all that was needed to burn all the debris and the weather was very obliging. Just as well as there was another batch of felling and burning to do at the end of the month.

It’s Christmas……but not as we know it

It was becoming clear that things may not be as we would have hoped for owing to the rising number of Covid cases. We set our expectations at low so were not devastated when the inevitable announcement was made. We decided from the start of December that we would try and celebrate as best we could so the tree was up and decorated and lights strung up in all the windows.

As we’ve reported before, we’ve been having regular takeaways in an effort to support local eateries.   We extended our shopping to the lovely Hideaway Café on the West End of the Esplanade.  It’s a delightful place serving quality cakes and light meals using locally sourced ingredients.  It’s become a favourite place for a treat including one of Neil’s travelling favourites, proper Vietnamese Coffee served with condensed milk.  It sits at the very end of the promenade with glorious views across the bay.  They have had limited opening recently using the outside seating which is of course very weather dependant.  However, businesses continue to be innovative through this crisis and they carried out a baking frenzy and advertised boxes of takeaway mince pies with clotted cream and Christmas cake. 

We ordered a box of pies and half a Christmas cake but even that weighed over 1Kg!  We ate one pie each straightaway, just to sample the quality of course, and Cheryl immediately messaged them to order some more.  There are mince pies and there are  mince pies but these are the mince pies to die for.  The cake is equally delicious and the added bonus is that it doesn’t have icing which neither of us like. Just take a look at the picture, delicious it is but it’s also a work of art.

Neil also managed to get some quality time with Paul, Miranda and the grandson that he so misses.  A couple of weeks before Christmas he met them at Stourhead National Trust Property for the Christmas garden light show.  They had met Miranda’s father during the afternoon for an outdoor Christmas get together as Simon was taking no risks having been in hospital earlier in the year.  It was great to see everyone and the light show, despite the very damp weather, was excellent.

A week before Christmas we took the twilight Christmas Tram special with Diane and Glyn for a socially distanced journey to Colyton.  On the outward tram Glyn produced a flask containing mulled wine – perfect as it was quite cold.  On arrival we had a Christmas dinner in the platform cafe including another glass of mulled wine and a full bottle of red wine which by now we really didn’t need!  The journey home was on an open top tram which was very cold but not a problem, Glyn pulled another rabbit out of his backpack, single malt whisky and a bottle of port. We were no longer cold!

On Christmas Eve the day’s weather was forecast to be cold but dry and sunny.  ‘BBQ’! Neil said.  So after several text messages it was agreed that Bob and Sheila and Paul and Maureen from across the road would join us on the terrace for a socially distanced get together of mulled wine, beers, gin and Ron’s festive BBQ sausages followed by Sheila’s homemade mince pies and clotted cream.  Yes it was cold but once we got a good fire going in the BBQ we sat out until dusk.  What a great way to start Christmas.

Like most of the world Christmas Day was celebrated in a most unusual way.  We’re normally surrounded by friends and/or family but this year, for the first time ever, it was just the two of us. 

We were treated to a stunning Christmas morning sunrise and we had breakfast in bed.  With no itinerary to meet we didn’t get up until it was time to start cooking lunch.  The small turkey crown was put in the oven and the vegetables prepared including the double cooked roast potatoes. 

Then it was time for Neil to grab his first beer and head to the study for his regular private time to sit and remember his mum and dad.  He watched the family video put together from his dad’s cine film going back to the mid-sixties.  It also included family photos and it reminded him just how lucky he and his siblings had been to have grown up with such devoted parents.   

We had decided on an early traditional lunch of turkey and Christmas pud to give us time for a long walk to help counter the excess calories. 

It was a beautiful day and the walk took us through the lanes to Seaton Hole and along the beach to Axmouth Harbour.  Then it was back along the promenade before dark where we bumped into our favourite singing builder Stacy walking his dog.  Once home, we poured a beer and sat down and watched The Queen’s Speech plus the Channel 4 spoof speech. 

Like many others, we connected with our family using facetime and zoom which wasn’t the same as being together, but we are hopeful that normality will resume next year.  Supper was delicious sourdough bread with a selection of cheeses washed down by most of a bottle of port.  We slept well.

Boxing Day was very similar, lazy, breakfast, light lunch after yesterday’s blow out followed by an even longer walk along the prom and up over the golf course.  As the club was closed we were able to walk across the course right to the cliff edge to see some great views of Seaton, the mouth of the river and the harbour and a striking sunset.  Just how lucky are we. 

Renovation Update

Work continued through the month as, let’s face it, we don’t have a lot else to do with our time! The rather grotty looking utility room that we inherited got it’s first makeover when Paul the plasterer came in to give the messy walls it a bit of a tart up.  It took a while to dry but as soon as we put a coat of paint on it was just a different room altogether.  It is amazing what a skim of plaster and a lick of paint can do.  Cheryl started to paint the grim green floor with a more appropriate grey which will be finished after the cabinets have been installed in the new year.

We finished the preparation of bedroom 2 and the bathrooms in readiness for Stacy and Co. to come in to complete the remaining woodwork and start the tiling.  Things were moving fast and after 3 days of action the ensuite was tiled just in time for the bedroom carpet and ensuite floor to be laid before the flooring business closed for Christmas. 

Matt the plumb arrived the following day and fitted the sanitary ware, shower screen and radiator.  We are very pleased with the finished product and even Stacy came to take a peek after his brother Jason had told him how good it looked.  It was a rush at the end but we would have been ready for visitors for Christmas after all if we had been allowed to have them………….apart from a few finishing touches like having a door on the ensuite!!

Jason the tiler then started on the family bathroom before the Christmas holiday took over and all the renovations were put on hold until 2021.  We did actually enjoy the break from sandin’ ‘n paintin’ which by now were becoming a chore rather than ‘wow’ what a difference, that looks great.

The Christmas celebrations continued on the 27^th with a journey to Weston-Super-Mare to meet up with Paul, Miranda and a very chatty grandson.  We chose Weston as it’s a similar journey time for both of us and the beach offers endless excitement for a toddler, an enormous sandy beach for Lexy the dog to run on and what does Weston also mean? – fish ‘n chips!  It was cold, windy and showery so we ended up munching our lunch in the shelter of the bus stop – not the most romantic of settings but well within the current guidelines. 

The weather didn’t spoil the day and we had a great time playing with the incoming tide, getting wet feet and only had to pick up grandson twice following the inevitable stumbles into the sea as he tripped up trying to outrun the tide. He learned an important lesson that day – wellies don’t keep your feet dry when you are face down and lying in the water!

The next few days were taken up by a much neglected garden.  The renovation had meant that we didn’t do as much in the garden as we really should have.  So, with relatively cold and dry weather we got stuck into the several mounds of chippings that had quietly been composting after we chopped down all the trees in February.  It was very satisfying to see our piles disappear whilst getting some good all round exercise.  

A still evening meant we were able to burn yet another pile of trees and shrubs that had been chopped down a couple of weeks ago. It was a difficult task as the piles were a bit soggy and Neil finally came inside more than three hours later. Next morning he found that despite the freezing overnight temperatures the remnants of the last pile were still smouldering. 48hrs later, New Years Day, the fire was still hot and gently smoking. Neil is no longer The Destroyer, he is now Twisted Firestarter!

As with Christmas Day, bringing in the New Year was very different.  There was no dancing on the beach until the early hours, watching the fireworks and generally having a good time.  For us it was a quiet night in, some good food delivered from Indian Restaurant Ragini and fine wine. Neil was in bed before midnight and Cheryl just about stayed awake to greet the New Year.  Are we rock ‘n roll or what!

Reasons to be Cheerful

What a year it has been.  Probably not the one that anyone could have predicted but one that will certainly leave its mark.  We planned to have a different year in as much as we weren’t going to live our normal nomadic lifestyle.  If ever there was a perfect time to decide to settle down and buy a house, this was it.  But as we have said on a number of occasions, ‘lucky’ is Neil’s middle name. 

We have been busy counting our blessings, and for us they are many.  We have lost friends this year, and we know that some have been very ill, but we hope that everyone has made the best of what this year has thrown at them and is looking forward to a much better and brighter 2021.  

Life in lockdown 2, steady progress on the renovation, more deliveries & Neil burns his piles in the garden.

Like most people we weren’t happy about the prospect of another lockdown, but, if that’s what it takes to control this virus then let’s just get on with it.  It was frustrating to put the already limited socialising on hold but as the month progressed we could see that even here in East Devon our case numbers were rising at quite an alarming rate.

We continue to support the local businesses who deliver, so the hardship has been relieved by regular packages of sourdough bread & delicious Indian food and Tapas.

It wasn’t all gloom as we had the exciting delivery of our dining table and more furniture for the living room.  The two delivery guys really struggled to carry the table top up the steps and through the front door.  ‘How heavy is it?’ asked Neil.  ‘Over 100kg’ said one of the delivery men as he breathed very heavily.  It’s solid oak and 10ft long and it fits into the room perfectly. 

November 4^th brought our first winter frost, it also saw us picking our last comice pears, boo hiss, which is really sad as they were so tasty.  We’re still picking tumbling tom tomatoes from the greenhouse – these plants are amazing as all the other tomato varieties died off a while ago.  November 5^th, Guy Fawkes Night, was an opportunity for Neil to burn masses of shrubbery from the garden without allowing some of the neighbours an opportunity to moan about the smoke.  We try to shred & compost as much as possible but the amount of cutting back we need to do is huge given both the size of the garden and the extent it has been allowed to grow unchecked. 

Renovation Update

This is the first time we have tackled bathrooms from scratch and it’s a complicated process as so much has to happen at different stages. 

It’s been a busy month starting with stripping out tiles and the remaining wallpaper before Stacy & Jake arrived to construct the studwork for the ensuite and the bathroom extension.  Each one has been designed to fit snugly around the shower trays and each has a built in recess for toiletries.  Stacy calls them ‘Nitchees’ and this is now their official name.

Bathroom fixtures were ordered and delivered and as this is typed we are surrounded by boxes of sinks, rads, toilets, tiles and shower screens. 

We got a great trade deal and decided to also replace the very cheap wc we had to fit in the separate toilet back in February when the old one was damaged.  This meant another visit from our friendly farmer bearing more gifts of cider and joints of pork for the freezer to trade for our surplus wc.  We’re getting to like this bartering, although Neil had to go steady with the scrumpy as it was extremely strong stuff.

Next in was Matt the Plumb to disconnect the old shower for re use in the ensuite, put in first fix pipework for taps, wastes and radiators and take out a lot of excess plumbing from under the floorboards.  Then it was Dave the Spark who  dropped in cables for the shower, shaver sockets & lights above the sinks.

Despite planning for ages we completely forgot that the change of shape for bedroom 2 meant the centre light wasn’t central anymore – oops!  Never mind we will take out the old one and  Dave can sort that later.

The following week Paul AKA ‘Arnie’ was back with his brother Tony to put up the plasterboard, fill in any holes and get on with the really messy plastering stage.  The dust gets everywhere, which is a great excuse not to bother dusting for the entire month.

There was another visit from Matt to fit the shower trays and bath and for Neil to construct a framework for the shelf at the end of the bath.

We had a week off while waiting for the plaster to dry out then it was painting next for us, yes, that’s right, more bloody painting.  Drippy, splattery mist coats first, then yes, you’ve guessed it, out came the white paint again.  We’ve also had one patch in bedroom 2 where the plaster is taking ages to dry out for no obvious reason – hopefully there isn’t an underlying problem we haven’t uncovered yet.  Another factor limiting progress was due to our screw up over the position of the centre light in bedroom 2 we could only paint in daylight.

Stacy returned to complete the exterior pipework as the old cast iron needed replacing.  The building control officer came to inspect and was happy with the new arrangements and just asked for pictures of the finished bathrooms to get sign off.

Dave came back to put in the light to bed 2 and en-suite and fit ceiling extract fans.

Finally, Matt returned to replace the radiator, remove some old radiator pipes we forgot about under the window, and check final placings for the sanitary ware.  It was crucial to get this right as we need to get the floors down and finished before the final fix. We can really see the vision for the rooms coming together and It’s amazing how quickly things progress when you get the timing right.

We’ve pencilled in the floor fitting and Matt’s final visit but all rests on getting Jake the Chip and Jason the Tile to come in early next month.  Hopefully we can get it all done before all Tradies stop for Xmas on 18^th December.

Surprise Surprise

We did have some time off!  November 26^th brought us to Cheryl’s birthday.  She was a bit miffed when lockdown 2 was announced as this meant we couldn’t do anything as everything was closed.  Neil had planned a day of enjoyment only to see it kicked into touch by the damned virus.  He had a plan B and that got torpedoed and even plan C was scuppered.  Neil was beginning to think that Covid was smarter than everybody thought.  If it couldn’t get to him to make him ill it would get to him to make him sick as a parrot.

Whilst it was very frustrating for Neil to begin with it all turned out well and we had a great day.  He delivered Cheryl’s favourite breakfast, smoked salmon and scrambled egg, to her in bed.  Neil’s not normally known for his artistic abilities but his home made card was impressive, and made good use of all that white paint. There was a secret delivery of flowers by post from Alex & Freddy then Lunch was a special surprise delivery of our favourite sourdough baguette for a cheese fest lunch.  This was followed by a long walk to Beer with the stunning sunset on the way back. 

Another surprise was a brief visit from Diane & Glynn to drop off a card, flowers & chocs.  Then finally another special surprise home delivery of tapas from our favourite restaurant for dinner. Of course there was the odd glass of alcofroll to wash down the cheese and tapas. 

So, a washout day became a brill day with the icing on the non-existent cake (you can’t eat everything even if it is your birthday – something has to give) of video calls from all three children and our favourite grandson who wished ‘Happy Birthday Nana’, yes true he did, just once but hey, not bad for someone who is only just over 2.

Next morning there was yet another surprise and a mystery.  A card arrived with no message at all in it.  First thoughts was that this was Leanne’s card which hadn’t arrived yesterday.  No that wasn’t it as she also ordered Belgian Chocolates to go with it and they were both found left in the porch.  A secret admirer maybe?  No, Cheryl eventually tracked it down to June who completely forgot to put a message in!

Reasons to be cheerful

1  We lit the log burner for the first time in the living room – and Neil didn’t burn the place down!

2  Piotr Pheasant returned to the garden

3  Amazing sunsets and sunrises over the sea

We gave up ‘normal’ life to go travelling back in October 2008.  We’re usually on a plane by now heading off for fun and adventure far away from the prospect of a chilly British winter.  While we were away last year, way before the pandemic hijacked everyone’s ‘normal’, we had decided we weren’t going to go away this month, as we usually did, as we wanted to experience a full year in our new house and town.

It’s strange that even though we planned to not go away this month, the fact that it’s not possible is really bugging us!!

Here we are at the start of chapter 13 and Covid is still with us in a big way.  Perhaps this is our new normal as we are about to enter another lockdown.  Vast swathes of the North of England have already been under tighter restrictions for a while whilst here in Seaton we’ve continued to enjoy very low infection rates.  When we see young people on the TV partying on the streets of Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham without masks or any social distancing we have little sympathy.  You reap what you sow but it’s just a pity that the minority of idiots have now forced the whole of the UK into lockdown even where the new cases are very few or even zero in some places.

We weren’t going to abandon all our travelling but as Covid has dictated that we won’t be getting on a plane for the foreseeable future, one of our first tasks of the month was to cancel our flight to Mexico which was booked for January 8^th next year.  That also means no rendezvous with friends Tim and Sandra for a tequila or two before they leave after their trip.  They have just heard that their upcoming flight has been cancelled.  There is no way we’re getting on a plane for 10 hours to wear a mask with the added risk of travelling through airports at both ends and breathing possibly infected air on a plane.  Planes are definitely off the menu!

Feeling sad about not travelling inspired Neil to contact our friends in Goa to find out how life is for them and for the village of Benaulim which had become our winter home.  We’ve developed some strong friendships over the past few years with both fellow travellers, locals and the people who work in hospitality out there.  It was during the money crisis in November 2016 when we were overwhelmed by the generosity of the Indian people.  No one could get hold of cash but the staff just said, ‘’come in, eat and don’t worry, you can pay us when you can’’.

We got a lengthy reply from Bee and Dave and also our favourite young shack owner Alton.  Life in Benaulim is going to be very different this season with very few western tourists and, possibly, a limited number of domestic tourists.  It’s looking like a very tough year for all those who rely on tourism for a living, especially the majority of workers who travel to Goa from the North and Nepal.

Life in a Southern Town

October began wet ‘n windy and went out with a big hoolie, winds of 60mph and buckets of rain.  Still, by UK standards it was warm rain.  The wet weather along with mild temperatures gave us some beautiful Autumn flowers in the garden and stunning colours in the trees.  Yup, the garden just keeps on giving and not just colour.  At the start of the month we had delicious Cox’s apples followed by a big crop of conference pears.  We’ve picked our last cucumber but there are still some tomatoes to come. 

Whilst on the boat last month we picked lots of sloes and made several bottles of sloe gin.  These have been stored in the pantry along with the several bottles and jars of raspberry gin, redcurrant gin, gooseberry gin and blackcurrant gin that we made from the surplus soft fruit in June.  Christmas and New Year, in whatever format they come, are likely to be something of a blur!

We’re getting used to our new normal in Seaton.  We’ve got a recently opened fruit and veg shop called Squirrel and £5 gets you two very large paper bags of assorted Devon grown seasonal vegetables.  Another local small business that we have started to use is Hand to Mouth.  It’s a small time enterprise run by a young couple who only bake twice a week.  Many of the local restaurants get their bread from them and we’ve now got ourselves on the delivery list.  £2.50 gets you the most delicious sourdough loaf that is highly dangerous – it’s like a tube of Pringles, once you start you can’t stop!

With Covid infection rates very low here we decided to try and eat out once a week.  Our first outing was to our local Tapas place, The Caper.  We last ate there on the evening that lock down was announced back in March.  We had a good chat with the owner who was pretty upbeat in the circumstances and had even sourced another former café unit opposite where she plans to expand when things get back to normal.  Half term week was obviously different as there were a lot of tourists here so we decided on our first Chinese takeaway in years with Diane and Glyn. 

Paul and Maureen from directly opposite came round for drinks and a ‘get to know them’ chat.  They moved in around the same time we did and they too have been busy on changes.  It’s a relatively modern house but it was poorly built meaning that, like us, they discovered things they hadn’t envisaged due to poor workmanship rather than old age. 

Bob from a little down the lane happened to ask Neil if he played snooker.  Neil said ‘yes, badly and not for more than 20 years’!  So off they went to the  village hall in Branscombe and enjoyed a few hours playing snooker.  They’ve introduced Mike from next door and Don who lives next door to Bob.   The Four Snookerteers agreed to go every Tuesday night, government restrictions permitting, for snooker, beers, laughs and the opportunity to rectify the world’s problems.   

Demolition Man

Phase 2 of the renovation is now officially underway.  Starting with decorating and adding an en-suite to bedroom 2 and a much enlarged and improved family bathroom.  The existing main bathroom contains a yellow bath which doesn’t match the huge shower and the tiny curved sink unit. There’s also a separate toilet in a fetching shade of pink. We spent days, not hours, but days, planning the layout, taking measurements and even as Neil types this on the 30^th of the month Cheryl distracts him with yet another design change for him to stew on….ho hum! 

We also spent days, not hours, but days trying to source the suites.  However, it all paid off as we managed to save more than 30% by switching sinks and baths, checking shower trays and screens and Cheryl getting a trade account and using her charm on her newly acquired account manager at VictoriaPlum.  

The destroyer was back and spent a week removing the shower cubicle, basin and radiator, destroying the old bathroom stud walls, smashing up a cast iron bath and hacking the tiles off the wall…..so satisfying.  We try not to trash anything which could be re-used and managed to sell the small sink & vanity unit and swap the shower enclosure for a joint of free range pork.  Unfortunately the bath was just too difficult to shift, we think it weighed well over 100kg, and so it had to be collected for scrap.

Cheryl tackled the remaining bedroom and spent several days steaming off the layers of wallpaper.  There were two signatures this time, but sadly not legible.  We think one was probably Tim Moulding again as it was dated 1957, which was the same time as his signature in the back bedroom.  The other message told us it took 8 rolls of paper in 1981 so you could say that it‘s about time it was redecorated!  Sadly we will be the last ones to see these little messages from the past as the walls aren’t in great condition so the whole room will be replastered before we can paint.

We’ve also moved on from using graph paper and cut out shapes for planning.  We’re now on real size mock ups to make sure we have allowed enough space for everything including allowing doors to open. 

Before you start thinking they’ve gone mad – no we aren’t planning to have a suitcase in the bathroom! The sanitaryware won’t arrive until next week so we used cardboard templates and various props to get an idea of sizes.  Did you know there are recommended acceptable standards for space requirements for toilets, sinks and baths?  For those of you as sad as us or are looking for something to do during lockdown you can look these up.

The house is starting to look at lot more cosy as the new furniture is starting to arrive.  We weren’t expecting anything until next month but the corner sofa was ready and delivered at the end of the month.  Regular readers will know that we took a long time to decide on the colour of the sofas and finally decided on something rather bold that would hide red wine stains!  Make sense?  We held our breath as they started to unpack.  If we got it wrong it was going to be a massively expensive mistake that we would have to live with for the next 20 years.  Result, we love it, it works fantastic in the room and we’re really pleased…..phew!

Reasons to be Cheerful

1 – We’ve finished planning and have started phase 2 of the renovations

2 – One of the sofas arrived early and we love it

3 – We spotted a pheasant in the garden.  He spent the afternoon exploring and found the seeds we put out for him.  The following day he was next door visiting Mike.  We’ve got our fingers crossed that he will return.

Stay Safe and see you on the other side of lockdown 2.

Shopping on a grand scale and getting away for a break on a boat.

September started with an interview for Cheryl.  No, not a job, but to become a co-opted Town Councillor.  It’s a long story but in essence she decided to stop criticising some of the things happening in the town and do something about it.  The council recently advertised that they were looking to fill a few vacancies so she applied and after a giving a short presentation on Zoom followed by a few questions she was duly elected next day.  So now instead of slopping up her morning cuppa in bed Neil has to tug the forelock he doesn’t have and say ‘your tea m’ lady’.  Ha, that won’t last!

Not much happened on the renovation front this month.  We’re still reluctant to get started on the next major phase so stuck with simple jobs. We had some minor window repairs and got Jake in to fit the internal doors downstairs.  After not having had any for several months it seems a bit strange although we still don’t tend to close them as it’s still warm.  We’ll really know the difference when it gets cold and we have the heating on. 

We’ve also put up a few more curtains and blinds and have almost finalised the designs for the en-suite to bedroom 2 and the family bathroom.  Cheryl had fun with graph paper and cut out shapes for the various option sizes for sinks, baths, showers and toilets as we decided on one layout then promptly trashed it for another bright idea. We’ve been round and around in designs so many times that we’re dizzy!

As the title suggests we’ve been spending again.  This time on the big items – sofas for the living room, a large dining table and chairs plus TV table and coffee tables.  This turned out to be surprisingly difficult for us to do. There are lots available to look at online but we wanted to actually sit and touch to help us decide.  Judging colours online is hit and miss, and we probably hold the record in returning the most packages to Dunelms, Argos & Next when it came to choosing the curtains.

Big items of furniture come with a hefty price tag so we didn’t want to mess up. We decided to take our time and ordered sample after sample as we dithered with neutral shades – who knew there could be so many greys, beiges, grey-beiges and beigey-greys? Eventually, inspired by our favourite prints and the fact we have chosen neutral walls and carpets we went for a bold colour. Then of course we found that size does matter – and the final layout of the furniture balanced by the features of the rooms. That narrowed down the choices as we worked out what could fit and where it was likely to go.

The time arrived to get to the shops and have what Cheryl calls ‘a poke and a prod’. Most retailers have very few on display and that’s assuming you can find a shop big enough to even have a display. Hmmm, maybe a move to the back of beyond does have it’s limitations? We had a couple of big days out in Exeter but really struggled. We didn’t like DFS and the other big chains, we also tried local suppliers but finding a comfortable sofa isn’t that easy.  Even Next don’t display everything they sell.  We wanted to try a new design but when we asked where the nearest one was that was on display we were told ‘Dagenham’! 

We’ve finally settled on sofas we know we’re going to like because both Leanne and Paul have the same model. We’ve also gone for solid oak for the other furniture but you will have to wait a while to see it all as it won’t be delivered for a few weeks. 

Three on a boat – again!

Our 2 weeks on the narrow boat was looming at the middle of the month and Alex & Freddy were only too keen to escape London again and come and house sit.  They arrived just before we left and they’ll stay for a week.  Paul, Miranda and numero uno will come and stay for the second week for a well deserved holiday. 

Our boat trip this year was to be from a marina near to Lichfield in Staffordshire.  We’ve joined forces with Gail again so we’re in for a relaxing time, lots of laughs and probably a little too much drinking.  On the way up we dropped in on June and Roy before shopping for the trip. 

After the abysmal weather of last years trip, in June, we set off in mid-September in glorious sunshine and over 20C.  Could it last we kept asking, the forecast says so for at least a week and so it was.  Just one day of heavy rain followed by a few days of windy but dry chilly weather.  By the time we had finished at the end of September we had one of our best trips weather wise. 

Our journey took us from a new marina, Kings Orchard near Lichfield, south along The Coventry Canal through Tamworth and Nuneaton but most of the trip was rural.  Rural worked for us as we were between Birmingham and Leicester which are two of the major conurbations under severe lock down rules due to Covid. Our boat this year was new to the Canal Boat Club and had the unusual name of ‘Fig Parrot’. Yes, there is such a thing – look it up!

Social distancing is pretty easy aboard a narrow boat and even at locks it’s very easy to stay 2m apart even if other parties forget the recommendations.  We had planned our trip around mostly rural areas to keep us away from people as much as possible and within our Covid bubble of 3 we were destined to be as safe as we could possibly be. 

Gail and Cheryl were chatting to a live-aboard boater at one of the locks and she suggested we take a 2 day detour to visit The Ashby Canal.  We did and we were rewarded with a very quiet and very pretty canal.  It was also, lucky for us, home to a very rare and endangered species, the Water Vole.  One morning, as we drank tea in bed, Neil noticed one on the opposite bank tucking into some crab apples. 

The picture is a little blurred but we were so excited to see a pair carrying on with their lives unperturbed.  The access and exit from The Coventry were both sharp and tight and Neil was smug with himself as he did both without touching the sides.   

Back onto The Coventry we took a sharp left on to The Oxford Canal.  Actually, rather than a sharp left it was a very difficult U-turn but yet again Neil managed it well.  This took us through rural areas to Rugby and down to Braunston and The Grand Union Canal.  We turned left to go through the Braunston Locks and the 2km Braunston tunnel before taking another left along The Leicester section to our final destination, the flight of locks at Foxton. 

We’ve been through this flight of locks before but it’s an amazing feat of engineering with two sets of five staircase locks and one passing place in the centre. The dramatic locks and surrounding scenery are quite beautiful.  The plan was to go through one day, moor for the night, and return next day as it usually takes a while as its only one boat up and one boat down at a time.  It was so unbelievably quiet that we decided go through, do a swift 180deg turn and head back up and moor somewhere a little quieter.  The lock keeper volunteers thought we were mad as we could have just turned around at the top. We love the locks and Foxton is one of the best so down and back up it had to be for us.

Sadly this was the first and only time we got flack from someone when Cheryl asked to be given 2m when she was trying to operate a lock.  As we said, Foxton is very pretty and draws lots of day trippers.  One particular individual, let’s call him Covidiot so as not to be un-PC, was less than polite when asked to move away from the lock gate arm.  He did move but not without protest.

The return trip is always interesting as you see things from a totally different angle and often see things you missed before.  You also get to see some of the weirdest things on canals, like tyre art, The Stig and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs……and why not?!  All in all, 2 weeks cruising in pretty good weather for the time of year was great fun and, as usual, we consumed far too much food, wine, gin and beer (that’ll be Neil then!). 

Back into the car on Sunday for the 3hr drive home to spend a few hours with Miranda, Paul and grandson before they left for the drive home to Bristol.  It appears that they, like Alex and Freddy, had a good time enjoying the delights of Seaton and free accommodation, free that is apart from the odd gardening chore.

September is over, the leaves are turning brown as Autumn approaches and we head for our fist full winter in the UK for more than 12 years.  That’ll be the next instalment, Chapter 13, yet another new phase to our blog.

Time for a well earned break from renovating the house.  With many countries now going through a second wave of Covid we had our own wave – not Covid but people, a series of visitors planned over several weeks.   

Alex and Freddy were first in line.  Having been cooped up in London for months they couldn’t wait to visit and spend a few days by the sea, out walking and enjoying Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s invitation to eat out and save £10/head care of the government.   The weather was excellent and Alex even managed a dip in the sea but it didn’t last long…..mad!!   It was great to have them visit, especially mum who was missing Alex a lot, and the meal we had in the garden of The Ship Inn at Axmouth was very good.  Thanks Rishi!

Alex also brought us lots of goodies.  They have moved out of their home in London so that the builders could move in and, basically, rebuild the house with a new extension, rooms and kitchen.  This meant that most of their belongings had to go into storage so Alex suggested that his smart TV, several smart speakers, coffee maker and lots of other stuff could be better used by us rather than sat in a storage container.  We like ‘free’ and so now we have wall to wall sound, the smell of fresh coffee, champagne flutes and even some espresso cups to go with the coffee maker.  Thank you lads, we very much appreciate them.

In between visitors we still did the odd few jobs about the place especially in the garden plus looking into buying furniture for the living room and dining room.  The furniture arrived for the bedroom so we spent a few days putting it all together and are getting used to having another complete room to enjoy.  We also finally said goodbye to the caravan which was collected from the storage compound and shipped off to a new home in Spain. 

The following weekend we had more visitors from London, this time Neil’s brother Bill, and wife Sue, plus children and grandchildren – Kate and Scott with Maisy and Jack and Sarah with Evie.  Bill managed a paddle but decided that swimming was out of the question…..smart boy!  The kids on the other hand couldn’t stay out and thoroughly enjoyed playing around in the shallows.  It was just a flying visit as they were on their way to Tavistock for a weeks holiday but it was perfect to have a house full, all bedrooms occupied, kids running around the house and garden and beautiful weather to sit outside and BBQ, eat cream teas and drink cold beer.

No sooner had they all left it was time to plan for June and Roy to visit later that week.  The weather held and we ate our meals outside, went walking, enjoyed more food at The Ship and just generally hung out and chatted as we hadn’t seen them since December.

Now, why Perfect Day do you ask?  The Sunday of June and Roy’s visit was also Neil’s birthday.  Leanne had said that she would be coming down for a day or so which was fantastic news as we hadn’t seen her since February.  Neil had always hoped that he would see Paul, Miranda and our very first grandson too but they had to maintain strict Covid rules for several reasons so, realistically, he didn’t think it was going to happen. 

Unknown to Neil, about a week before his birthday Miranda contacted Cheryl about springing a surprise.  Leanne was also involved in the myriad of messages and calls that took place behind Neil’s back – he hadn’t got a clue that his wife of just 2 years was plotting!  June and Roy were also in on the subterfuge and almost gave the game away on a couple of occasions – yet again Neil didn’t put two and two together.

In the build up to his big day Neil was trying to put things together so that they could ‘do something’ after Leanne arrived.  ‘Let’s go to The Ship for lunch’, ‘let’s go on the tram and have lunch in Colyton’ and so it went on.   Cheryl was less than enthusiastic, June suggested that they should all just ‘hang out and have a BBQ’ as we had all got lots to talk about.  Once again, Neil didn’t smell a rat.

The day before, Miranda threw a curved ball and suggested a facetime chat sometime during the day to coincide with the eating, sleeping and playing routine.  Even on the day when Cheryl got a very large amount of lamb chops, burgers, sausages and chicken skewers ready for the BBQ he still didn’t suspect there would be extra mouths to cater for. 

After trying to be patient Neil was beginning to get edgy as Leanne was very late.  A secret prompt by Cheryl triggered a message from her that the motorway was very busy with ‘bloody caravans’.  Yet again, Neil proved what a loser he really is and why he didn’t become a detective – defective maybe!

Eventually a car finally came up the drive.  ‘Leanne’s got a new car’ said Neil.  Then he saw the registration as the car arrived at the back of the house.  ‘That’s Paul’s car!’ said Neil. 

Then it was out of the bag, actually out of the car, as Paul, Leanne, Miranda and our pride and joy emerged from the car.  We hadn’t seen them since December and Neil had always been worried that as it had been so long number one grandson might not be quite so receptive to this strange man.  He needn’t have worried as, albeit a bit overwhelmed by the occasion, he was happy to be whisked up into Neil’s arms.  Neil just filled up.

We had a great day, showing the family the house, opening a beer or two or was it more?  The BBQ went well and all the extra meat Cheryl had produced was consumed along with some that Miranda brought.  Then we ate cake…..mmmmm……yummy…….thanks Leanne.  Finally, we played croquet in the garden for the first time since we moved in.  It was the Perfect Day.

Well, we thought we’d spent a lot of time sanding and painting at the end of last month.  Think on!  This month has been torture, 8 hours a day 7 days a week of more of the same.  Worth it?  You bet.

We needed to vacate our bedroom for the works to continue so we managed to squeeze ourselves into bedroom 2 along with all the furniture from all the bedrooms. Chests of drawers, dining room chairs, spare beds stacked up, mattresses and pictures and mirrors.  You can see from the picture of Cheryl drinking her morning cuppa that we were literally climbing into bed.  However, it was for only 3 weeks and helped us make monumental progress this month. 

It started with Paul finishing off most of the plastering in the dining room, hall and in our bedroom.  We discovered more names written on the walls but not clear enough to be able to make out who it was but one was definitely dated 1957.  Cheryl stripped the wallpaper off the wall between our bedroom and the ensuite to reveal that there was an archway there many moons ago.  This was probably when the house was split into two apartments but we’ve given up trying to understand things in the house.  The stripping was going really well until one wall revealed the dreaded many layers of painted wallpaper lurking beneath the top layer……aaarghhh!  2 days later it was gone.

Then Climax windows arrived with our French Doors and proceeded to install them.  It took a few days but Andy the builder made very little mess and they now look great.  The area just outside is a real suntrap early in the evening so we’ve been making a lot of use out of the new doors.  

Afterwards Stacy arrived to remove and brick up the old door and he also brought Jake the chippy who started to install skirting and architrave to those naked areas.   Finally Paul returned to make good and plaster the wall in the living room.  Wow, we have a living room again.

This house has been through many iterations which means that the profiles of the woodwork vary.  In one case, the bullnose skirting in the kitchen varies from about 3’’ to 6’’.  Jake installed 3’’ to match the skirting in the pantry area but Cheryl decided it should match the opposite wall near to the door from the hallway.  ‘No problem’ said Jake, ‘I’ll get some tomorrow morning and fit it’.  So, next morning he wrenched off the low profile skirting only to get showered.  The day before, and without knowing it, he’d nailed up the skirting and put a nail through a hot water pipe.  It wasn’t his fault there was a pipe in the wall but we think his pride was hurt.  In hindsight, it was probably a good idea for Cheryl to want it changed as we would never had known until the pipe slowly began to leak, possibly several years down the line.

While all this was going on Imran and Paul arrived to fit the carpets to spare bedrooms and we managed to give ourselves a bit more breathing space by putting some of the chests of drawers and beds into the spare rooms.  It’s amazing how putting a bit of carpet down and putting a bed on top makes the whole house feel likes it’s lived in rather than a building site.  We also finally had rooms that were complete, curtains ‘n all – woo hoo! 

By now things were flying.  We were putting in even longer days to be ready for more progress.  The hallway, dining room, living room and our bedroom & ensuite were decorated.  Endless days spent sanding old woodwork, filling holes, more sanding and painting, painting, painting.   The dust and mess got everywhere, especially when the last remaining door downstairs was taken out so we could prepare the opening for the new ones to be fitted.  The new ones haven’t been ordered yet – but we’ve been living without doors for so long now we don’t even notice.

Finally the day came for the flooring installation.  The kitchen floor was a mess of concrete in the pantry area where the house had been extended years ago and the original old floorboards in the main kitchen plus another patch of very uneven concrete which was the base for the AGA.  The main floor was overlaid with plyboard and then the whole lot covered in a latex based screed to level it off and left to dry overnight. 

The next day the kitchen floor was fitted and the carpets laid to the living room, dining room and our bedroom. From chaos to order again, after lots and lots of cleaning and dusting. The bits and pieces of furniture look a bit lost in the rooms and we do need curtains, lampshades and all that stuff. We’re also looking forward to putting up some pictures on those very empty looking walls.

Now to move onto a completely different subject.  You will know that for the last 12 years we have escaped the UK winter overseas and spent the UK summer in our touring caravan.  We have loved living a mobile life, exploring some of the finest scenery in the world and been to places we’ve never been to before.  Alas, no more, our wandering days are over…..for now.  With the house project taking over our lives we decided to sell the caravan to concentrate on our new home.  Then lockdown came and we thought that that was the end of it, we’re never going to sell the van now.  Wrong!  It has been sold, for a good price, and it’s to become the winter residence in Spain of a newly retired biker from Durham.  It’s a long story, but he’s paid his money and he should be collecting it in early August.   

What a month we’ve had.  We had originally planned to take our time and do things in a sensible order but you all know what happens to the best laid plans.  We’ve had to grab whatever trades were available and when we couldn’t get a decorator we had to roll up our sleeves and get on with it.  From what seemed like ages waiting for things to happen we then went into a frenzy of activity to keep up with deadlines for fitters & deliveries.  We’ve had so much to do we’ve hardly left the house………..we got out more during lockdown! 

We now have a nearly normal house and realised yesterday that we last sat down in the living room at the end of February. We will get the new doors fitted downstairs but the rest of the renovation, including the main bathroom, bedroom 2, study and hall, stairs and landing will be done as phase 2. There’s still plenty for to do now but it’s the pleasant stuff like choosing new furniture and getting the finishing touches and a bit of colour here and there. 

Enjoy what’s left of the summer, take care and stay safe!

Its been all go this month – lots of plastering, endless sanding and painting, more stripping and finally the big news – we have a kitchen – yay!

Before we get to the details here’s a round up of our other news. The scaffold has gone but not before we installed some extra bird deterrents to keep those pesky gulls off the chimneys using spikes from Toolstation and some very special glue.

From what we understand they usually make a nest on our flat roof and also on the chimneys of Julia’s house next door. By means both fair and foul Neil has made their life a misery and they’ve decided to bring up their families elsewhere. Having said that, there is a definite dearth of seagulls everywhere this year which many people are putting down to the pandemic and the lack tourists leaving fish ‘n chip leftovers in the waste bins and for them to dig out. Whilst gulls come with the territory of living by the sea their absence is not missed by many people. We’ve also recovered a tiny fraction of the money we’ve spent. The old wood burner that was to become our fire pit actually got sold for £200…..bingo!

Out of the blue Neil received a letter from the NHS to tell him that he had been randomly selected to take part in a Coronavirus testing survey with Imperial College London.  He was advised that the test would cause some discomfort but that he would have his results back in less than a week.

The test was actually pretty horrid.  It can be self-administered  but when Cheryl knew that she could inflict satisfying gratuitous pain she insisted in doing it for him!  Head back, mouth open and poke a swab to the back of the throat, tickle the tonsils for 10 seconds hopefully without gagging.   She was very, very lucky not to get smothered in a projectile overcoat.  Pain still not over.  Now take the same swab and shove it up the left nostril as far as you can stand it and spin it 5 times then do the same up the right nostril. The results arrived a week later and you will be relieved to know it was all clear.

On the social front, as the lockdown has been slowly easing we met and socially distanced in Cliff Gardens with Glyn and Diane to celebrate his 65^th birthday.  A bottle or two of bubbly plus some snacks made a very pleasant evening overlooking the sea.  Sadly for Glyn he has to wait for another year before the pension fairy arrives in his bank every month.

We also had drinks across the road with Bob and Sheila and their neighbours Don and Pat.  At the end of the month we decided to host a BBQ for the neighbours of Ron the butcher’s homemade sausages and burgers.   The weather was great, hot and as the UV was forecast to be very strong it was all in the shade.  It was a great success although as you can see from the photograph we forgot one important thing.  This was to be the first real party/BBQ in our house so we carefully set up the camera so we could capture the moment.  The trouble was the event went so well we forgot to take a picture.

We still miss Phileas and Philomena but maybe when nature sees fit we’ll get some more pheasants in the future.  Whilst there’s not much more we can do to encourage them we are working on getting a rescue hedgehog.  Cheryl has been in contact with a local volunteer, giving money to her charity to smooth the way, and Neil has built three hog houses to put in the garden.  They’re easy and quick to build and once covered with logs and leaves they look very inviting and any self-respecting Hog would be pleased to call it home…….well we hope so.

There’s still no sign of life in the pond even after introducing some tadpoles.  We’re not sure what happened to them as the pond is well established with lots of oxygenating weed and lilies.  We keep on hoping and next year we’ll try again or, ideally, some amphibians decide to call it home in a natural way. 

We’ve previously reported that the garden has continued to amaze us with it’s flowers.  Now we are equally amazed with the soft fruit that we are picking from the fruit cage.  Masses of delicious raspberries and blackcurrants and we’ve just started to harvest our first tomatoes and cucumbers from the greenhouse and cucumber and courgettes from the garden.  The slugs have decimated the brassicas and something continues to steal the strawberries but, hey ho, you can’t have it all.

Renovation Update

Things have progressed a lot since last month. 

The hallway also revealed the name of another previous decorator.  As Cheryl stripped the wallpaper the name of Max Dack was revealed and signed on March 2^nd, 1997.    Neil sent a photo to Stacy Dack who did the chimney repair and fireplace move, and he replied ‘that’s my Uncle’!  

Paul, AKA Arnie, managed to get hold of 30 bags of good UK plaster and plasterboard which meant he was able to finish the 3 back bedrooms, the downstairs hallway and to board and plaster the ceiling of our bedroom and board the ensuite.  The plastering of our bedroom walls has to wait for more plaster and final paper stripping so we’ve moved into the last useable bedroom and just about manage to climb into the bed as it’s surrounded by stacked up furniture from all the other  bedrooms.  This chaotic order of events wasn’t in the original plan but we’ve learned to grab any trade and whatever progress we can during lockdown and put up with the inconvenience.

The living room also saw some action.  One wall is plastered but Paul needed help to do the ceiling.  Firstly, Neil signed up as an apprentice to help him board the ceiling and as it’s such a large surface he couldn’t manage the plastering alone so in came his brother Tony.  Tony is nothing like Paul, and just like the film Twins one tall and muscular and one short and average.  That didn’t matter to Tony as he arrived carrying his stilts and proceeded to get on with the job. The remaining wall can’t be plastered until the French doors are installed which hopefully will happen in July.

With Arnie gone we started on the mammoth task of painting, beginning with the messy mist coats on the back bedroom walls.  To make things easy we’ve decided to paint all rooms matt white so no decisions on colours or tricky cutting in required.  Great idea although we are starting to go a bit snow blind!  Another two of the Dack clan, Jason & nephew Jake arrived to re instate coving and skirting board where we’ve altered the doorways and removed the huge fitted cupboard.  That’s left us with the tedious sanding & painting the woodwork and maybe we are in spitting distance of getting something finished.  The carpets have arrived and are sitting in the dining room ready to be laid so we are under pressure to get on with the decoration.  

The big big win was the kitchen, delivered and installed….yes, yes, yes, after 3 months we finally have a kitchen!  The cabinets and worktops arrived at the beginning of the month and Paul Emmett arrived to do the fitting.  Within 2 weeks it was done but not before there was lots of grunting and groaning as Paul and Neil picked up the worktops and loaded them onto the bench for cutting and sanding.  Luckily Arnie was still around and was able to help out as well.  They are solid resin called Minerva which makes soft curved edges easy to achieve.  The drawback is that each 3m length weighs 100kg.  The joins are also easy to do.  They are stuck together with the same sort of resin and when sanded it’s virtually impossible to find them.  It was just as we envisaged all those months ago when we bought the house.  Each time we walk into the kitchen we just go ‘wow, are we tickled pink or what’?

An interesting footnote.  We kept a note of the last time we filled the car up with fuel, February 28^th. That means that in 4 months we travelled less than 400 miles.  What a difference a pandemic makes and, surely, now we must be on Greta Thunberg’s Christmas card list, home made of course and from recycled card and flown over from Sweden by pidgeon.

Fabulous weather, some progress and sad news

Two months on and life in Britain is still largely on hold.  We are both still fit and well and East Devon has had a remarkably low level of cases & deaths from Covid 19.  A total of 140 so far and, as we type this on May 31^st, no new cases for over a week.  People have been pretty good at distancing and very polite with a smile or nod to acknowledge when getting out of the way.  It’s probably the sunniest and driest May on record and it’s forecast to continue into June.  It reminds us of those endless sunny summer days you remember from your childhood.

The government is beginning to release the lock down guidelines which has meant more people taking trips to the beach.  Unless you’re very early, not Cheryl’s strong point, or very late, not either of our strong points, it’s too busy to walk the promenade. So we’ve had a good look at the Ordinance Survey maps and discovered lots of new footpaths and lanes that are almost deserted and if you do need to social distance it’s easy.  We’ve also noticed how much the air has cleared since lock down.  Portland, around 25 miles away as the crows fly, used to be visible on rare days and then only just in the haze.  Now it’s very clear considering the photo was taken on Neil’s phone rather than our camera.

We continue to try and support local businesses by getting beer from The Hat, home delivered curry from the two Indian restaurants and take away fish ‘n chips from Coast Café and Bar.  We’ve decided that Monsoon provides the best curry and the f&c’s from Coast are absolutely delicious.  We’ve also discovered that out favourite tapas restaurant, The Caper, is opening for takeaway’s in early June.  BBQ food, i.e. delicious homemade sausages and burgers plus minted lamb and other delights, still come from Ron the Butcher.

We have a few positive milestones to record apart from the weather.  You will be pleased to hear that Neil’s unfeasibly large piles have finally cleared up after only 5 months.  TMI? Not really, we are of course referring to the piles of bricks and debris after the walls came down.  We’ve been slowly barrowing and dumping them at the front of the house behind the hedge in the bank.  We’ve also lost a lot in the now completed raised beds in the greenhouse.  The greenhouse looks great, the yard looks great and the bank is well hidden from view. 

Sooty & Sweep

Before lock down we had agreed a price to drop flue linings into both chimneys and install a new stove while the scaffold was in place but the firm we chose had furloughed the staff so weren’t working.  However, we kept the owner informed as we completed the work to reopen the original chimney void in the living room and then the price started to creep up due to ‘this and that’.   With the work completed on fixing the leaky chimneys we were under pressure to get this last bit of work done in case the scaffold firm wanted to dismantle soon.  With the price creeping up we decided to sanity check the quote and found Stuart the Sweep, who was considerably cheaper and ready to start.

The sweeping went well, and it turned out to be very timely as the one with the stove which we used while the boiler was replaced was just one or two short of a potential chimney fire.  With the amount of soot released Stuart looked a bit like Dick Van Dyke when he finished!   

The flue liners were a different story.  The liner went in the top but quickly got stuck as it  appears we have a less than smooth bend in both chimneys and the 6” liner was too big and couldn’t even be pulled out without shredding it to bits.  Plan B was to come back again and try a 5” liner.  Fingers crossed he tried again but this wouldn’t go down either.  Dropping a camera into the chimney revealed a number of jagged edges to the bricks at various points making the use of liners, which is the current best practice for stoves, simply not possible.

We had three choices.  The first was to forget having wood burners all together and the second was to accept that we could have them using the existing chimney voids and have the chimneys swept possibly twice a year depending on use.  The third was to pay another £1000 for Stuart to hack out the chimneys from the bedrooms to clear the blockage with no guarantee it would only be £1000.  Having spent the last few months sawing, splitting, barrowing and stacking logs (around 20 cubic metres), which are now seasoning in the wood sheds, what would you do?  Certainly not pay any more.   So, we choose option 2 and now have two brand new DEFRA approved wood burners and the ugly old wood burner is set to be our fire pit for those colder evenings around the BBQ.  Hey, we like Stuart so having him back to sweep the chimneys is a bonus. Another big win is that the stoves are manufactured in nearby Axminster so we have supported another local business.

Now the scaffold can come down at last…..3 cheers!  It’s been up since the 19^th of March and almost feels part of the house but we can’t wait for it to go.  We did take the opportunity to go to the top to take in the views and get some great photos.

At the end of the month we heard from Paul the plasterer that he had got hold of some ‘alternative’ imported plaster.  Yay!  He also brought plasterboard and made a start on one of the back bedrooms.  Success was short lived as the plaster was rubbish – boo hiss.  He continued with the preparation of the spare rooms and parts of the lounge and hall for plastering  while we wait for supplies of good old British Gypsum plaster to resume.  Now that he’s boarded the ceilings and prepped the rooms it should be pretty quick once he starts.

Finally, with time on our hands once again we’ve removed the weird wall of glass and bricks between the loggia at the side of the house and the greenhouse.  It does look much better as one big space but we’ll really notice the difference when the scaffolding goes.  On another positive, Neil spent half a day breaking the glass out and half a day hammering the brick work with a rented masonry breaker and received zero injuries…..wow, that must be a first!

For those of you that are also checking their activity levels Neil’s average daily step level for the last month is over 15,000.  This relatively high step level, plus gardening and renovation work, has meant that at the end of this month we are both lighter than we have been since October 2018.  Yes of course we are pleased, especially as we have still enjoyed gin, beers and wine, but it’s not in itself anything to be too proud of as we shouldn’t have allowed ourselves to get to that weight in the first place!

Nature bites back

A few days after writing the last blog  with the picture of Philomena’s nest full of eggs we were aware that we hadn’t seen or heard Phileas.  Not unusual as he has wandered off for a couple of days before so we weren’t concerned.  Then suddenly at lunchtime on Saturday, Philomena who had previously been diligently sitting on her eggs all day, came running across the front lawn at a speed that Roadrunner would be proud of.  That’s not good we thought.

She did return about ten minutes later and worked her way back carefully along the boundary hedge to the nest.  The following morning Neil found her contentedly pecking her way around the garden.  It’s not like her not to be sitting on the eggs so Neil went to look at the nest…..empty!   2 days later, after being fed for a couple of mornings, she disappeared too.  We suspect it was a fox and that the cubs have been licking their lips.  Bloody nature indeed.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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

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. 

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. 

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!

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!

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. 

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’

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.

Stay safe.