One month after seeding the front lawn and look at it now!
It was Colin’s birthday so we found a suitable cake for him (we couldn’t find Colin the Caterpillar).
Best mates! Also, hard to believe he is 52.
Sunny mornings in the house. Cat brought this beautiful glass ornament back from Venice.
The chimney breast on the landing. You can just see a mask I bought in Venice (that has been worn partying in London, of course), a light from Morocco, a mirror all the way from Laos, and on the right there is a stunning photographic print of the eye of a horse.
The bathroom on a sunny morning.
I spotted this one morning in the woods and couldn’t believe the colour!
It wasn’t until I looked at the photos on my big screen that I spotted the blue larvae. These are eggs! A brief Google search and I can find nothing similar, so if anyone has any idea what they are please let me know! They had all disappeared the following day.
Jasper, very well camouflaged on his brown velvet throw.
Colin has become very proud of his lawns and is utterly obsessed with weeding them.
I bought some ‘super strength’ soil conditioner for the hedge as it could benefit from some extra rich nutrients. This stuff isn’t just ‘6 times richer than farmyard manure’, it is 6 times smellier! The whole area around our house stinks and it’s not going away…
Colin digs it into the ground around the hedge.
We need smell-o-vision for this.
Jasper doesn’t mind bad smells.
Apologies to all our neighbours.
Now that we have flooring fitted, our plumber, Andy, returns to fit the final radiators in the study.
One of the smart brass radiator valves with two of the dome headed brass nuts. These nuts were ones that Colin bought to go on the front of the brackets that hold the radiators in place. They were a perfect fit but were a bright brass finish whereas thebrackets have an antiqued brass finish. So our mate Steve, who works for Dar Lighting Group (the orange silk lights in the attic were from his company), took them away and got them ‘antiqued’ to match our fittings.
Before.
After.
They were individually hand painted to achieve the desired match! Cheers Steve!
The radiators and brackets with the extra dome headed nuts to finish them off (and hide the cut threaded bar end).
One of the finished radiators in the study.
Posh brass thermostatic valves.
The second radiator isn’t going so well.
Andy has had a nightmare drilling into the lime plastered wall here…
Recently we discovered that the kitchen sink has been leaking for quite some time and as a result the MDF cupboard walls have expanded and are growing mouldy. We moved the washing machine out thinking it could be the plumbing there but it wasn’t, as we couldn’t find the leak from the sink…
Eeugh.
Andy removed the front kick board and discovered the leak was underneath the cupboard.
There is a leak from the left copper pipe at the back, you can see a drip on the bottom of the grey pipe. The whole floor is so saturated that it has wicked up the walls and into the cupboard above.
The wall at the back of the cupboard is wet and mouldy.
Yuk. The whole cupboard will need scrubbing to try and remove the mould. Thank god this kitchen will be demolished in phase 2…
The heating system gets drained to fit the new radiators, then filled again and tested.
I do love receiving flowers. These beauties are from my new client in London 🙂