So we have all had some time off to catch up on ourselves, rest, sleep, and generally not have to think about or do anything on the house as we are EXHAUSTED (and all very busy with work during the week). So here is a post mainly about my fun birthday. Me and Colin flew to Carmarthen in Wales for fish and chips and ice cream on the beach, then flew home again. The weather wasn’t the best so it was an interesting flight there…
Our very direct route, planning to fly right over Snowdonia.
The weather was not great when we crossed into Wales and the clouds got lower and the ground got higher… Even Colin admitted it was getting a bit tricky flying around the clouds (you can’t fly through them, well you can but it is not advisable in mountains).
A valley with cloud sitting around the mountain tops. We were at 3000ft and Snowdon is still higher (3,500ft) so we aborted the route over the mountains.
We flew out to the coast for the last bit of the flight, where it was clear of clouds.
Mount Snowdon is the one in the middle, just peeking out above the clouds.
Landed safely and fuelling up.
Colin calls this the Noddy plane, if anyone remembers Noddy’s car…
The Surfer Chippy at Dinas Dinlle.
Birthday fish & chips! There is a whole family wearing animal onesies behind us.
Birthday ice cream!
Not quite beach weather.
Flying back out before the weather turns too bad (we were there for about an hour and a half).
We are at the same level as this mountain.
Thankfully the clouds cleared just as we headed back over the border.
Sunny Stratford Upon Avon with the river and theatre.
Finally a quick blast over Laura’s new place for some aerial shots.
Arrived back just in time for drinks at The Castle at Edgehill with Laura, Todd, Sav, Charlotte, Cat and Colin. Our first trip to the pub in a year and what a beautiful evening for it! It’s a bit of a blurry shot but we were all quite blurry by this time.
A Bailey’s cake. Yum.
Baloo really wanted some too.
Flowers from older sis, thank you Lucy!
The following morning and Cat and Colin are busy clearing the patio in the back garden before Tom returns this week to finish off the outside.
This corner of the garden has been the general dumping ground for all spare stone, bricks and timber. Now we need to sort through it, keep what we want and chuck the rest in the skip.
We are having our new boiler fitted by Daniell Plumbing. Our old boiler failed just as the new radiators were being tested a few weeks ago, but they couldn’t fit the boiler until the end of August as they were so busy! Thankfully they have a couple of spare days this week and have managed to squeeze us in.
Our old boiler. To be fair we didn’t expect this to last very long when we bought the house 4 years ago but it has somehow kept going!
We do not have gas in the area so we use oil for our heating, so we have gone for a Grant Vortex Eco Utility condensing oil boiler (slightly cheaper and supposedly better that Worcester Bosch).
Tott had the new boiler fitted in a day!
As it is now a condensing boiler, we also needed a new flue fitted through our very knackered ‘Heath Robinson’ style roof (which is being held up by a few bits of rotten timber). This roof will be demolished and replaced in phase 2…
Shiny new flue.