the kitchen

Our kitchen was always going to be very important. Like most families, we gather there, and we loved our old kitchen / family room that ran the length of the house. Our kitchen here is like the short part of an L, with the main part being the living / dining room with the glass doors opening on to the garden.
Most of our work over the last couple of weeks has been there. Keith has now made half the drawers, and they look very lovely, with the ash grain as a main feature.

I have been tiling, and my skills are slowly improving, helped by the small tiles that are easier to push into place.
It is a bit frustrating to have such lovely cookers installed and not be able to use them yet, but looking at them spurs me on! We have used the Quooker and can confirm that it makes a lovely cup of tea. Keith installed it, and we can recommend the team there as being friendly & helpful.

On Wednesday we took a "day off" by which we mean that we went to the Axminster store at Nuneaton, Keith's natural habitat (and Bob's too, I think!). It is always a pleasure to listen to experts, and we are full of admiration for the skills of so many people that we have encountered. This includes Ben at Sykes Timber whose has twice now taken the time to talk to us about the best wood for our projects. They have a lovely small showroom with samples of wood shown as worktops, stairs etc.

Outside, the Heras fencing, secure store & skip have all gone. Many thanks to Neil who spent Easter day helping Keith with the ordinary fencing (continuing the work begun by Terry 18 months ago). This is how it looks now:

The "thunderbox" is going this week. Our thanks go to Portable Toilets Limited who have emptied and cleaned this for nearly a year. In baking heat, in freezing snow, they have made their way past diggers & huge delivery lorries with no fuss at all.


Here is a photo of of one of our regular visitors, Genghis Puddleduck. He has been given the name in honour of an amazing game of "who am I?" last Xmas. Details from anyone who was there and can remember it.