Barry Bucknell

I am taking advantage of the mild weather to put the house to sleep for the Winter. It does not Winter well, so it needs a fair bit of TLC.
The first problem was that the dehumidifier in the basement packed up so that gives us a condensation problem. The manufacturers have to send engineers from their base in the Isle of Wright to fix it each time. They charge £100 just to visit, so each all-out is ridiculous. Why they don't have regional reps I don't know! Anyway that's sorted now.

Next challenge is the roof. I have been waiting since July to get some tiles replaced by the insurance company. The scaffolder arrived today but decided he had under quoted so is back to the drawing  board. Its a £100 job which needs £4000 of scaffolding. Ridiculous.

I was hoping to get my soffits replaced and eaves painted at the same time but that's not going to happen now.

So what have I done? Well, the rockery is finished,the first leaves are collected and an annoying tree has been lopped. I've done a tip run, and cleared the drain.

So now it's boundary walls and fences, final grass cutting and pruning outside. Damp sorting, some painting and junk shifting inside.

We have another Airbnb visitor tomorrow, and then SWMBO is off to Tanzania. When she gets back it will be into Christmas festivities......roll on March when the heating can go off!

Tarmac yer path guv?

We are very nearly the owners of a brand new kitchen. It has been a long journey , about two months in total, and we still await the covings from Poland, via Spain....yes really, and a new tap to replace the leaking one. Then I think we are done.

We are awaiting chairs from IKEA, they were out of stock when we ordered them, but are now available in store, but as we ordered by mail order they have to come from their main distribution centre in Rotherham. Oh well lets hope the wait is worth it.

We next need to sort out the bathrooms which are all well old and starting to develop problems. We need to sort them out before we can redecorate, much like the roof.

I would like to do a bit of work on the swimming pool as that is also in need of attention, so I dropped into CRS a pool company near Tarpoley to see if they had been the initial installation company. They were singularly unhelpful and asked me all the questions I was hoping they would have the answers to. I was firing buying signals at them all the time but they were totally oblivious to them, so have lost any chance they had of getting the refurbishing contract. Given pool maintenance companies are few and far between though, I will have to do some more research.

The highlight of the redevelopment so far though has been the work paving Dave and his mate Tony have done to turn our front path from a sloping Winter death trap into a fine set of steps which match in with the patio and house character very well....they are about to grout all the flags at the mo but are getting frustrated by the constant rain fall which is slowing them down.

I call him paving Dave as the kitchen fitters have Dave the sparks, Dave the tiles and Dave the odd job man, far too many Daves!