I can't believe it's not DIY

Yes, you could be forgiven for thinking that I had emigrated like my friend Al Dickman http://www.newlifeinnz.blogspot.com/. Well no, in fact I have been hiding under a rock hoping that The Cruel All Seeing Eye of Credit Crunch would not see me. Hopefully, so far, so good.

We survived some messy and extended lock-in based activity in the local pub over Christmas and New Year (inevitable really when it is stumbling distance down the lane) which meant a 5.30am exit on New Year's Day (apparently a pub with a capacity of 45 crammed in 120, plus a buffet, plus a dance floor, plus a DJ with 2 sets of 3 disco lights - who says the laws of physics can't be changed!) although merriment continued until 4pm that day - these are hardened Lancashire revellers after all.

As for things on the ranch, we are fast approaching the end of the road with the refurb of our gaff. So much so that we are even contemplating what impact a chain saw and a rotivator will have on the garden once the weather improves (we are supposed to be in for a blistering summer after all).

Slightly more time on my hands should also mean more regular visits to this blog so please come back and see if I have anything more interesting to say. In the meantime, here's a picture of those cinema seats in-situ (Oh yeah, cinema is up and running, complete with Blu-ray Player - all hail 1080p).

Come on Radio 4!

I know this is going to seem like a well-ploughed furrow but there doesn't seem to be any positive happy motivating optimistic news either at the moment or on the horizon. Sad face emoticons just don't do it justice.

I am an unashamed Radio 4 listener - an addiction mainly arising from extended commuting periods in the car in the morning and the evening - but everything from Robert Peston's staccato diatribes through to the wet and windy weather forecasts seem designed to make us 'half empty people'.

So I think Radio 4 should try and include at least one happy story on air during the Today programme. Something to give us a lift as we head into work or trundle home in the ever darkening early evenings. Just a thought anyway. Maybe we could create some positive new stories - you know the kind of thing - Cat Rescued from Unstable Building/4Year Old from Norwich becomes Chess Grand Master etc. Let me know if you've got any great ideas.

This blog will not fade into caliginosity!

It's time we all voted for words which we want to save from oblivion. Harper Collins are editing their new dictionary and words like caliginosity (which means dimness or darkness) are in danger of being excluded because they are not used enough. Well, that made me think. Firstly, how do they track this usage? How do they know that people like me, who live in a small hamlet of nine houses, don't sit in the pub each evening being all fatidical about the future of the planet and the amount of recrement that is clogging up the landfill site near Abbeye Village. I don't think I've seen a surveillance camera in the pub, (just a sign which says 'Be careful how you treat your children because they will choose your retirement home!') so how do they know what we are talking about, or, more pertinently, what words we are using?
Anyway, then I thought, if it works like search engine optimisation, maybe we should all use our blogs to promote endangered words up the rankings so I'll leave that gauntlet thrown down for all of you ...

Time Flies

Yes I 've been severely scolded by a certain Mr Hughes from http://www.eariam.blogspot.com/ for neglecting my blog for so long and, of course, he is right to do so. The last 6 weeks have absolutely flown by but there really is no excuse. So I'm back. So to bring you up to date ... I've been insulating the lofts at home. They say it is a DIY job but what a hell of a job it is. I must have swallowed half a roll and also ended up freefalling from one of the loft hatches and ending up with third (or maybe even fourth) degree burns on the inside of my arm. I really pity the men driving the Dyson Insulation vans up and down the country especially in the morning because I know they are heading to a house and then up a ladder into a loft to spend the day in a furnace-like environment, being covered in itchy irritant mineral wool dust. But then, perhaps they are used to it. Maybe they've evolved into a species with special organic lung filters and curved spines designs to prevent regular roof truss concussion, oh yes, and skin which has a special textured and toughened surface to protect against mineral wool fibres. Have a look at them next time you see them. If the driver looks like a Klingon you know I'm right.

I've been contemplating buying a Sony e-reader as the new must-have gadget. I'm not sure if it is a fad and I'm just piggy backing onto the latest craze or whether I will love it and use it and it will inspire me to read a lot more than I do. I've definitely decided that, when the house is finished, I'm going to spend Sunday mornings reading the paper and/or a book. I hear about so many great reads on Radio 4 in the morning during my commute into Manchester but never make the purchase. Apparently you can store up to 160 books on one of these readers - great for long holidays (maybe next year!). Maybe someone will post a review of one of these machines and make my decision for me.

Back to School

I've been off work for a week and managed to hit some reasonably good weather. In fact I cut the grass on the 25th and burnt the back of my neck. Still, I'm not complaining (see my previous post about how disappointing summers are nowadays - well, someone was listening).

We are progressing with the renovation of the house and I did something really silly last week and ordered the new home cinema seating (pic attached). Well you are only a selfish childless couple once in your life so I thought what the heck. Thank God we've got 14 weeks to pay for them!

We've also had some new babies (a second "batch" [I don't think that's the right word] of moorhen chicks which are really cute and cool). We have two natural ponds separated by a little waterfall and have discovered that a fiendish cat from one of the barns over the hill is coming down and waiting near the connecting stone edge for a little baby chick to come innocently swimming by. Well, when we hear lots of panic-stricken chirping we know that the youngsters have sensed something you should see me belting out of the house and down to the ponds to repel borders. Imagine pyjamas, wellies and slightly more scary than scary out of bed hair and you've probably got the picture! Still, it does the job - in fact I've just realised that I have in effect become a cat scarer - I could be replaced by a string of CDs on a wire at any moment.

As for the house, we are just weeks away from trying out the underfloor heating and hoping that everything is not going to blow up or leak all over the place. Hopefully a successful non-Aqualung-based post will follow that.

Travelling fast on a Monday

So here we are at the start of another week.

I was digitising some music over the weekend (I am a shamefully late convert to the ipod and itunes generation) and rediscovered some of the music which has been lurking in boxes in my barn for the last 2 years. If you want to hear an uplifting track to get you going on a Monday morning then check out 'Cold Outside' from the album 'We Travel Fast' by Chungking. It gets a 5 star rating on my itunes page anyway. And so then I search for Chungking and find out that they have gone and released a new album called 'Stay Up Forever' - well it was released last year actually which just goes to show you how out of the loop I am.

Still, it's on my amazon wish list if anyone's interested!

I am about to start work on a new refurbishment project for a client in Turton. They are converting their downstairs into one large open space and have asked me to help them with their plans. This type of work is just up my street (check out http://www.silverlininginteriors.co.uk/) and I've attached one of the design perspectives I have done for them. Enjoy!

Water, water everywhere

Will we ever have a summer? I know this is what happens to you when you get older, but I can't help thinking that the summers in my childhood were long and sunny... and endless. Is it climate change, or is it age change - who knows. I am certain that it's a bit miserable at the moment, still, let's look on the bright side - no sign of a hose pipe ban near me anyway.