Fancy a Walk

It’s a nice day so Mrs Fogg convinced me to walk the canal to Sutton for a drink and lunch at the St.Vincents, a mere 6 miles away. Apart from it took 1hr 45 min and we arrived at 3 when it was closing. Lovelly so what did lunch consist of, a bag of nuts each and only an 1hr 45 walk back for food. Well planned.

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Day One Done

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So Day One done, frame in place, not too bad, will all be completed during Mrs Fogg’s shift on Monday, or will it?

Up With the Carcass

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Since the Mrs is working all weekend again somewhere, she can see the steady progress of the build from our oh so slow builders. Arrived 8.20am and just finished their first half hour tea break (wouldn’t that be nice eh).

Still ever onward and upwards.

The Before

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So wardrobe day 1, the install. Things are starting to happen. Room painted and ready and now they start the install of 4.5m of floor to ceiling fitted robes.

Pictures as it happens (how exciting is that).

William Sans Ami

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Or to you unhedged a kated, its “Billy No Mates”, yup this was me without my best Fwend off to the pics the see Riddick and for pure edge of the seat entertainment, this film was it.

I bought my first DVD player when they first came out in the US in 1998 (believe me it cost a bomb then) and each film cost £65 to import from the US, but the best thing was the films imported on DVD had yet to be shown at the cinema in the UK. One of the first DVDs was a small budget film made in Australia called Pitch Black, which was amazing and this one now did not disappoint.

All I gotta do now is take Mrs Gimpy foot to see it when she stops working.

Strike 3

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Anyone would think we were asking the impossible, a builder to remove a fireplace and shore it up, the calcs are all done so all that is needed is someone to do the work and therein lies the rub!

We initially tried with the loft boarding out and had a guy come round, who eventually provided a quote on a compliment slip but didn’t really want the job, had one that left and never got in touch, and then one guy turned up without any tape measures who then provided the most comprehensive excel sheet that showed the minutia of costs, but never exactly said how much.

So we thought FMB (Federation of Master Builders) lets get a professional in to look at the fireplace, after all these guys must be hungry for work and we have all the info they need. Advertisement placed, 3 respondees, one turned up, measured, made notes and would supply costs on return from his holiday, but never came back, one left two messages, but when we got in touch he never turned up and then the most promising was a guy who runs teams of builders. This one measures it all, provided detailed quotes and then when it came to the crunch of him providing references. RAMS and accurate details, suddenly that very day had taken on a mass of work for the foreseeable future.

Is this mission impossible, can we build it, obviously bloody not!!!

Beam Me Up Scotty

Is it the USS Enterprise on manoeuvres or is it some alien life form?

Nope, to overcome the appalling state of affairs in rural no broadband Britain, we have invested in a satellite broadband solution with a dish that measures just under 1m in diameter (so just under planning requirement restrictions) and hangs out by just over 1m (no idea what the neighbours might say), but who care we got 20mb download, who rocks, yup we do!! Tongue pocked firmly at the government and its lack of broadband roll out.

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