English Weather

After three weeks of gales and horizontal rain which finally saw off the old cherry tree

We now have freezing fog which has closed down the airports all over the country with the resultant chaos just as all the Christmas travelers are not now setting off. For us stay at homes the ice scuptures are very interesting

Even the resident gnome has felt the cold and
has been iced to his post. The fog we are told will continue until after the Christmas holiday and we will not see any breeze until nearly the New Year. Good job we demolished the old shed and have tuns of wood to burn in the stove.

Here is the new garage with the railway sleepers in position to support the pantile roof.


















Peter and Genevieve have been to trim up their Christmas Trees outside the back door









But for the forseeable future we are closing down and hunkering up in front of the stove with a good book and hot drinks. This is the view to Boston











So a Very Merry Christmas to all our readers and a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

May your God be with you

There goes that shed!!

One of the big attractions when we purchased the cottage was the big shed. Into it went all those things that you kept "Just in case" and all those things that had a value in an urban life but none in this one and vice versa. Here we found the tin bath and the old gas boiler that gave us the hot water and the bath when we first arrived and were doing the old house up. Into here went the eight teachests of 78rpm records which I had collected in the early 1980s when I gave up smoking and used the money saved to purchase something as a hooby. These have not been looked at since we moved in 1988. It has served as a garage - workshop - shelter from the rain while the bus came ( you can see through a hole in the wall to see if the bus is comming) - welding shop - wood store. BUT it is more like a lace curtain of a shed now -

and seems to have be getting shorter as it used to take all the car undercover !!!!!!



So it was decided that it must go to make way for a newer version to be built on the same site but of block and brick with a tile roof. Back came Michael the builder to work his magic again. He first sent his brother, who was on holiday and looking for a restfull job to fill in the time, to dig the foundations.


Then it was going going gone

BUT out of the roots of the old shed a new shed has grown all solid and clean. We have used old bricks to front the building and the rest is building block which will be painted in the spring.



Tomorrow 18th December they will put in place two 14' railway sleepers as door beams and one 9' railway sleeper as window beam. The building is the same length as the bungalow we lived in in Spring Farm Lane Harden and if it was 5' wider it would be the same width. The roof will be of reclaimed tiles to match the barn but we cannot find a second hand window to fit the hole.

Watch this space for the next steps in the build.

All back together again

After all the work and stress we are happy to report that the work on both the house and the car is finished and we have - like Humpty Dumpty could not be - put back together again.

Here are a few pictures of the work in progress.


Wall down - house sheeted up against the rain

Part rebuilt with heat retaining interior blocks as per the building inspector

New store doors plastic insulated as per building regs again - note the old carpet full of brick dust waiting to go the the tip.

The police broke into the house on the night of the accident to make sure that no one was injured or dead. So we had to have a new house door again in upvc to meet the building regs

All done and back to normal except that the flowers and bush need to grow back to maturity - but that should come next year.



The impact with the caravan ripped up the flags which we laid Rob and so Michael has relaid them. The gap which is left in the hedge will be closed with a "battlement" of a wall with an inside wall with plants between when Michael comes back to rebuild the shed!!

The Merc came home again today with it's bodywork all repaired and resprayed.

I tried to upload some more photos but Blogger seems to think that you have seen enough so I will do some more next time

Here is another comparison

Jan sent me some photographs which she had found in Mothers sideboard which have set me thinking.

Here are two of them taken in 1951. I was 11 and was one of the first Billy Elliots. They were taken for the local paper after one of my successes in the Royal Academy ballet examinations . I was thought to be the only boy ballet dancer in the North of England. We were told that there was no other boy taking the examinations with the Royal Academy in our neck of the woods.

I know that as a lad I used to get some stick from my school friends especially as I got into my teens. My consolation was that I enjoyed the exercise and I was in the company of a lot of lassies in tights - which my friends were not. So I'm not sure who was the sissy - me for being with the girls or them for missing out!!!!!

As I look in the mirror now, 55 years on and see that the wrinkles in the tights have spread to my face I wonder where that bright young lad has gone. I know that he is there somewhere inside because I an always being accused, by those who know me, of being a big kid and I got a lot of pleasure out of letting off the fireworks with the grandchildren on my birthday yesterday. BUT 1951 seems a long way off just now.

An unwelcome visitor

We decided that we needed a good holiday and so we booked in a few days at the Lamb Inn Great Rissington - an old pub close to Bourton-on-the-Water where Grandfather Lockey lived before he left to join the railways as a porter in 1902. Have a look at http://www.thelamb-inn.com/index.html. This is a comfortable hotel with good staff and wonderful food

We had a wonderful few days and found the cottages where the Lockey family lived in the 1841 census and the 1861 census. There is evidence that the family lived in the cottages from may be 1798.

On Thursday morning we received a telephone call from Samantha asking us to cut short our holiday because during the night a gentleman had driven his 4X4 through our touring caravan and into the side of our house.

Here are some photographs of the house and mess we returned to :-

This is taken from the point at which he left the road doing "30mph" and "aquaplained" over the field into the garden - so he says

On the way he picked up the two berth caravan and pushed it across the drive and into the store room door. If the caravan had not been where it was he would almost certainly been killed as the weight of the caravan acted as a brake. I cannot see that he even tried to brake as the tracks are clear on the soil as a moving vehicle not skidding.

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When the car was pulled out the damage was clear

Leaving the whole wall to be pulled down and rebuilt plus all the internal plaster work etc

More photos

Michael has been a real friend in need and supported Sam in getting the house sort of sorted before we came home. The East Lindsey Building Inspector was called out by the Police as the building was considered unsafe so the buildings man sat here from 2am in the morning until the police found Sam and she got Michael to come and put the supports into the wall to hold it up while they pulled the car and caravan clear. When the incident was reported to the police they looked in the window and saw the bed upside down against the far wall and thought that the occupier had been either injured or killed. So they had to smash the back door window to climb in and check the house. Glass all over the kitchen and dinning room. The bedroom door was open so the dust and mess was shot all over the new cream carpet.

We have claimed on our insurance for the building work and the contents and our insurance company will claim it back from his insurance. The caravan was not insured so I have instructed JSP to deal with the recovery of the uninsured losses as our experiance of the loss adjusters is not good and we want to be put in the same possition as we were before the incident rather then be left with what the loss adjuster can get away with.

Once we get the go ahead from the insurance company - Michael says that the wall will be up again in about a fortnight but that all the inside will need to be replastered as the roof will need to be taken off and the walls on each corner rebuilt as they are pushed out of key.

So it looks like it will be Christmas again before all the work is done and redecorated. We have asked Michael to build us a wall on the boundary on the Boston side so that it will give some protection from it happening again. We will post progress reports as the work progresses.

Here's a funny thing

We went to stay with Jan and John a few weeks ago and Jan was showing us some of the photos which she had filched from Mother's box. One of them is taken outside the shop we used to live in on King's Road Bradford and was taken in 1956 just before we moved to Toller Drive Heaton. By chance we had our photographs taken at David's wedding in nearly the same pose. Just look what 50 years can do!!!!!

1956


2006

Friskney Show

Last Sunday was the third village show. It was a great event. There were many stalls and exhibits including vintage cars and tractors - air cadets - smoked eels - venison- the usual craft tent - hot dog stalls - ice cream men - doughnuts - the police with car which the children could set the siren off in much to the surprise of passing folk - Bat Conservation had a stall ad did the Parrot Sanctuary which now has 900 parrots flying free - the WI markets selling cakes and jam - all the village organisations had stalls fundraising.

Inside the village hall there was the ususal show of flower displays - photo competion - childrens craft - adult craft - painting - old village photos and a collection of Queen Elizabeth photos and items to celebrate her 80th birthday. Margaret won the Jam competion and Samantha won the photo competion. Sam also came second with her pen sketch of some boats.

On the playing field there was the ususal Tug of War and displays of dancing by the Primary School. The Air Cadets gave a marching display and a Scotish Piper wandered round playing. The sun shone all day and the village hall bar ran out of beer - Peter had to go to the shop go get cans 3 times just to keep the bar open. It was drunk dry. They took £1300 in the period from 12 noon to 4.30pm


The children had a great time on the big slide




Genevieve had a go on the tea cup roundabout



Peter got his hands on the guns




Both of them had a go on the bow and arrows



Genevieve decided to ride on the train. Note the "guard" on the rear seat. There was a bit of an arguament when he asked for her ticket. "No its mine" she said and would not let him tear the ticket.



Going very fast is this train



Peter went early to go to his golf class. So he missed the fire engine




And the parrot from the Parrot Sanctuary




The RAF has spent the last 70 years bombing the salt flats on the edge of the village so it was nice of them to send all the Battle of Britain Flight for a flypast. They flew over three times and it is amazing how the noise of low flying piston engined aircarft can get to you. Even grown men had lumps in the throat.