I'm sorry for the lapse in updates which has been as a result of me being totally engrossed in the refurbishment of the bathroom. Whilst I could blame the delay on unforeseen structural difficulties this would be disingenuous as in the main it is just the sheer amount of tasks required to get the room up to standard.
Having gutted the room I have had to re-build it using just about every DIY skill I have ever had and quite a few that, frankly, I don't have. My Carpentry skills have been stretched to the very limits, but day by day the room has developed, step by step towards the end result.
I have fought with a shower screen, re-enforced the bath frame with some old pine bed legs (don't ask!), made good the floor after the sink leaked, tackled the fitting of a precision made bath panel to a floor that drops some 3 inches in just one metre, painted the wall of the hall outside the bathroom with the thickest roller ever invented as it is the most uneven plaster ever in the world and now I'm struggling with boxing in pipes that straddle the walls.
I will hold back on the photos until it is all completed but I hope that will be no later than Monday.
We have, for the last few weeks, had lodgers, a bunch of Tits. I'm not being derogatory towards our lodgers, no what I mean is that we have had a family of Tits staying with us in one of the bird boxes that I had for Christmas.
Claire and I noticed a couple of Blue Tits checking out the box several weeks ago and watched them as they prepared the nest inside. This week has seen a frenzy of comings and goings as they bring juicy grubs to an undisclosed quantity of chicks.
Actually I did not realise how use to the tranquillity of the place I had become until today when I spoke to my son on the phone. He was in London, near to his flat, looking to buy something for his evening meal. As he updated me with what is going on in his life at the moment he was wandering through Haringay popping into different shops to see what they might tempt him with in the nosh department.
The contrast between our separate ambiances was overpowering as our conversation had quite different background noises. I could hear a constant hub-bub of people and traffic with both Police and Ambulance sirens interrupting us by deafening his voice to my ears.
And as I sat in my back garden talking to him in this way off metropolis I was watching the Blue Tits bringing in their grubs and all that I could hear was the tiny voices of the Blue Tit chicks calling for more. Stephen loves London and I love living here and that is just dandy. They say if you're tired of London then you are tired of life as London has everything that life can afford.
The problem is that it has all that and more, I don't need to have the constant crying of Ambulances, Fire Engines, Police cars, beeping noises of lorries reversing, the deep rumbling rattling noise of a London bus stuck in the bus lane behind 12 other buses pouring that black acrid stench into my face whilst I dodge the dog shit, put up with standing cheek to jowl next to someone whom, by all accounts, doesn't own a bath or shower whilst I trundle along in the underground being thrown from side to side and 'kettled' by the railings on any street that has a few shops on it.
I promise you Samuel Johnson would have moved to the home counties by now if he were still alive.
No, Normal for Norfolk is not the quirky label of a dysfunctional odd ball County. Far from it actually. I would suggest that the dysfunctional people are the ones that put up with all of the above (those that have a choice of course) and that normality is lived out in Norfolk, where you say hello to everyone you meet in your community, where you can smell fresh, clean air and see the stars at night and where you are not mollycoddled by a barrage of metal railings on the kerb preventing you from being run over.
Every one of my direct neighbours has either lived or worked in London and found salvation in this unassuming backwater. London is absolutely an interesting place to visit, but I still wouldn't want to live there...... again.
For the twitchers of you out there here are a few photos that I took on one of my cycle rides just outside our village, starting with our bug sharing Tits ......................
Singing Yellow Hammer
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