' My overiding thought, that saddened me greatly, was that dinner was orf '.

At times and especially in the evenings it is so tranquil sitting on the patio whilst allowing my eyes to feast on the picture before me. A lush grass green lawn speckled with tiny white daisies and bordered by a myriad of different coloured Primula. The evening sun adding a touch of drama by spot lighting, as if it were a Super Trouper, the sweet statue of a small girl reading a book whilst sat on a tree stump.

All around the only noise that can be heard is that of song birds whilst Goldfinches, Great Tits, Robins, Dunnocks, Blue Tits, Green Finches and even Sparrows tussle over the bird feeders. Amongst the Chaffinches picking up fallen seed on the sunlit lawn are a pair of Pied Wagtails. They have been visiting us every day for at least the last two weeks and I assume that they are nesting nearby but as yet I have not discovered where. Above me every now and then there is the sound of wood being chiseled. It is not a carpenter but rather a somewhat smaller creature, a Blue Tit who has taken to building a nest in our sparrow lodge. Why I do not know for it clearly says in large letters "Sparrow Lodge" and it has holes designed for Sparrows and also it is an apartment block consisting of 5 flats. Sadly however the Sparrows show no interest and prefer to live in the eves of the main house instead. There is only one other sound which bubbles over our high garden flint walls, cascading like a waterfall the continual bleating of lambs in an adjacent field.

Spring has definitely sprung as all and sundry are plying their wares in an effort to find a mate. Down the allotment in my pond (sounds grand but it is only 3' wide and surrounded by weeds) there are at least 20 frisky frogs and they're either doin' the business or just playing leap frog.... very sloooowwly.

Back in the garden the cat is sitting on the edge of the patio table intently watching one of our Pied Wagtails. Peck, wag, peck, wag, nasty infliction that.... peck, wag as it wanders behind some daffodils then like a shot and in just 2 seconds Scribble (the cat) was around the blind side of the daffodils and just a claws reach from the Wagtail before it's instinctive wag launched it into the air and off over the flint cottage garden wall. Immediately the gardens karma returns and the foiled Scribble returns back to sit by my feet. The sun dropped out of sight and the daisies all shut their petals for the night and peace ensued.

This tranquility can be disturbed, not least by myself in cutting all those tiles, how many was it now?
However I think my wife wins the disturbance of the year a few weeks back, when she set fire to our dinner which was being 'cold smoked' in our smoker in the garden.

For those of you who have not been making an effort to keep up with the blog (may the fleas of a thousand camel's infest your armpits) you will need to flick back to the blog of Wednesday 20th of March 2013. Here you will read how we bought a cardboard box for use as a 'cold smoker' and yes I probably tempted fate when I joked that....

 "Firstly for cold smoking..... a cardboard box! Sounds daft as there is no smoke without fire and with fire there is good reason to think that after a while there would be no box."

Well the idea of starting a small fire in a cardboard box does sound bonkers but all we do is light a Tealight  in a nifty little gadget, remove the Tealight when the sawdust in the gadget smoulders and then insert the unit into the base of the box where it slowly smoulders away causing the oak sawdust to smoke.


Well this is what the cardboard box should look like......

And after a few minutes this is what the box looked like.....

And a few minutes more ......

Unfortunately  a fundamental principle of this is the removal of the Tealight which a certain person that a husband is too honorable to mention by name forgot to do. Within minutes the box had caught light, I valiantly tried to rescue the Duck breast within (our dinner) but all I managed to get was a couple of burns to my fingers. I went to get a bucket of water but as I filled it in the kitchen sink I looked through the window out to the smouldering box which suddenly escalated to an inferno.

' My overiding thought that saddened me greatly was that dinner was orf '.

8,008

Apart from 26 piles of washing (and ironing), preparing the guest rooms, vacuuming, shopping, gardening and the allotment I've really got nothing better to do!

I found myself kneeling on the floor of the shower struggling to lay another bead of sealant for what felt like the 100th time in this house. I wetted my right index finger and run it along the base of the wall smoothing the bobbly bead of silicone into a watertight strip. God, I thought to myself how many times have I done this since we moved in to the house some two and a half years ago. Too bloody many times I curtly replied as the cat sat on the hall carpet looking through the open bathroom door probably wondering to whom I was directing my conversation.

This was our shower room, the last room to require tiles and this was the last task on the last piece of tiling in that room. I wiped my sticky siliconed finger clean and prepared for the onerous task of getting my self back up onto my feet again. My first tiling job in the house was the Kitchen floor way back in January of 2011 and since then I seem to have been tiling for the following two and a quarter years. Literally the day that I started this marathon tiling event my knee received a trauma and although I had an operation to fix it I still suffer some stiffness and so getting from the kneeling position in a cramped shower to a standing one is a challenge.

As I struggled to get upright with an awkwardness that only a camel could replicate I started to wonder just how many tiles I must have stuck to the walls and floors of this place in that time.
My knee gave a reassuring click, much like the clunk of the car seat belt, as I stood at my full 6' 1" as if to demonstrate that it is safely locked into position and we are safe to move on. Stiffly I squeezed out of the narrow pivoted shower door (I made an error of judgement there and wished that I had plumped for the concertina style door). By now the cat had got bored and wandered off to terrorise my new lounge carpet with her sharp unforgiving claws.

This left me with my thoughts, pondering....... Mmmmm, I wonder how many tiles.... in fact I wonder how many times I had cut a tile. It had seemed to me that I had cut absolutely hundreds of the damn things. Well of course that was it, I had just simply gotta know so I started counting.....

1,2,3,4,5,6, No this'll never work it will take me for ever, no I need pen and paper. Now how shall I break this down? After much thought (2 minutes with pen, paper and a chunk of cake to aid the little grey cells) I had created 3 columns.

Whole tiles                  Cut tiles                          Meters of Grout

I marched around the house late yesterday evening collating this wholly useless information. I became quite pedantic about getting it absolutely correct, garbage in - garbage out I reinforced the necessity to be accurate with myself. Only to then find that I had to immediately stop the count as I had just prompted myself to put the dustbin out for tomorrows collection!


So here it is, the end result of all that hard work (not the counting, but the tiling). In the 2 years and 3 months we have .......

Laid 829 whole tiles.
Cut and laid a further 518 tiles of which I estimate I have made approximately 1,030 cuts.


 That is a TOTAL of 1,347 tiles laid!

(887 were wall tiles and 460 were floor tiles)



The most painstaking to measure were the lines of grout but with very careful calculation I even managed to calculate how long all the lines would be if they were all lined up end to end. I know, I know, you're thinking hasn't he anything better to do?
Well apart from 26 piles of washing (and ironing), preparing the guest rooms, vacuuming, shopping, gardening and the allotment I've really got nothing better to do!

So how much grouting have we slapped onto our walls and floors then?

100 meters?


200 meters?


Perhaps 500 meters!


Nope.........


We have inserted some 756 meters of grout, or 2,480ft.


To put that into perspective it is approximately two and a half times the height of The Shard !


All this work done despite my wonky knees and having guests coming and going throughout whilst at no time seeing any evidence of our vivacious tiling frenzy that we have perpetuated in the pursuance of our dream.

Perhaps I can steal a moments rest-bite from this all consuming task..... Fat chance. The grouting in the Cottage's shower are becoming a little stained and so I need to head over there soon and give them a freshen up.............

Will it never end!






7,946

Workin' 9 to 5 What a way to make a livin'............ Dolly Parton

It's been many years since I was just doing 9 to 5. Working in a corporate company as a manager meant many more hours than that, add in over 500 miles a week driving and phone calls and emails long into the evening and at weekends and 9 to 5 would be considered just part time. (I'm not saying that it was right - just that is the way it was.)

Swopping my corporate managers role for that of a self-employed B&B owner and aspiring coach/ HR consultant and trainer meant that the working day started even earlier. Often at work by 7am and on an empty stomach until the guests were fed and working at times into the middle of the evening cooking suppers, we worked more or less every day (ie 7 days a week) for three months last summer. The pattern was repeated for our second peak season in November and December with the guests who came to see the Thursford Christmas show. Not that we're complaining, it was great to have lots of guests.

When January finally arrived we took the opportunity for a few lie-ins and worked 10-6 rather than 9-5 and only Monday to Friday for a couple of months.What a treat that was! The season is now underway so that life is on hold until next January.

And this week for the first time in many, many years I am working 9 to 5. I was offered a 3 month temporary contract last week to do some HR stuff in the NHS across Norfolk.

Meanwhile Mike is left to cook and clean for our guests, take more bookings (we hope), tend the allotment, do the shopping, the washing and the ironing, make jam, finish the decorating, answer phone calls on behalf of Gladstone Coaching (not an onerous task),shoo away unwanted neighbours with time to kill and entertain the cat.

Spare a thought for him as he juggles The Old Bakery Enterprises on his own - but don't phone and disturb him - he's got too much to do!!