' 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 '.

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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!






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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!!

Really I don't dislike to cook, but what you cook is eaten so quickly. When you sew, you have something that will last to show for your efforts. ~Elizabeth Travis Johnson

And sew it came to pass....that at the weekend Alison had time to sew.

Over the last twenty odd years it has been my favourite way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, listening to Sport on 5 on the radio (although the most common news of another goal being conceded by Sunderland is less welcome) whilst seated at my sewing table. When we lived in West Hoathly I had an old kitchen table that we chopped a bit off of so that it would fit under the eaves at the end of our loft bedroom.

Now I have the big end of the conservatory which runs along the east wing of the building. The width of most of the conservatory is only about four feet for most of it's length so we use the space to hang the sheets, duvet covers and table-cloths before they are ironed. But at the end nearest the main part of the house it is an extra couple of feet wider which is just room enough for my trusty, slightly shortened sewing table and a few stacks of storage drawers which are full of fabric, all colour coordinated or stored according to themes e.g. Christmas, flowers, animals.

It's been a bit chilly to sit and sew there over the last few months and rather than heat the conservatory I have found myself spreading out into our den, which is very cosy when the wind is howling outside.

I have always worked from to-do lists as a way of ensuring that I get everything done or at least it's a way of me knowing what I should be doing. At the moment I have five lists on the go, one for The Old Bakery business, one for my Gladstone coaching business, another for my coaching studies, one for my personal stuff (which doesn't come under any other list) and a quilting list.

This last list is subdivided into two; the quilts I am in the course of making and another list for all the other quilt stuff I need to do. Over the last few weeks this has included getting set up on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook (find me @norfolkpatch) and things that I need to do to start getting some work as a quilt teacher.

Mike has often suggested that I should make quilts and sell them but the economics of doing so just don't add up. The cost of materials for the front of a quilt, wadding for the inside and the backing material are likely to be £80-£100. Machine quilting (by a professional) would be another £80-£100 and with a quilt top taking anywhere between 20 to 60 hours to make, depending on the complexity even if you added in labour at the minimum wage cost it would make the real cost of making a quilt prohibitive.

If you look on Amazon there are single bed-size quilts for sale at £25, probably made in China from cheap fabric but it makes you think.

So I've decided that if I'm to generate any income from my hobby I should teach others how to quilt instead. A couple of weeks ago I emailed our local bird reserve, The Hawk and Owl Trust at Sculthorpe, suggesting that I could run a workshop for them on an owl theme (owl fabrics are very popular at the moment) and they immediately responded saying that they wold love me to do so.

I'm now hard at work creating owl themed samples to go and show them in about 10 days time, before I run a workshop which is planned for early June. Both Stephen and Mike have drawn me owls for me to convert to patchwork patterns and I'm busy trying to turn fabric into the different native species of owl; Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, Little Owl and either a Short of a Long-eared owl (I'll decide what it most looks like when it is finished!)

In between the owls I've also been making raggy baby quilts and various christmas projects which will be separate workshops that I want to pitch to some other places in the next few weeks.

I had planned on making patchwork quilts for all of the B&B and cottage bedrooms over the winter (sometimes my plans are a touch optimistic!) but I have finished the quilt which is now on the bed in The Miller's Room.

This is the quilt which we photographed in the garden.

Here's the quilt on the bed along with the cushions I made.

All of which, I hope, will suffice to explain to both Stephen and Claire that the quilts I started for each of them before they went to university are still on my list to finish, but what with the samples for workshops and quilts for the B&B rooms, don't hold your breath, I may be some time!

Both Alison and I have taken up smoking.

Having never smoked before we thought we would 'buck the trend' and start in our early 50's. We figure that if you haven't tried something new by our age and you really fancy having a go, well then you should make the effort.  We have long thought about starting but knew so little and we were put off by a lack of understand of the paraphernalia and it was for this reason that we decided we would get some professional help to start and to ensure our health and safety would not be compromised.


It was with this in mind that Alison gave me a Christmas present of a days training in how to smoke safely and she joined me on the course too.

I particularly have longed to start smoking because I love kippers and since we have lived up here in Norfolk I have frequently visited our local smokery and bought smoked garlic, mussels, prawns, bloaters and even the wonderful Red Herring which I may just have fed you with at the beginning of this article.


We thought it would be great to set up our very own smokery in our garden or perhaps in the garden tool store but with no practical knowledge of the subject Alison went on the web and found a fantastic course run by two really nice ladies.  So we packed our overnight bags filled the car with juice and set off to the opposite coast and probably my favourite area (after Norfolk, of course) The Lake District.

We stayed in a brilliant Inn called The Wild Boar inn, just near Lake Windermere which unusually has its own smokehouse. The food was exquisite cooked by chefs that really know their stuff and featured many items smoked to perfection in their own smokehouse. As if that wasn't brilliant enough then the smoking course exceeded all our expectations.

The two tutors had on a whim rejected the rat race in London to pursue a whole different life style (mmmm, sounds familiar that). They were both high up in the Police force and gave it up to buy an old artisan smokehouse with which they built up the trade until they were supplying the likes of Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges, Harvey Nicks and even smoking privately for The Prince of Wales.

They were just fantastic and took us through all the basics of curing, cold smoking, hot smoking, the different types of equipment and the heath and safety aspects too. For a one day course it appeared to cover everything.

Some examples of the homemade equipment that you can smoke in.

We were under the misapprehension that we would need something the size of a garden shed to smoke food but as you can see in the photo above an old barrel BBQ, a clapped out old stove and even a filing cabinet can be used to smoke foods in. Please note the Inn's smokehouse is the building right behind these Heath Robinson affairs and is state of the art but the rough shod, moonshine, on the edge style of smoking is a lot more fun.

By lunch time we had smoked enough food to have a filling lunch. The course then continued and we smoked and learnt a whole lot more. At the end of the course we handed all that we had smoked over to the restaurant's Chef to do with as he so desired and we returned in the evening to a sumptuous meal of totally scrummy food. Smoked Gammon, Sausages, Wild boar, Trout, Beef steak and well the list just went on and on. We sat there as if it were a medieval banquet with one course after another laid before us and EVERY SINGLE ITEM was an explosion of taste. I cannot recommended both the Course and the Inn highly enough to do them justice.

My hands on the left and Alison behind. This was just the 'snack' lunch!

There is a link at the end of this blog.


So we have purchased the two simplest methods of smoking as we are just dipping our toes in the water so as to speak.

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. However this kit has a clever little gadget in it which allows oak sawdust to just smoulder and with a simple placing of metal racks (provided) inside the box you can smoke foods on several shelves at once for many hours.

We have cold smoked cheeses, prawns, mussels, garlic cloves, peppers, mushrooms and even fillets of duck breasts. Do you know that even as I write this my mouth is slightly salivating at the memory of how tasty these were.

We also bought a small hot smoking pan which can be used in the kitchen on your hob (disable your smoke alarm first!) or outside. We have found that our fireplace is so big we can actually use either of the smoking devices there and the flu takes away all the excess smoke. Having seen these lovely scented white whisps of smoke curl up the chimney breast I now know what those Cardinals were really doing in the Sistine Chapel.... genuinely getting one step nearer to heaven!



In our Hot Smoking unit we have smoked Salmon, Trout, Cod and more Salmon fillets.... And even more Salmon fillets as they are mind-blowingly Wowwwwww in their flavour.


So now our guest menus will, on occasions, feature home cured and smoked ingredients, that is of course if we don't eat them ourselves first!!!



Links;-  Smoky Jo's  course website       
http://www.smokeyjos.co.uk/

The Wild Boar Inn;- 
http://englishlakes.co.uk/hotels/lake-district-hotels/windermere-hotels/wild-boar-inn/

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Car rot in a lay-by

 Only in Norfolk have I ever seen a pile of carrots just siting in a lay-by. It is not as if this is a one off event as a pile of carrots appears in the self same spot every year and the reason is a complete enigma to me.

Over the next few months it will slowly diminish, carrot by carrot and yet I never witness anyone or indeed any creature removing them. Are they there for the poor local peasants as a generous gift from the farmer. If so and whilst it would seemingly be a kind thought I would hope that there would be another farmer down the lane leaving a pile of cabbages and another a mountain of potatoes. Otherwise all our peasants (of which I haven't seen one in all the time I've lived here) could suffer from Carotenodermia giving them the appearance of an immigrant from Essex.

Another hypothesis is that the farmer is leaving horse food out just like I do for the birds in my garden in the hope that he will glimpse a roaming Suffolk Punch or a cute Falabella and perhaps if he just got lucky a roaming Shetland Pony. As this would involve the farmer sitting in his 'Horse hide' and likely to be able to see me this is one peasant that will not be helping himself to any of the carrots.

A final thought is that the farmer isn't all 'there' and has completely misunderstood the meaning of set-a-side!




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"Daaaad. Do you know the Pianos on my foot?" "You hum it son and I'll play it!"

We find ourselves making silly mistakes, an inevitable consequence when tackling a refurbishment on such an old building with such a large range of 'works' being carried out on it. 

So far we have two biggies as far as mistakes go, firstly in our cottage the master bedroom required that half the floor be removed as it was split level and needed to be even throughout to accommodate a Superking-size bed. Consequently this portion of the floor was completely removed and a new one built 12 inches lower.
It was only once the floor had been rebuilt that we realised that we would not be able to get the enormous bed up the tiny flight of stairs and that we had missed the ideal chance to have got the bed up through the hole in the floor when we had the chance.
The solution was to order the bed in bespoke quarters which we could take up the narrow staircase and assemble in situ. which we successfully achieved.  Nonetheless very frustrating.


The second BIG mistake was perpetrated by myself. I had been mightily impressed by the Power Shower that we had bought and installed in the first B&B room and so jumping ahead of the game I bought a second for the Cottage shower room. It is a high power, high performance, reliable shower that just about every plumber I spoke to recommended. But it had a price to match,  with the 'book' price being £600 I searched the internet and eventually obtained it, brand new, at just £340 which was even cheaper than the plumber could do. Knowing I could get it so cheap and seeing that the same site was still selling it at that I decided to jump the gun and snap the 2nd one up.

Oooops!  It was only when they came to fit it that I became aware it was inappropriate for the new cottage shower room as the hot water system that I had agreed to was pressurised and the £340 of power shower was redundant. I tried selling it to the electrician, both lots of plumbers and even more recently to the builder, all of whom are interested in it but will wait until they have a customer whom needs one. So I'm stuck with that then and at some stage I shall probably flog it on Ebay.



Then there was our last mistake.....

We had completed all the works to the landings and as such had built several new walls from which a door leads to one of our smaller bedrooms. The mistake here was that we didn't learn from our first mistake (above) and having finished all the walls we then blindly ordered the new bed. Now this was just a single bed but the new walls and door angles looked like the ordered bed was going to be a struggle to get into the room......  AND IT WAS!

When it arrived I took it up the stairs and attempted to get it to the doorway of the respective bedroom which first involved it twisting (which 6' x 3' divan beds don't do) through another doorway first.

Well, I heaved and I hoed. I umphed and I poomfed. I even tried a liberal dollop of cursing but to no avail. This all went on at the top of the stairs and I was all the time put in mind of the famous Laurel and Hardy film "The Music Box" in which they attempt to move a piano up a long staircase and every time they nearly get there something happens to cause the piano to come crashing down the stairs.
Finally I had to give up and admit that it was just never going to fit. I thought about cutting it in half or dismantling it but the material had been stretched across the whole thing, that was not an option.

My rule is never say die, there always has to be a way...... Now What would Jesus do?  Probably buy a futon!  I had already considered my plan B but wasn't very keen on it as it was going to be a tad awkward and I would definitely need a hand. BUT as luck would have it some dear friends were coming to stay and I felt sure that they would assist, especially as this was the bed that their son was due to sleep in. If he was to sleep in a bed when they arrived then they would have to help me get the bed up over the porch's tiled roof and in through a first floor window......... Easy peasy.


And so my Plan B was implemented on their arrival. The bed was hoisted up my very dodgy ladder precariously positioned on a wobbly, cobbled yard until it reached a window that in years gone by was originally a door for hoisting sacks of grain up into the old shops attic. Once we had got it through this window then all we had to do was slide it down the long corridor and straight into the bedroom.  Walla!


The following demonstrates both mind over matter and divan over roof tiles.......

First we positioned a sheet of hardboard to act as both protector of the porch roof tiles and as a guide to allow the bed to slide over the window sill.

Then with Matthew (our friends son and hopeful 'bedeee') holding the sheet of hardboard in place we were ready for the big lift.

Here we are just contemplating the finer details of the big lift. Graham (on the left) and I (on the right) both secretly musing on which way we would jump if it all went wrong,  our exit strategy if you will.
Every man for himself!   Well that was what I was thinking anyway.

I look at this picture with some incredulity as some 30 years ago Graham was Best man at my wedding and at that time people used to think we were brothers because we looked so similar. Well here we are 3 decades later and I appear to have grown a foot taller and 3 foot wider whereas he still looks much the same.....    Even his hair is still the same colour.

Obviously I put his ageless state down to witch craft and my aged state down to my genes.


Anyhow................

Ready and poised, Shirley (Matthews Mother) has taken over hard board duties, the bed is in place and we're ready to go.

Too me, no, no.... to you son. Up a bit... give it a wiggle.... YOU GIVE IT A WIGGLE!

Did anyone measure the window size?

"Yes of course I did.".......        "Nice arse".......      "Who said that!"

Shirley - "Do you think he makes all his B&B guests do this?"

The task was finally completed, Matthew had his bed, his parents had earnt their supper, mission impossible had been achieved and I was left hanging on the window sill by my fingernails   C'est la vie!








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