Snippets from April - Part 1

1 April

I discern from this first snap that: 1) we ran a route around the estate; 2) it was a cool morning; and 3) I was really getting in need of a haircut.

Mudfest hill wasn't muddy...

...lulling us into a false sense of security for taking a route through the woods:

2 April

I had my first Covid jab! Mick had his first dose back in February but I'd not expected to be invited for another month yet. However, on the Thursday afternoon I received a text message from the doctors' surgery and on this Friday morning I had the jab. I attended the vaccination centre in town, which was being run with incredible efficiency - unlike Mick's experience at the local doctors'. 

3 April

When we'd run on Cannock Chase on 30 March I'd said that we would go back on the Saturday (3 April) for our long run. What I'd failed to realise until later in the week was that it was Easter weekend. We thus started early to avoid the crowds. A couple of hours in we had our major snack of the outing - the final piece of Flapjack made by my friend Maike. Excellent running fuel:

By the time we reached the parking around the visitor centre at around 0930, we couldn't believe how busy it already was. People soon dispersed as they left the honeypot, and it wasn't so busy as to mar our enjoyment of a route (19km) that we haven't done in years.

6 April

For 24 hours after my vaccination on Friday I had a sore arm that refused to be lifted above shoulder height, but otherwise I felt fine. On the Sunday afternoon I felt under the weather, but on Monday had rallied and had no problem with a 13km run. On the Tuesday (6 April) I was down for hill reps and set out with good intentions, but found myself completely devoid of energy. I slowly hauled my body around the circuit, but the uphill reps were done at a walk (the downhill reps I ran fast; to me the downs are more important than the ups). It was a lovely morning for it...

...then a couple of hours later it started to snow, which continued off and on for the rest of the day.

7 April

Every year Bertie needs a damp test to be carried out by a Hymer dealer, so as to keep his water ingress warranty valid. We usually have that (as well as his engine service) carried out in Belgium, but clearly that wasn't an option this year. In Belgium this 1-hour effort costs €70. We booked him in at a local UK dealer, who quoted us the price of £450. We ummed and arred as to whether it was worth the expenditure, or whether we should just take the risk of letting the warranty lapse. Then, by chance, we found out that the price quoted included a full habitation check, which we were happy to forego, and after several emails and phone calls to the dealer, we eventually got the price down to £220. Still painful, but clearly a huge improvement on the initial quote. 

We'd had the appointment booked since January, yet it was a couple of days beforehand when we received a call to say that they needed Bertie for 3 days. To do an hour's work. All due to Covid protocols apparently. 

The plus side was that the route between home and the dealer took us across Cannock Chase, so on the way home we stopped off for another turn around the trails:

See the ripples in the water? That's where Mick had just dipped his foot in. He'd lost his balance when he expected one of the stepping stones, which had previously been unstable, to wobble and was taken by surprise when it held still.

Later in the day I gave myself a haircut, but Mick vetoed my attempt at a mohawk:

9 April

Another run around Cannock Chase on our way to pick up Bertie (4th time in 10 days; feasting on beauty after months of from-the-front-door 'famine') . It rained on us almost constantly, so I took no photos.

Then to the Hymer dealer we went, arriving promptly for our collection time (Coronavirus protocols = by appointment only). Mick presented himself at the agreed time and then stood out in the pouring rain for about a quarter of an hour, as it turned out that only the chap who had arranged the appointment could deal with Mick (deal with = take payment and hand over keys) and he had carelessly double booked himself onto a training course at the same time as Mick's appointment. Mick was finally admitted to wait another age inside. Eventually he emerged without a single word of apology having been uttered. I don't think we'll be using that dealer's services again if we can help it! 

10 April

Off up to Halifax we headed, for Ma-in-Law's 96th birthday. On the way we stopped off to drop in a card and present to Maike who shares the birthday, although not the grand age. We enjoyed the best part of an hour sitting in her garden, enjoying a slice of her magnificent birthday cake:

As we left we all agreed what good weather it was for sitting out. Five minutes later we were driving through a flurry of snow. Snow showers became a theme of the afternoon in Halifax:

11 April

It snowed some more overnight, but it soon thawed in the sunshine:

12 April

The next two days deserve a post of their own, as they will involve that long-missed question of 'Where's Erica'.  

Snippets from March - Part 2

Here we are in the middle of April and whilst I wrote March's snippets quite promptly, it turns out that I forgot to add in the photos and press 'Publish'.

16 March

We carpeted the utidly room, but you already know that because my last post was dedicated to the subject.

17 March

I've developed an inability to pass this pond without taking a snap of the water level! Between the 14th (when I took the previous snap from this vantage point) to the 17th the bin went from having just the very bottom of its legs in the water to having the bottom of its basket submerged - a difference of some inches. 

Returning home I found that someone had snapped off one of the daffodil flowers in our front garden and left it lying by the pavement. I rescued it and put it in a vase, where it looked a bit lonely, but very cheerful on the window sill for the next week.

18 March

And the water was still higher, as well as being a bit choppy. 

20 March

What a display of blossom! The following week it felt like it was snowing down there, as the blossom started to fall.

21 March

I'd been out for a 27km run on the Saturday (20th) and Mick was doing the same distance on the Sunday (in the interests of staving off injury, he's employing a run/walk strategy, building up the run intervals slowly, and is only running every other day, thus our outings and intentions don't always coincide). I'd intended to keep him company for the first 40 minutes, then turn back, but by that point it seemed more appealing to add a bit of distance so as to form a circuit, the second half of which would be largely off-road. I covertly snapped Mick as I left him to head homewards, initially across 'Thistle Field' (still a completely unrunnable rut-fest).

24 March

Mud season had abated sufficiently to entice me to cut across the estate to get to my hill-reps hill (the one that's 200m long with 20m ascent, but is the best on offer in these flatlands). Like the snaps of the pond, I must have dozens of versions of this view, taken over the course of many years. I can say that sometimes in late March it is a hideous quagmire and sometimes there's no hint of mud. This year is somewhere in between (elsewhere through the woodland is still tending towards 'too soggy to be fun').

25 March

Based on my findings the day before, I managed to persuade Mick onto the same route. What a fine day we had for it. Surprisingly warm too, causing quite a bit of clothing to be carried, rather than worn (and at one point stashed in a hedge).

26 March

August and September are my usual jam and chutney making months, however, we had such a glut of tomatoes and apples (not to mention some Scotch Bonnet chillies) from a couple of Lidl veg boxes that I resorted to chutney making in March. They're currently in the 'maturing' phase, so it'll be June at the earliest before they get a taste test. 

Deary me, I've got lazy. Didn't remove the old labels from the jars.

27 March 

Last June I plotted a route that took in the length of every road within a 1-mile radius of home. I then replotted it over and again, trying to make it more efficient (there's necessarily repetition, which I was trying to minimize). I then failed to go and run it. 

Finally in early March I revisited the plan, replotted it a few more times and committed to running it on the 27th of the month. Planning for an early start, I got myself organised the day before, which included printing and laminating the route cards I'd put together as there was no way I was going to rely on my memory of the route, only then to get home and find out I'd missed some little (or indeed, big) stretch of road. 

 Two sets of route cards; didn't want the endeavour to be scuppered by losing one.

As conspicuous as I felt running up and down dead-end roads, it was a good route for such a windy day, as I was never running into the wind for more than a minute or two before turning again. Alas, I'd made the route too efficient, so I had to go around some of the streets again at the end to make it up to the 30km that was on my plan for the day (it was much later that I realised I was supposed to be doing 32km. Hey ho. Close enough). 

Couldn't resist another snap of the pond on my way past

29 March

Time to get some tomato seedlings potted up. Last year I had something silly like 80 plants. This year I'm only planting up a handful.

30 March

Freedom! The 'Stay at Home' restrictions ended on 29 March, so on the 30th we headed off to Cannock Chase, where we very much enjoyed a trot around various of its trails. 

Then we went and sat in my sister's garden for an hour or so.

Goodness, two ridiculously exciting activities (both of which in a different year would have been so run-of-the-mill as to not be worthy of mention) in one day! 

31 March

Could two days get much more exciting than this?! Some fifteen months after I last saw a friend in person, I went and sat in Maike's garden for a couple of hours, drinking coffee, eating the most enormous (and very tasty) slab of flapjack and putting the world to rights.

The Utidly

In my post for the first half of March I recounted that we had fitted Flotex flooring to both Erica and Bertie. It was as I measured up for Bertie that it occurred to me that if we positioned the pattern pieces appropriately, we would have enough of the flooring left* to do our utidly** room.

The flooring was duly fitted and for the next few days there was an exclamation of 'oooh!' every time one of us set foot in that room. That led me to wonder for exactly how long we had lived with a bare concrete floor, which led me to search through old photo files. The answer surprised me. 

When we moved into this house the utidly room was a single-skin (attached) outbuilding that had been added to the house in the 1980s. It had a row of three dilapidated kitchen cupboards at one end and had brown carpet tiles on the floor. It soon became apparent that we needed some insulation in there and, in my mind, we bought and fitted that insulation not long after we moved in.

I was partially right. When I initially failed to find the photos I was looking for, I searched my emails and found that we had indeed bought the solid-panel insulation panels six months after we moved here, but I still couldn't find the photos. Eventually I searched my email archive for the window we had bought for the refit. Goodness! Did we really live here for 2.5 years with insulation board leaning against the walls, waiting for us to build some stud walling, insulate and plaster, then fit it out with cabinets and work surface? Apparently we did.

Here's the story of that room in photos:

1) The day that we finally started the refit. What a mess! What a dumping ground! At this end of the room, along with the dilapidated cupboards, we have some makeshift shelves containing mainly buckets and stacks of sweet tins (used to store dehydrated meals when preparing for backpacking trips), two dehydrators, a  book case and a spare freezer. Note the insulation boards just stood against the walls.

Note also the brown carpet tiles on the floor. Feel free to insult those tiles, but be aware that we still have the same flooring in our kitchen. It's simultaneously hideously dated and fantastically practical. 

2) The other end of the room on the day we started the refit. The freezer seen in the snap above is also visible in this one, along with a fridge freezer and another fridge and another freezer. Bit excessive?! You may also notice there are two vacuum cleaners. Then there's the dresser (on which sits the microwave and breadmaker). In 1996, upon moving into a shared house, I found this dresser sitting on a landing waiting to go to the tip. I asked if I could have it and it moved house with me seven times (with two of its legs falling off every time it was lifted) before this refit finally consigned it to the destination for which it was intended in 1996, after a reprieve of some 19 years. 

3) Studwork built and insulation going in. 

4) Plasterboard going up

5) Cupboard building

6) Cupboard fitting

7) Door removal

8) Window fitting

9) Nearly there...

10) All of the photos above were taken in June 2015. Fast forward to 16 March 2021 when I took these snaps immediately before we started cutting the Flotex. Yep, that floor had looked like that for the entire 5.5 years. We had talked about flooring back in 2015, but figured we may as well wait until we refitted the kitchen, then we could make the two match. The only downfall in this plan was that whilst our kitchen is dated, there's nothing wrong with it. There's no other design that would work in the space and the cupboards are of good quality with solid oak doors, so why refit it just for the sake of it?

11)  Later on 16 March 2021:

Much more visually pleasing and, of course, so much nicer underfoot. 

Just think: if Coronavirus hadn't kept us confined to home last year we wouldn't have fitted out a campervan, and would not have found ourselves finally carpeting our utidly room (the two events being directly linked). How much longer would we have lived with a bare floor in the absence of Covid?

Now that the floor is sorted, I wonder what will provoke me into finally doing something with the bare plaster board?

(*Had six months not passed since I'd ordered the flooring, I might have been able to remember whether I simply mismeasured/miscalculated when I ordered or whether 2x2m roll-ends plus carriage was more or less the same price as 1x5m roll-end, but either way it was a bonus that we found ourselves with 0.9m x 3.1m left over, which is exactly what we needed for the utidly.

**I believe it was a friend's daughter who in her childhood mispronounced 'utility' and is the basis for our such room being referred to by the name 'utidly')

Snippets from March - Part 1

1 March

It was time for Phase 2 of Project Go Blue. When the dye failed to alter the colour of my hair the previous week I decided the only way I could achieve blue hair was to bleach it first, so I ordered the necessary supplies and turned our bathroom into a hair salon for the second time. This is how it went:

The bottom right is not blue dye but the 'anti-brassiness' conditioner that concludes the bleaching process.

Hmmm. Rather more yellow/orangish than the 'before' and 'after' comparisons shown on the box for my starting hair colour. I could probably have immediately gone in with the blue dye, but decided to stick with the yellow look for a few days first.

6 March

Not a single snap was taken 2-5 March, but on the 6th two things happened:

1) Mick & I started the day with a 16.5-mile run/walk. This time it wasn't frozen ground that made the cross-country portions tolerable (although it was a cold start to the day), but the fact that we'd not had a drop of rain during the preceding week, causing the mud to firm up to acceptable levels. 

2) I embarked on Phase 3 of Project Go Blue. On the plus side, the dye did take this time. Also on the plus side, I learnt quite a bit about dying hair (not that I've any intention of applying that new knowledge in the future!). On the downside, the learning experience came from having made a really bad job of the process. The result was a declaration that I would be wearing a hat for the next few weeks.

Top: Dye applied, waiting for 30 minutes. Bottom: after, sporting various shades of mottled blue. 

As a random bit of trivia, this day was the first time since the end of May 2019 that I used shampoo on my hair. Thanks to a continued use of shampoo over the next few days, the dye (which was only semi-permanent) soon started to fade and is now barely noticeable.

9 March

I didn't recognise this view and had to take a look at my running log to see where I'd been that day. The answer was that I did hill reps, and this view is at the top of the hill. When I say 'hill' this is the biggest incline we have nearby and it amounts to just under 20m of ascent in around 200m of linear distance. Perhaps I don't usually look at the view looking right from the top because I'm too busy gasping?

Later in the day we tackled a task that was long overdue. Back in early November I bought some Flotex flooring for Erica, but by the time it arrived we had decamped to Halifax to look after Ma-in-Law. We did spend some time at home in December and had plenty of time in January and February, but the weather was either really cold or wet (or sometimes both) and neither condition was conducive to spending time outside nor traipsing in and out of the house. Finally on 9 March I decided the roll of carpet had sat in the dining room for long enough:

Template for the cab made and traced around (the rear was simple enough not to need a template)

Cutting

Ta da! After 6 months of bare OSB in the back, and bare car-floor in the front, I was mightily pleased with the end result:

12 March

Forgot to take a snap before I'd cut it up and we'd eaten some of it

Looks a nice frosted chocolate cake, doesn't it? For the fat ingredient it contains a whole avocado. For the sweetness it contains bananas. The main ingredient in the frosting is tofu. Yep, this is the most ridiculously healthy 'chocolate cake'. "Tastes a bit odd, don't you think?" was Mick's opinion on the first day. On the second day he requested a different dessert. I've been ploughing on through it and think it has improved with age. 

13 March

The water in the ponds is dropping but very slowly. After two largely-dry weeks it was still completely covering the path, which lies just in front of the sign and the trees. 

You may notice it's a bit choppy. I'd switched Saturday's run and Sunday's walk in view of the strong winds and forecast rain. About ten minutes after I took this snap I got caught in comedy wind-driven rain.

14 March

A much nicer morning! Mick and I set out together, but about 2 minutes later I bade him farewell and broke into a trot. We were both to be covering 16.8 miles, but at different speeds and on slightly different routes (in view of Mick's history of injury, he's taking a conservative walk/run approach). 

About 12.75 miles through my route I saw someone up ahead, but it wasn't until about a quarter of a mile later that I realised it was Mick. Having caught up with him, I walked a bit I should have been running, then he ran a bit he should have been walking and thus we spent about five minutes together before I went on ahead, just before where I was going to veer back off his route anyway. It was nice to have an unexpected bit of company (unexpected because I'd not considered distances, relative speeds and the possibility of bumping into each other).

15 March

Bertie's turn for new carpet! We'd bought enough Flotex to do both Erica and Bertie, as it seemed unfair for Erica to get a shiny new floor and Bertie to be left with mis-matched old cheap scraps. I'm rather impressed with the job we did in Bertie too. Here are the 'after' snaps:

I failed to take any before photos and have had to search at length to find some old snaps that show bits of the floor:

The cheap beige runner that we put in the kitchen as a temporary measure in the spring of 2017. This snap was taken before the Hymer dealer spilt some glue on it (about which we didn't make a fuss because it was a temporary £7 runner that was certainly not still going to be in place 4 years later...)

The blue Flotex that lined the cab and of which we had a couple of loose squares in the living area (not sure where they were when this snap was taken). 

 

 

 

 

An Anniversary

A year ago today (14 March 2020), I stepped out of Bertie's door just across the road from the beach at Castellón and set out for a run with every expectation that when I returned, and after we'd had breakfast, we would tootle up the coast to Peñiscola and book into a campsite. We had decided that a campsite would be a good place to be whilst we observed what the next development would be with this virus that was sweeping across the world.

Things developed in Spain with remarkable rapidity, and by the time we pulled out of Bertie's parking spot after breakfast it wasn't towards Peñiscola that we headed, but to the UK. As we drove across Spain the country announced a strict lockdown. We reached France that day and by the time we boarded our Eurotunnel shuttle on the Tuesday morning, the start of their own lockdown was a couple of hours away. We arrived home later that same day. 

Twelve whole months have now passed. The weeks within those months have generally gone fast, yet some of the days have passed excruciatingly slowly. I think we can safely say that few people foresaw how these twelve months would look.

Bertie is, of course, still sitting patiently waiting to take us somewhere on an adventure, as is Erica. Hopefully it's not going to be too long now before one of them gets their wish.