Sunny outlook

This photo was taken on a cloudy afternoon to show how quickly the outlook has changed. From a few spindly, naked trees it's now a lush green mess. As far as the eye can see we're looking across other people's gardens. Pretty much all other properties are obscured by foliage. And no-one can see into the glass extension, which is just as well given how exposed it is.

The photo doesn't really do it justice, but trust me, living this close to urban London life and having the feeling that you're in the countryside is a bonus we hadn't considered when we bought this house. It's not even proper summer yet so the trees will only get denser in the next few weeks.

Another job done

A classic before and after for your perusal. This is the lacquer on the concrete counter top. Not long after we started to use it, the lacquer began to peel and lift and as you can see after 18 months of usage looks pretty rough.

The quote we had to sand it back and reseal it was astonishing - and that's when we finally found a company who would consider doing it. Apparently concrete companies are of the belief that if they didn't install the concrete, they won't do any maintenance.

Fortunately, the guy who did it in the first place came back from his holiday and was only to happy to swing by and sort it out for the cost of hiring all the bits and bobs, plus a very reasonable day rate (thank you Isaac!). He ended up coming round on three consecutive days and the sanding created the mother of all dust storms in the house, but hey ho, check out the 'after' photo below.

While concrete looks the business I'm pretty sure I'd get Corian next time. It's just too painful to get concrete fixed when it starts to look shabby, and inevitably, it will look shabby.

Next step is to get the glass company to show up to sort out the kitchen splashback. It's been 8+ days of fairly continuous phone calls to remind them to show up...

In plane sight

It was the Queens 84th Birthday celebration this weekend. We were alerted to the fact by the rumbles of fast approaching low-flying aircraft. I'm sure most people in Hackney could claim that the planes flew right over them, but in our case, they really did - as you can see from this snap of the sky taken from inside my kitchen through the (grubby) glass.

According to The Times: "After taking the salute the Queen and other royals returned to the Palace where they watched an RAF flypast by 13 different types of aircraft, including World War II Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster, modern Typhoon fighters and the Red Arrows aerobatic display team. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight led the formation to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Britain’s defeat of Germany"

It sounded like 13 types of aircraft. I wonder if the elderly residents of London's East End felt nostalgic or terrfied when they heard the racket.