Herbie Hancock

We used to live less than a minute from the cheapest florist in the East End so our flat was always full of flowers. At Rob's insistence I might add. The new locale means getting to Broadway Market before it gets too crowded on a Saturday (ie in the morning) and paying a bit more. So far I've managed it a few times but then get annoyed at the decaying debris left behind. Rob hates dealing with dead flowers. As do I. Actually I'm sure I read somewhere that growing flowers is bad for the environment (chemicals in the run off water, actually using water that could be better used elsewhere, eco footprint from transporting them across Europe etc etc).

So here's a good compromise I hope: herbs. Not just cut herbs in a tea cup but actual live ones. I'm kind of wishing I'd thought of this before the concrete got poured because it would've been cute to have a little groove inset in there for the pots to sit in. Next time maybe. I'm not much of a green thumb so chances are these little puppies won't last through the week. In the meantime, they're pepping up every meal and I've even got my three-year-old drinking mint tea.

Six months on, no splashback

Nothing much to report on the house front. Teia was due to come back this week and do the splashback and make a start on the cabinet but is still tied up on his other job. Two colleagues of mine have had extensive building work start and finish on their homes the last few months... while our job is in limbo, waiting for those last few days of work to happen.

The main problem is that our job hasn't been effectively project managed from the get go. The general day-to-day issues Teia took care of himself, but the architect would normally oversee things to ensure the job ran smoothly. As our budget was under £80K (ie peanuts to most architects) we didn't really benefit from any useful input after the drawings were done, except for a few emails to suppliers.

If I was to do this project again I wouldn't engage an architect in the same way as it was an ineffectual use of our money. If you have less than £100K to spend you're better off buying the drawings from the architect then paying for hourly sessions when you need them. It's extremely unlikely this would add up to 15.5%-20% of your budget (most architects charge this as their fee). I was told this advice before we started this project and chose to ignore it.

Also, the drawings and costings weren't foolproof - the lighting was left off (quite a major oversight) and a sliding door was drawn into a load bearing wall which meant we had to redesign how it worked. We naively thought that using an architect would mean the entire job would be costed accurately and there'd be a tiny margin of error, and it would get done in a set time frame.

Hindsight is a marvellous thing isn't it?

House warming party

We just had the first May Bank Holiday weekend in England, and it was a significant weekend for us as we had a few reasons to celebrate. Firstly, 10 years of marriage (no-one thought we'd last this long, least of all me!), our eldest just turned six and our youngest is about to turn three, and sod it, despite the house not being completely finished we decided to have a house warming BBQ too. I only sent out the invitations a few weeks ago to try and keep the numbers down, and fortunately loads of people had booked trips away or had other engagements. As it happened we ended up with 18 kids and 40+ adults throughout the day, which was plenty.

As you can see from the photos, the weather was cracking - perfectly sunny and completely still, which was lucky as later in the evening we set off 10 Chinese night sky lanterns over Hackney. Even more incredible was that some late arrivals got a bit lost, but found our house by following their noses to the source of the lanterns. The same couple were trekking around Victoria Park the next afternoon and found one of our lanterns still pretty much intact in the park! Amazing co-incidence! (And quite frankly I'm impressed that they were able to leave the house at all, we took two days to surface after the party...)

Lighting up

I'm a regular purchaser of items from The Glow Company - I can't keep track of how many glow in the dark bracelets we go through. The girls use them as night lights, and for a while I had them on the pram for night outings, and of course they were useful for lighting up the gazebo at The Big Chill. I think we must go through a tube of 100 every few months. I was about to order some more when I spied on the website these solar powered garden lights. Excellent idea as we hadn't wired up any lights in the bottom of the garden. This photo doesn't do them justice, they look tiny here whereas in real life they're the size of large grapefruit. About 45 minutes after the sun goes down, these four lights come on and gently phase through the colour spectrum. When we came home in the small hours last weekend I'd forgotten they'd be charged up and it was like walking into a surreal garden disco. Absolutely hypnotic. All four lights come in a pack called "Solar Sphere Stick" and cost £29.99 - which is a bargain when one Mathmos ball costs £40.

On Sunday morning when my drag queen friend Rhys hauled himself out of the spare room I said to the girls "See I told you those magic lights would attract fairies" - Rhys and I fell about laughing while the kids looked completely blank.

Secure garden

The deck was finished before Easter, but for some odd reason I haven't taken a photo of it in it's entirety yet. I did manage to snap our new garden gate though. Not only did Chris-the-chippie install it in record time but he then stained it before heading off, which was really nice of him as I thought that was a job that we'd have to do.

The gate is huge and solid and arrived the day before we were due to dog-sit. Couldn't have been better timing as the dog enjoyed hanging out in our garden, and being a whippet we couldn't have hoped to contain him if there was no gate. Confusingly, the dog is called Marlowe - our eldest daughter is called Marlo - so hanging out in the park and explaining that to the various dog people we made small talk with was fun. I tried to convince people my other kid was called Spot (she was wearing a polka dot dress) but only one chap believed me.

Spring sunshine

A visitor from Bethnal Green supplied this photo of our BBQ lunch a couple of weekends ago, and as it shows the house looking sort of finished it seemed a shame not to use it. (Notice how half the deck is missing). Can't understand how the previous owners of this property just didn't make it easy to get out to the garden. The back door was off a tiny utility room, through two sets of doors from the stairs, and a whole floor below the kitchen. Bonkers.

Even though the garden is east facing, it gets the sun from sun up until the middle of the afternoon. We're hoping that as summer kicks in the sun will last even longer as it'll be higher in the sky and should peep over the rooftops. The neighbours said previous occupants had painted the entire middle floor black. Maybe they just don't like sunlight, and hence didn't see the appeal of a garden? Weirdos.

Fantastic Mr Fox

The Easter weekend meant four days of eating, drinking and more drinking
finishing on Monday with a BBQ. During this time we saw a lot of our
friendly neighbourhood fox. I was about to throw away a chicken carcass
and decided that the fox would benefit from some remnants of the plump
organic bird, so tossed it onto the deck. Sure enough, the fox came back
and disposed of the carcass. Rob had been drinking - a lot - and said he
was going to make the fox "work a bit harder". He tied a length of blue
string to a chicken wing and chucked it onto the deck, holding the other
end of the string. Our dinner guests laughed politely but I could tell
they thought it was a bit odd (one of them is a vegetarian!). We turned
out the lights, and lay in wait, camera poised. I felt a bit like Bill
Oddie bird watching, waiting for the money shot.

The fox came back, and took the wing and unfortunately ran round the
side of the house and not out onto the lawn. The string became taut then
the fox let go, so we reeled the wing back in. A few minutes later, the
fox was back, cautiously peering over the deck. It went for a second
strike and this time ran onto the lawn - hoorah! It tussled with the
string for about a minute, before it succeeded and ran off with its
prize. Strangely satisfying.

The next night, we tried piling some past-their-best sausages onto an
upturned bucket. This wasn't so successful as the deck was covered in
stinky sausies the next morning. We won't be putting out food for the
fox any more.

Postscript. By popular demand here's a video of that first visit, when Mr Fox snaffled the wing, only to run off round the side of the house...

It's all white

Our downstairs colour scheme was initially fabulous. It was January when the extension became properly habitable, and the short winter days meant that our downstairs space felt spacious and bright, thanks to all the white furniture and white walls. But as the sun's started to feel stronger the glare in the room is just too bright. I spend each morning eating breakfast with sunglasses on. My neighbour thinks I've got a drinking/hangover problem (if you're reading this, those bottles in the recycling bin are from our many visitors!) cos if I'm not wearing the glasses I'm squinting at him.

Luckily (?) the glass splashback is a few months late getting fitted, and there are now lots of grease spots on the wall next to the hob. Rob bought some lime green (chartreuse?) test pots and we're peering at these colour samples throughout the day to see which one's the best fit. Initially I liked the middle one, but now I'm voting for number one. Rob's been cooling his heels at home for the last 20 weeks but starts his new job tomorrow (hooray!) so I'm not entirely sure when the painting is going to be done, or the splashback installed... I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

All hands on deck

The wood/timber/lumber/planks which were despatched last week got lost en route. Apparently they were delivered... but as we couldn't find any evidence of them we think they were sent to the wrong address or something. Fortunately, they showed up today and Teia came round to finish the deck this afternoon. It's dark out there so this is a shot showing the deck with the garden flood lights on, will snap it during daylight hours of course.

The moon is almost full and it's rising right above our glass roof, this photo doesn't do it justice, but it's a real thrill to see stars and a heavy moon on a clear night especially in central London!

First BBQ of the year!

I always enjoy a BBQ. Mainly it means that Rob has to cook which is relatively rare. Case in point, he got made redundant in November (the day we moved in was his last day of paid employment) and for the last four and a half months he's cooked exactly twice. And one of those was heating pasta sauce from a jar when I felt poorly. I was expecting him to get bored and forage for recipes, ingredients and condiments, but it turns out he's able to amuse himself all day long.

Anyway, with the deck half built and friends coming over for lunch it was time to wheel out the Weber. I marinated enough meat to feed a pack of starving wolves, threw together some salads and then kicked back while Rob suffered through the heat and smoke. It was a joy to behold and I look forward to many more BBQs in the coming months.