Lemonade Award

I am deeply cynical about awards. Particularly work related ones. I usually think they're political and having been on the judging panel for last years AOP Awards very, very difficult to win if you don't follow a strict formula. Of course, that cynicism evaporates when something I've worked on actually wins an award. On the blogging front most awards revolve around some kind of viral marketing appeal so again, I'm cynical. But as it happens Meg from meggetscrafty.blogspot.com has nominated this blog, so I guess I should be gracious and play by the rules.

So here goes, here are ten blogs that I visit regularly, and suggest you bookmark if you like them too.

http://pan-dan.blogspot.com/
http://obsessilicious.blogspot.com/
http://www.ifitshipitshere.com/
http://worsthouse.blogspot.com/
http://www.disneyrollergirl.blogspot.com/
http://www.designmom.com/
http://inspirationbubble.blogspot.com
http://atomicteaparty.blogspot.com/
http://www.metrosnapshot.com/blog/
http://lindsays-list.blogspot.com/

For the winners, share the love and pass it on. Here's what to do....
1) Put the Lemonade Award logo on your blog or post
2) Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude
3) Link to your nominees within your post
4) Let the nominees know that they have received this award by
commenting on their blog
5)Link to the person from who you received your award

An inconvenient truth

We've just had the longest day of the year, with an inky sky just getting dark at 10.20pm last night. It's definitely a warmer summer than previous years and notably so because of our glass extension. This photo was taken at 8.20am one day last week. Yup, it was a very balmy 30 degrees, even though we'd left the three roof vents (big windows) open all night. This explains why most of our pot plants died while we were on holiday - during that week the roof vents were closed and it got up to 36 degrees (the thermostat shows the highest and lowest recorded temperatures, until you reset it). I guess the prickly cactus should be our plant of choice.

We very nearly didn't get the roof vents at all as they added around £1,000 to the cost, and we thought we'd throw open the concertina doors on hot days. Being east facing too it seemed less likely the place would turn into a hothouse than south or west facing gardens. Of course you can't leave any doors wide open if you go out, which is why we went for the vents. If you're contemplating a double glazed glass roof don't skimp on the ventilation, unless you'd like to know what living on Earth will be like circa 2050...

German sojourn

This blog is currently less about renovation and more about my holidays. But as there's been no sign of any actual building work for some months I feel as though I should post something. Last week was spent in Germany, first in Berlin then in Munich, as I left the kids at home with Rob and went on a whistle stop tour, meeting up with two of my favourite girlfriends. (I should mention that the trip was to coincide with Depeche Mode and that seeing them in Germany is something any true fan has to do at least once).

In both cities we stayed at branches of the Motel One chain - in Berlin it was Alexanderplatz and in Munich the newly opened Sendlinger Tor. Both were unbeatable locations for being in the heart of the action, and close to the U and S bahns for adventures further afield. The decor is worth mentioning too, lots of Arne Jacobson and Castiglioni Arc lights, none of the fusty bland stuff so beloved of most chain hotels. Even better was the price - my Dutch friend balked when I suggested we try and find something for under €200 - the rooms at Motel One were only €84 a night, for both of us!

The Sendlinger Tor room was even better than the Alexanderplatz version, with a flatscreen Loewe TV, a slightly improved tap in the bathroom and more storage. Probably not so useful if you have kids (unless you can get adjoining rooms?) but definitely worth investigating if you're headed that way. Both cities are superb - cold beer, great food, good transportation (and cheap taxis) and of course, the locals go absolutely crazy for Depeche Mode. Here's a video I shot on tippy toes during the Munich gig:

French sojourn

Two years ago we had a two-week holiday to a musty old farm house in the Dordogne. It rained almost every day in August (when it's supposed to be hot) and the house was so horrid we swore we'd never go back. Friends from NYC stayed in a holiday villa in South West France last year and said we'd love it, so we decided to go with their recommendation and duly booked the house months in advance. Eventually the booking rolled around and we stayed there for the last week of May with friends, just as the weather got really hot.

Turns out our NYC friends were absolutely right, we did love it. Not only was the house done to an aesthetic standard that wasn't a million miles away from our own, but it was situated in a wooded area 10 minutes drive from a massive and virtually empty beach.

I'm blogging about it here as it was inspiring to see such a dramatic transformation in 18 months of hard graft. What was once virtually a ruin is now a modern and functional holiday home. The wet room is massive, the concrete floors keep the rooms cool and the pool is just off the kitchen so you can keep an eye on the kids while you prepare food. We BBQ'd most meals and the only thing I think I missed during our stay was a set of good chef's knives.

The many hours I've wasted searching for holiday homes in the past are behind me now, as I've found the only French villa worth re-booking. It sleeps three couples, three singles and possibly one more on the mezzanine futon, though with two families it was perfect.

For more photos, availability and pricing check out:
www.lepreauxcepes.com

Hot house

It's 26 degrees in our extension right now. I've popped home to load the car with stuff for our upcoming trip to France and have had to open the doors right up. It's suffocatingly hot. I've put most of the plants into a massive plastic tub with three inches of water. Rob has been gloating over our lush, green outlook (the neighbours look onto another property) which we hadn't really thought about when we bought our place. If the weather carries on like this, the lushness will no doubt shrivel up. The forecast for London is sunshine, while in France where we're headed it's heavy rain. Oh well.

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.