by Kevin | Jul 7, 2019
The Sketch
There comes a point in the life of every house where you look at various parts and come to the conclusion that they just need to be changed. Time for a kitchen refit.
In the case of our kitchen, this came just under 20 years after we moved into the house. We’d still got the original builders-fit in place. Much of it was starting to look worn or damaged, and it was generally a mess. On top of that, we had a problem with the boiler. Gas service engineers had been telling us for years that they soon wouldn’t be able to get spares for it. We also knew we had a problem with the floor in one corner as a result of some water leakage out of the back of the dishwasher. We didn’t know quite how bad the problem was, but a spongey floor is rarely a good thing.
I figured if I was going to have to replace the floor, then that would mean the units over the top of it would have to come out, and hence the seed was sown that we should replace the cupboards with new ones rather than putting the old ones back.
The Shopping
We shopped around a little bit, including visiting a couple of the big chain suppliers, but in all cases these would require some extra effort in project managing the whole activity, and typically they also won’t quote for anything other than simply installing new units. Everything else becomes a job for “custom pricing” once the work starts. In this context, “custom pricing” means that you’re more or less held to ransom. Once the job has started and your old kitchen is done, you have to do whatever the contractors say. And pay them as much as they ask. Otherwise they’ll leave until you get someone else to do it. By which time they’ve started a different job. Because we wanted more-or-less of a rip and replace job, we wanted to avoid this.
We visited a small local company called Lima Kitchens to see what they were about – partly because of a recommendation from a running friend of Kas’s. They had some nice stuff in the showroom, and very importantly they offer an end-to-end service. So we thought we’d get them to do a design for us to compare against the chain competitors.
The design they suggested was so completely and utterly not like the big-chain suggestions that they more or less had us at that first step. They did it by actually sending someone round to the house and talking to us. Talking to us about what we wanted, what our gripes were, and how we wanted to use our new room. All very good, and when we went in to review the proposal we had a bit of a jaw-dropping moment. It was definitely good. In fact it was better than good. It was fan-dabi-dozi.
The Decision
So once we’d finished admiring the design and giving some basic hints on the types of finish we’d want, we needed some lunch. We went to a nice pubstaurant in Stony Stratford to get fed and to think about what we’d just seen. We didn’t think about it for very long, though. On the way home from Stony we went back to Lima and paid them a deposit. We’d kind of decided just to get on with it.
There was a wait of several weeks after this while we finalised the design while Lima ordered all the stuff. That suited us because we didn’t want to disturb Ami’s period of mock exams during May. So we asked them to start after that. Anyway, it meant that the guts of the job could be done while we were away.
The Work
Everything went more or less to plan, with the notable exception of the wet floor being somewhat wetter than anticipated. This required a small “upgrade” to the work schedule to bring in a builder to replace a fairly significant portion of the chipboard and underlying joists in the soggy corner. Apart from that, though, all was pretty good.
They left us with water, power and heating every night, which was a challenge for them on a couple of days. On the day when they changed the boiler, for instance. That was a late night for the plumbers. When we got back from our holiday we had a functioning kitchen albeit with a dusty floor still and with a few doors missing from the units. Subsequent work rushed along nicely and after 3 complete weeks we were basically done apart from the decorating and a few superficial bits on the cupboards.
Now that we’re completely done, we have started using the kitchen as intended. The layout allows us to sit and hold conversations whilst cooking is in progress, and there’s more than enough space to sit and eat at the centre island. Deep joy.
Footnote (in 2021)
When we originally did the kitchen we didn’t think about the interaction between the door (which opens inwards) and the new island. After a while it became annoying. So we had it changed for a pair of French doors that open outwards. It is much better that way.
by Kevin | Jun 16, 2019
by Kevin | Jun 16, 2019
The Sketch
It felt like a good day to try to get past 1,000 total finds by ryo62. There’s some benefit in doing that. Anyone who passes that milestone gets awarded a “Congratulations” cache, which is a nice touch. At the start of the day I needed a further 79 ryo62 finds. That may sound a lot, but to be honest it’s not that many for a day in June. What better way than by sketching a rabbit’s head onto my caching map by attempting the Heidi Rose Bunny Hop series, near Bassingbourn.
When Ross sets puzzles he sets puzzles which are very doable. His real speciality is series of 50 or more caches that are packed in at near maximum density over a closed loop. And he’s working in an area where there isn’t much challenging terrain. What all that means is that it’s generally fairly easy to sustain 12 finds an hour or higher when walking his series.
Couple that with the fact that there were two new series (new to me, anyway) in close proximity which totalled 70 of the required 79, and which also take you close to a selection of Village Signs, War Memorials, Village Halls, Church Micros and his own “Congratulations” caches. I reckoned I could see more than 90 of Ross’s caches that could be done in those two loops.
On with the Bunny Hop
The first loop started in Bassingbourn, which is a village I’ve cached through several times on Ross’s other series (especially the Hatley Heart Attack). I’m fairly sure I’d had record-breaking days here, but after the 2018 journey to France, setting a new record for finds in a day has become a lot harder. This first series was the “Heidi Rose Bunny Hop” – a series of puzzles on a vaguely rabbity theme. In reality, the series is basically all straight lines.
I parked up in the leisure centre car park in the village and started the series at the official #01, which is a bit of a rarity for me. This loop notched up the first 63 finds for me, which was good.
Off to Wrestlingworth
Once I’d finished with the hopping bunnies, I set off for the way to the second loop. I grabbed a couple more random village caches on the way past before finding myself in Wrestlingworth. Well, I wasn’t actually in the village itself. Wrestlingworth is, to be honest, one of my bogey locations. There’s nowhere to park in the village that I like the look of. The roads are narrow and there’s no village hall or leisure centre that has nice off-road parking. So when I go there, I tend to park on a small lay-by just outside. Again, it’s a place I’ve been to on several previous occasions, chiefly for bits of the Hatley Heart Attack.
The walk on this occasion was quite slow and quite hard work. I’d already walked for more than six hours. My feet were struggling a bit, and this series was uphill on the way out of the village. The loop has 23 caches on it and there were another 5 in the village, which took me to a very creditable 95 total finds for the day. You can’t argue with days like that. I have to say though, that by the time I got back to the car I had most definitely had enough. I’m getting older, and I’m carrying too much weight. The result of that is that I get very stiff when I spend all day walking.
Anyway, it was a Sunday, so there was a traditional Sunday dinner with the family waiting for me at home.
The Finds
I found 95 caches in Wrestlingworth and on the Heidi Rose Bunny Hop. These are on the map below.
by Kevin | Apr 28, 2019
by Kevin | Apr 28, 2019
The Sketch
A warm Sunday afternoon and the opportunity for a bit of tupperware action. Specifically, drawing a picture of Mickey Mouse on the map near Cambridge by attempting the “Mickey’s Mystery Tour” series.
On this occasion I was accompanied by the Happy Hunter, and in our sights we had a recently released series that forms a big picture of Mickey Mouse’s head. It’s a series of fairly simple puzzles that results in a loop of caches around the village of Toft, which is a place I’ve been caching through on multiple occasions in the past (see CacheAthon Part 2, Will This Ever End ? and No More Heart Attack !). In fact, this was fourth time I’d been through here, and maybe the third time I’d parked here. Hmm! Cache Central!
On this occasion I parked down a side street on the way to the church, having stopped rather dubiously for 10 minutes in a bus stop (it was a Sunday and there weren’t any buses due) to collect the materials for a couple of multis which we assumed would be on the route. They were. In fact, they were only just outside the village.
The walking for Mickey’s Mystery Tour was fairly easy. They don’t really have any hills in Toft, and the fields were all dry, so progress was quite swift. Most of the caches were fairly easy to find, with accurate coordinates and straightforward (non-cryptic) hints.
The series forms a couple of loops – a small inner loop that we walked first, and a larger outer loop that runs all the way out to Caldecote and Comberton.
It was a good day out, but I have no way of proving that. For some reason I didn’t see fit to take my camera with me.
The Finds
Here are the 62 caches I found Mickey’s Mystery Tour.
by Kevin | Apr 14, 2019
by Kevin | Apr 14, 2019
The Sketch
It was a balmy Sunday in April and the time was right for a good-old day of cache hunting. I decided to head off to Titchmarsh, where there seemed to be two looping series with a total of over 80 caches that form a figure-of-eight shape. They were called the Titchmarsh Trackable and the Clopton Coordinate, which is a fairly typical naming convention for the owner, poshrule.
I parked up in the middle of the village, which meant I was starting at one end of the figure-of-eight. This meant I had no opportunity to duck out once I got going. The total distance to be walked was approximately a half-marathon, which is a long way when caching, however the early stages were made fairly fast by the fact that they were along a paved road. In fact, of the 83 caches I found on the day, more than 60 were alongside paved roads. That makes for relatively easy walking, especially in this area, where there aren’t many hills. In all it took me 6 1/2 hours to complete the walking parts.
There were several parts of the walk that I’d definitely been to before. It’s difficult to remember every part of every trip but there were definitely a few déjà vu moments. I’d been to some parts of this in 2015 whilst doing the Molesworth Melee and Thurning and Back series.
By the time I got back to the car in Titchmarsh I was done with walking for the day.
Driving home was easy if a bit painful due to the onset of stiffness. All in all though, it was a good day of caching. For some reason I didn’t anticipate finding anything interesting to photograph, so I didn’t take my camera.
The Finds
The 83 caches I found around Titchmarsh are shown on the map below.
by Kevin | Feb 23, 2019
A weekend of winter sunshine and running in one of our favourite parts of the country. No near-death experiences this year.
by Kevin | Feb 23, 2019
What’s that all about?
We were on our annual trip to Brighton for a half-marathon event, but it’s not worth going all the way down there for a single day, so we made a weekend of it.
We drove down on Friday evening, stopping for food on the way. We’d booked ourselves again into the Premier Inn in Lewes, as we do. We came here the previous year too, and concluded that the hotel had the right balance of comfort, accessibility and proximity to central Brighton.
Saturday is parkrun day
We’d come down on Friday night so we could run a new parkrun. There are several in the area that we hadn’t done, but we opted for Hove Promenade on the basis that it begins with a letter “H” and therefore contributed to everyone’s A-Z or parkruns. We found it easy to park on the side of the main road and the weather was nice. It was sunny and quite warm despite being by the sea. The run itself is essentially a double out-and-back along the seafront. There’s a promenade that’s only about 1.3km long. So to get in a parkrun you have to go up and down twice. It was dead flat though. If we’d been adequately trained we could almost certainly have run a very fast time here.
We didn’t linger for breakfast once we’d finished though, as we’d got an appointment with a full lardy back at home base. A lazy breakfast was followed by a similarly lazy journey through the bathroom and a change of clothes into something suitable for going outdoors.
The Devil’s Dyke
The warmth and stillness of the morning continued into the afternoon and we decided we’d make use of that by going for a walk somewhere scenic. The chosen place was the rather impressive Devil’s Dyke, which is a very deep v-shaped valley on the South Downs just outside Brighton. The reason it’s such a big valley is, apparently, solifluction, or put another way, melting snow saturates the little bit of unfrozen soil on top of the frozen chalk, causing it to run off like a gloopy mess down the nearest hill. I’m sure a proper geologist would describe it differently, but I like to think I understand the principles, especially seeing as I just read them on wikipedia.
Despite the rumours, there is little actual evidence that the valley was formed by anything from the evil realms. It is a common human trait to assign responsibility to the Devil for anything that’s a bit quirky. Personally, I look at it and think to myself that if I was religiously minded, surely you would assign such beauty to your God rather than pass it off as evil. The Downs are really lovely, and this is one of the best bits I’ve been to.
A Bit of Walking
There’s a National Trust car park on the top of the hill, and it was pretty much full by the time we arrived at around midday. Shows what can happen when the sun comes out. It was really quite warm. The Gardner parking karma worked as usual, and we found ourselves in a nice parking spot from which, had we been older and more infirm, we could quite happily have sat there all afternoon enjoying the view. It’s a big hill. With steep sides.
We felt sort of obliged to go for a walk down into the Devil’s Dyke itself, so after a bit of farting about we headed off in a generally downhill direction, following a broad bridleway and stopping occasionally to grab a geocache. Most of the ones down here were multis and needed information to be collected in the field. The ones that weren’t multis were field puzzles. Some of them were field puzzles in a box which, when solved, told you where the real box was. So the caching was a bit slow. They were entertaining and challenging, and quite well put together, but we weren’t exactly getting around the loop very quickly.
A Bit of Geocaching
Back at the plot, when we got to the very bottom of the hill, the girls decided they’d had enough of the caching. Izzy needed feeding and I don’t think Kas wanted to expend too much energy before the following day’s race. So they decided to walk back up the valley to the pub and/or ice cream van at the car park, while I continued on around the bottom to do the rest of the caches.
To be honest, once I left them the remaining ones of the series turned into relatively easy traditional caches with no field puzzle, and I started finding them more quickly, apart form the ones I couldn’t find at all. So I met the girls back at the top of the hill after 90 minutes or so, having walked back up the mother of all steep hills to get to the top. Whoever decided to call these hills “Downs” obviously started at the top, not the bottom. The Downs are chalk uplands. Which makes lots of sense, really. Not!
Anyway, we reunited and had a swift drink in the accompanying pub before retiring back to Lewes for an evening meal at a local Italian.
The caches I found on the day were:
Sunday Morning
Kas had to be up and about for the half marathon quite early, leaving us with no time really to have breakfast in the hotel. We had to drive around the north side of Brighton to find our car park for the event. On our previous visits here we’ve always been able to park on the racecourse but this year we were due to park along a very long stretch of road that had been closed off to allow parkers. There was a massive queue to get in. When we did eventually get parked we then had a significant walk back along the road to find a bus.
The bus took us pretty much back the way we’d come. We went back to just one junction before we’d joined from Lewes and were then taken over the Downs and past the racecourse down to the seafront at the eastern end. This is the right end of the promenade for runners but definitely the wrong end for non-runners.
Me and the girls have been to such things before and, at a busy event like this, we’ve more or less given up on being able to spot our significant runner at the start. We mooched around for a while and waited at the start but didn’t see Kas go past. As we’d missed the hotel breakfast we therefore rocked off to get breakfast in a local cafe. We found a very nice one. Not a chain, but a one-off local job. The coffee was good and we found enough things to eat to keep us happy.
After the Event
We spent over an hour in the cafe, so decided it was time to go and join the proverbial throng on the side of the main road and wait for Kas to come back. We were there for about 15 minutes before she arrived, I think. Anyway, Kas had passed us, so we then fought through the crowds to get to our assigned meeting point under the pier. It’s a big-enough event that there’s no point in trying to find people in the finish area, so we waited for Kas to come to us. She took a while. I think there may have been some coffee and massage involved.
Once she did reach us we had no particular desire to hang around in Brighton any longer, so we grabbed some chips and sat on the end of the pier before retiring to a bus and making our way back to the car park. It was already mid-afternoon by the time we got back to the car so we weren’t going to be home very early anyway.
The house was more or less where we left it, as usual.
by Kevin | Feb 3, 2019
A weekend at the original parkrun followed by a visit to Hampton Court Palace. The weather was great for February.
We shopped around a little bit, including visiting a couple of the big chain suppliers, but in all cases these would require some extra effort in project managing the whole activity, and typically they also won’t quote for anything other than simply installing new units. Everything else becomes a job for “custom pricing” once the work starts. In this context, “custom pricing” means that you’re more or less held to ransom. Once the job has started and your old kitchen is done, you have to do whatever the contractors say. And pay them as much as they ask. Otherwise they’ll leave until you get someone else to do it. By which time they’ve started a different job. Because we wanted more-or-less of a rip and replace job, we wanted to avoid this.
