We Made It

With all the weather scares on the TV and radio on Sunday we were really worried about the five hundred (and seven) mile drive from St Andrews yesterday but it actually ran pretty smoothly and it was only towards the end of the journey when Marion was driving (typical of her luck) that the blizzard conditions arrived. But we managed to get through the heavy snow in Cambridgeshire quite easily and it only started snowing in Framlingham as we arrived - was this some sort of omen?

After unpacking I walked down to the Co-Op to find something to eat. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground and big snowflakes were falling. The church looked quite beautiful in the snow and, despite the cold, the town centre felt very welcoming. We went back to the Co-Op this morning to stock up on cleaning supplies. I said that I didn't expect the builder's definition of clean to meet our own and I wasn't wrong and Marion's forty quid's worth of supplies were probably only just enough.

We got to work on the upstairs. The shower screen from Majestic Showers supplied by the excellent Boundary Bathrooms (of whom more in a future blog when I get around to handing out praise for those involved in the project) had been fitted but had enough fingerprints to keep a team of detectives in work for a month. Although we had been promised that the whole of the upstairs would be complete the electrician still hadn't finished off the extractor - it's only a five minute job to put on a grille he says. (So why didn't he do it in the last two weeks?).

The Sylka carpet in our bedroom is in place and looks fantastic. I've never known a carpet with such a luxurious feel. The curtains are going up tomorrow so that room will be finished. We cleaned all the upstairs rooms today and, apart from a few bits of touching up needed with the decorating and that grille, upstairs is all ready for us to move in.

I wish I could say the same for the downstairs. Although the kitchen fitters have made plenty of progress, the kitchen/dining room still looks like a building site.

As does the lounge. Tomorrow there are curtains going up, the wallpapering is being finished and there's cladding to go on the corner pillar and then we have to clean the floor as, believe it or not, the removal van arrives on Thursday and they have somehow got to deliver everything around this.

The view from the back of the house is still beautiful and remains the main reason for buying the house. No doubt there will be a planning application for a housing estate as soon as we're finished.

The landscape gardener was busy all day with a digger in the garden. He's concerned about the non-arrival of the office. We've finally given up on the supplier and have demanded our money back. While we are waiting for it we have to find the same sum again to pay someone else to do it. 

After all the hard work we had a well earned rest at The Dancing Goat, the lovely little cafe in the heart of the town. We had a couple of delicious paninis and some hot drinks in front of the fire - an excellent end to a very busy day. As I write, glutton for punishment Marion has gone to try a couple of exercise classes held in the local school sports centre - as she says, the sooner she gets to know people and her way around, the better.

We're Off To Framlingham

Well that's it. The car's packed full, the caravan is bare and we're off to Framlingham in the morning. I've said that on here plenty of times in the past six months but this time it's final. No coming back after a couple of days of stressful meetings with architects and builders - the caravan site closes in a couple of weeks and we're on our own in a brand new town where we know nobody (other than those who have done work for us, Dave and Lyn who rented us their lovely cottage and a couple of friendly neighbours). We're staying in the cottage for a week to give us time to clean up after the builders and settle in without too much pressure after the furniture arrives.

The builders tell us that the house is clean but builders' definitions of "clean" tend to differ slightly from our own so we've put two days aside before the removal van arrives on Thursday morning. I'll be very happy to correct myself if we find things spotless. 

We haven't had too many problems in our six month project (apart from ending up at almost double the original budget) but we have had one which is still ongoing and is likely to cause us major headaches in the next few weeks which won't make the move the happy event that we had hoped. If you've followed this blog over the time you'll know that we had a very nice studio built in the garden. We've retired from a very big five bedroomed house to a small three bedroomed one and we knew that we wouldn't have enough room. So the garden studio was the solution. It was intended for me to use to write in and to use as a home office. It looked fabulous at the Ideal Home Show and it looked okay when it was built.

But this was the state of the ceiling after a couple of weeks.

And this was the cause. I don't think I've ever seen such shoddy workmanship. The suppliers are a supposedly reputable firm and were most apologetic. They employed an industry expert approved by our architect to report on it. He deemed it unfit for purpose.

And this is what we have now. We were promised it would be rebuilt before Christmas and then early January but we now fear that we are going to have to seek an alternative manufacturer and are worried that the suppliers may be unable to fulfill their obligations. Having nowhere to use when we move in is bad enough, having nowhere to store the furniture is worse and the prospect of possibly losing a substantial sum of money doesn't help either. Fortunately we paid the £5,000 deposit on credit card and are hoping that we can claim the whole sum back. But that could take months and in the meantime the landscape gardener is trying to landscape a garden in which the studio was part of the design. 

This episode has put a real dampener on this week's move and what should be an exciting time is dogged by worry and real inconvenience. I had a conversation with the supplier on Friday when I told them I had approached VISA for a refund and they promised an email by close of business outlining the full rebuild schedule. They also gave me their personal mobile numbers to "phone any time even at the weekend". needless to say, no email arrived and the phones were switched off all weekend. They say that moving home is one of life's most stressful times. We could really do without this extra hassle.

Ten Things We'll Miss About St Andrews

With just three more nights to go before we head south (weather permitting - I see that the Mirror and Express had big weather scare headlines yesterday), it's time to take stock of our six months in the caravan here in St Andrews.

Little did we know when we told the buyers of our house that we'd be happy to move out before the work on the place in Suffolk was finished that we were committing ourselves to over half a year of living on a caravan site and eighteen thousand miles of driving up and down the country. But it hasn't been at all bad. In fact, although we've known St Andrews ever since Sarah started university thirteen or so years ago, we never really KNEW it until 2011 when we bought the static at Craigtoun Meadows and even then we only knew it as temporary visitors.

Eighteen months later we've grown to love it and if we did not have family in other parts of the country we could quite happily have opted for retirement here. We watch A Place In The Sun Home And Away regularly and it never ceases to amaze me how people hanker for foreign climes when there are such fabulous places in the UK. Anyway, here are the ten things we'll miss the most. The list excludes our family who, it goes without saying, will be missed a hundred times more than anything else.

1. The caravan itself. You may think that being cooped up together in such a small place twenty four/ seven for six months would be enough to send anyone stir crazy but it's been cosy and quite relaxing (when not dealing with 101 queries from builders, architects, decorators, electricians and other suppliers) and there's a lot to be said about a place that takes just an hour or two a week to keep clean.

2. The wildlife. Unfortunately I don't have any photos but since most of the regular caravan visitors have stopped coming during the winter months more and more animals have shown themselves and we find ourselves watching rabbits and buzzards and listening to owls. Recently new arrivals have appeared and we regularly see three deer wandering across the site and even spotted a rare red squirrel
last week. 

3 The local scenery. Rugged coastlines, glorious sandy beaches, spectacular ancient monuments. Few places can equal what it has to offer.

4 Cycling. We've not done much in November and December but from July through to October we were on our bikes frequently and built up a number of excellent routes raging from a simple ride to the shops to more grueling hill climbs with exhilarating descents.

5 Dining out. There are scores of places to eat in St Andrews and we've tried most but you can't really beat The Seafood Restaurant. We've only been three times in the last six months but it has an unbeatable position above the sea, the food is fabulous and the service is first class. 

6 And of course, there's coffee shops too. Forget Starbucks and Costa, our favourite is Mitchells. It's not just a coffee shop. There's a cracking deli, and they serve, breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as our favourite coffees, teas and cakes. The service is great and there's a really buzzing atmosphere. We're going there for their delicious chicken and chorizo bean casserole on Saturday and looking forward to enjoying it with a couple of glasses of chilled wine. The North Point is also worthy of a mention. They advertise it as the place where William and Kate enjoyed coffee and it's usually packed with students enjoying their great teas and some delicious cakes.

7 Metal Detecting. The farmers around St Andrews have been extremely welcoming and I've enjoyed regular days in the fields in glorious countryside and made some great finds to boot. My favourite was this little piece of Bronze Age gold which is currently at the Treasure Unit in Edinburgh but hardly a day out passed without finding something interesting.

8 Fraser Gallery. We only discovered this super little art gallery in November (which is perhaps a good job or we'd be broke). They exhibit paintings by some excellent Scottish artists and we couldn't resist these by Alice McMurrough and David Mackie Cook. Roderick, the proprietor is passionately enthusiastic about his artists and, even if you don't buy, you should have a look at what they have to offer.

9 The night sky. There's virtually no light pollution at Craigtoun Meadows so (although this is not my photo) the sky at night often looks like this. Combine this with the stillness and peace and it's the perfect recipe for relaxation.

10 Last but by no means least, the people of St Andrews. Now I know that many English people see the Scots as a dour race but nothing could be further from the truth. Be it shop, supermarket, cafe, hairdressers, restaurant or hotel we've been served with charm and friendliness without exception. When Marion went into a shop today to buy an obscure battery for my car key, the shopkeeper, on finding that he didn't have one, phoned a competitor for us and asked him to reserve it, Now that's the sort of service you don't find every day. 

St Andrews - we'll miss you.  

My First Scottish Silver Coin And My First Scottish Hammered

It was my last chance to get out with the detector here in Scotland for a while today as we're moving to Suffolk next week. It was a beautiful crisp day with a watery winter sun and I stopped en route to the fields to take his photo of nearby landmark Dairsie Castle a few miles away. I was really pleased on this final outing to find my first Scottish silver coin.

It's a William and Mary Scottish 10 shilling piece dated 1691 and it's in nice condition. In accordance with the rules up here in Scotland I have to report it so I'm taking it into the museum tomorrow. The museum has all my decent finds from the past six months and I hope that they won't be too long in making a decision on what they intend to do with them. I'm happy for them to have them if they mean to put them on display but if they are going to be filed away in a drawer I'd rather have them back. At least when I get to Suffolk I will be able to keep most of my finds and simply record them on the PAS database.

The rest of the finds were the usual array including an old spindle whorl, a few buttons and coins and a couple of unidentified bits and pieces.

I hate not knowing what all my finds are so I asked the experts on one of the detecting forums if they could help to identify this tiny copper coin. I thought it was a jetton but forum members "Yeti" and Tom Redmayne identified it as a penny of James III of Scotland 1460-1488. This is known as a Crosraguel penny after a hoard was found there. It was most probably minted by Bishop James Kennedy of St Andrews and it is great to find a St Andrews coin while staying in St Andrews. It's also great to start the year with that Holy Grail of detecting - a hammered coin. (Since first writing this, another detecting forum user has told me that the Bishop Kennedy theory is now disputed by the National Museum Of Scotland)

There are just four more nights in the caravan now before we move. We're driving down to Framlingham on Monday and staying in the lovely Barn Cottage. This will give us a week to get straight, give the house a good clean and oversee the delivery of the furniture on Thursday. 

Interior designer Jemima tells me that the carpets are laid and look stunning (which means they must be good as she is usually quite restrained in her descriptions). I've been told that the electrics are almost complete, the landscape gardener has started on the back and the kitchen is almost finished. That just leaves curtains to go up and the garden studio/office to be rebuilt. Oh and the cladding to go on the corner pillars of the bi-folding doors. The fitters phoned in December to say that this was ready and then this week told me that they had lost it so would have to reorder from Germany (six weeks delivery last time). Then they said that they have found it but still haven't given me a fitting date. I really will be glad when all of this sort of thing is finished and we can just get down to normal life.

I Suppose It Was Inevitable Really

After driving over seventeen thousand miles since leaving Southport in July I suppose that it was inevitable that we'd eventually hit a snag with the Prius. But, excepting for the time when someone reversed into the car in  Leuchars Station car park, we have had a problem free time. Until this morning that is. As we drove out of the Chantry Park Premier Inn with the prospect of a carefree morning in the Suffolk countryside we noticed a loud grating noise. The car has been regularly serviced and only passed its MOT a couple of weeks ago but this sounded like a brake problem that we had about twenty thousand miles ago.

We phoned our Southport Toyota dealer contact and asked for details of an Ipswich agent. We keyed the post code they gave us into the SatNav and headed towards them. I phoned about a mile before we were due to arrive only to find that they were a Ford garage (thank you Johnsons Southport good to know you're keeping up to date). The Ford garage gave us the Toyota number and we headed off in their direction. Again we phoned en route only to find their service department trying to persuade us that the (by now much louder) grating was probably just a bit of corrosion that had appeared overnight - hmm. Anyway, helpful Mr Toyota Ipswich was fully booked and, my pleas for help seeing that we were due to head to St Andrews in the morning fell on stony ground and elicited scant sympathy with the best he could offer a reluctant "I suppose you could bring it in some time this afternoon and we will see if we have time to have a look."

SIngularly unimpressed I hastily rescheduled the meeting that we had with the landscape gardener in Framlingham and headed there. I drove very cautiously with as little use of the brakes as I could. While I drove, Marion looked up  garages in Framlingham and we phoned John Grose Ford. Like Toyota, they too were fully booked, but they could not have been more helpful and  offered to squeeze us in. To cut a long story short they checked over the car, found a worn brake pad and have arranged to fix it before we head back to Scotland in the morning. They also loaned us a very nice car to get back to the hotel in. So hats off and thank you to John Grose and a very big thumbs down to Lancaster Toyota of Ipswich for their lack of interest in our plight and frankly ridiculous diagnosis of the potential problem. Little things like this can have a big impact. We sold Marion's car in July with the intention of replacing it when we moved to Suffolk. Which of those two dealers is more likely to get our business?

Meanwhile, back at the house, the kitchen fitters, John and Wayne from Orwells, are making progress. We're still some time away from completion but the appliances are mostly in place and we've even got one cupboard door in. The work top has been templated and will be with us in a couple of weeks. After that we just have to have the glass splash backs made and we'll be finished.

The wardrobe fitters from Langtry Fitted Furniture in Ely arrived yesterday and just over thirty hours later, the dressing room was finished. It was great to see this job run so smoothly. The wardrobes and dressing table look good and blend in beautifully with the wallpaper. That's our bedroom almost finished now. Just the carpet to arrive on Wednesday and upstairs will be virtually complete.

The meeting with the landscape designer and landscaper went well and they are set to start on Monday. We've got a meeting with Gill from Orwells in the morning and then (car brakes permitting) it's the long slog back to St Andrews for the last time until March.  

One final word about our three days in Suffolk. Regular readers know that we love cinema. After an exciting screening of The Hobbit at Ipswich Cineworld IMAX on Wednesday, we tried The Riverside in Woodbridge yesterday. How's this for cinema food? - Yes I did take a bite out of the mini fish and chips before I decided to take the photo. It's their take on Tapas - absolutely delicious. After that we went to see Quartet. Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut is funny, but also poignantly sad and, watching it in a screen full of grey haired viewers, we both ended the afternoon reaching for the tissues and wondering if we should go for something a little further from home that won't remind us too much of our own mortality next time. Wonderful cinema though.

The Countdown Begins

We're back in Suffolk in our regular Premier Inn as I write. We've had a wonderful Christmas. Sarah and Duncan treated us to an excellent Xmas dinner and it was lovely to see granddaughter Rose enjoying her big day and opening her presents. It was equally fabulous a couple of days later when we drove down to Rochester to spend three nights with Paul and Josephine and had the chance get to know our other fantastic little grandchild Catherine a bit better. We even had the chance to babysit for a few hours and can't wait for the chance to do it again. The festive season was tinged with sadness as we recalled 2012 and missed Marion's mum Flo who didn't make it to her eighty-eighth Xmas. 

From Rochester we headed up to Wales to visit old friends David and Janet Wareing in Llangollen. The River Dee was a torrent after days of rain but their cottage on the hillside was dry and warm and we enjoyed an amazing New Year's Eve dinner with copious (rather too copious) amounts of wine and champagne leaving us dancing into the early hours. As we were driving to Newmarket on New Year's Day, Marion managed to keep her wine intake to a sensible level (unlike her not very sensible husband). I travelled south miraculously avoiding a hangover but feeling decidedly green around the gills.

We had a stopover at The Bedford Lodge Hotel in Newmarket before heading to Framlingham this morning. It was well deserving of its number one hotel in Newmarket position on TripAdvisor with a comfortable well equipped and well lit room, a decent restaurant and a fabulous waitress served breakfast. 

After dropping a few bits and pieces off at the house, we had a bit of a break today with a trip to Cineworld in Ipswich to see The Hobbit on their IMAX screen (courtesy of Paul and Josephine who treated us to a generous Cineworld voucher for Christmas). The IMAX screening was a tremendous visual and audio experience and, despite being almost three hours long, the film flew by. It may be just a group of dwarves journeying through a variety of hostile terrains being pursued by a variety of equally hostile creatures and fighting them in a variety of exciting ways but it is exciting and beautifully done. I said last week that the CGI in Life Of Pi was stunning. I didn't expect to see it's like again so quickly but The Hobbit is another visual masterpiece and I imagine that the Oscar judges will be struggling which to choose when they hand out the technical awards.

But enough relaxing, the countdown is now beginning with a race against time to get everything finished at the house before we move in. We're aiming to move in on 21st but there's still a lot to be done. We've got decorators working flat out but being held up by repairs to the leak, kitchen fitters waiting for the corian work-top, bi-folding doors waiting for some aluminium cladding, carpets to come,wardrobes to be fitted,a shower screen to be fitted, curtains to be hung, a sound system to go in, an office that's just a concrete base and seven light fittings plus all the broadband wiring to be completed. Oh well there are twelve working days to do it all in. We're seeing Roger the builder at the house tomorrow. Let's hope that he's got absolutely everything in hand.

Still Standing

As the deluge continues unabated (it's been raining for three days now) the river Eden down the road near Dairsie has broken its banks and what is normally lush green pasture is now a raging torrent and the garden of the house by the bridge has disappeared.

Fortunately for us the caravan has weathered the storm well and we have escaped unscathed although the adjacent trees have sometimes swayed to a perilous angle in the wind. 

We're off to the Seafood Restaurant for lunch. If it were high tide we would have a spectacular view but the tide should have turned by 1 o'clock and we won't be dining in a maelstrom. 

Marion loves Christmas and our house in Southport was always packed with lights, candles, presents, trees and decorations. It's not something she could do in the caravan so our only nod to the festive season is a few glittery twigs amongst the flowers. At least Sarah and Duncan and Paul and Josephine have continued Marion's tradition and their houses are both beautifully decorated for the holidays.

We've been busy assembling one of Rose's Christmas presents this morning. She can't read the blog yet so I'm not spoiling her surprise. I think it's lovely. Hope she likes it.