Una Boda En España

When we heard that my brother's daughter Lisa was getting married we were delighted; her boyfriend Brad is a charming young man and they make a lovely couple. When we discovered that the wedding was being held in Spain, I can't deny that I went into Victor Meldrew mode. Spain is far from my favourite country, after all the travelling we've done in the past twelve months, a 2,500 mile round trip to the Costa Del Sol was the last thing we needed and it was going to blow a considerable hole in the holiday budget. But I've only got one brother and he's only got one daughter so I realised that my cries of "I don't believe it" were a bit curmudgeonly and got down to planning the journey.

We headed to Gatwick on Thursday and stayed at a guest house that throws in parking for a small fee and drops you off at departures at no extra charge. 

On Friday we were in Spain staying in an apartment that my sister Julie found for us on the internet.

It was a well appointed self catering unit although the decor might not be to everybody's taste.

We arrived in Spain in time to meet up with my mum and my sister and niece Vicky and have a quick visit to Estepona in the afternoon.

And Puerto De La Duquesa in the evening.

We haven't seen Mum for a few months but she's doing extremely well for 87 and having great fun with her new iPad.

It was the big day on Saturday and we all headed to a hacienda in the hills for the outdoor ceremony beneath a cloudless sky with the Mediterranean shimmering in the background. It was a simple service followed by an excellent dinner al fresco accompanied by champagne and fine wines.

My brother Pete gave a touching father of the bride speech that had the audience reaching for their tissues and the guests were entertained by a live band and a disco that went on into the early hours.

We met Pete's granddaughter Emmy for the first time.

And Pete's wife Val had a wonderful day as Mother Of The Bride.

Marion looked stunning in her dress for the wedding and I was glad to have the opportunity to buy myself some new trousers and a shirt for the occasion.

An early evening flight on Sunday gave us the chance to have lunch at the old town of Casares in the hills overlooking the Costa Del Sol before heading to the airport and arriving home in Framlingham an hour after midnight.

It was a great weekend. It was good to catch up with Julie, Vicky and Mum and to see Pete and his family. I think it was the first time that we've all been together since Mum turned eighty.

I Told You That Someone Would Get A Bargain

I just got the cheque from local auctioneers Abbotts of Campsea Ashe - £247.74. I'm not complaining as I knew that putting some of the stuff that was cluttering the garage into a general sale was taking a risk and they were extremely efficient in getting a cheque to me just a few days after the sale. The Victorian wire planters sold for £100 which was about what I expected despite buying them years ago from an antique dealer for £250 - we know that the dealers have to make a profit and we enjoyed having them in the conservatory for many years.

But the £40 that we got for this Victorian fireplace was a bit of a shock. This was a hell of a bargain for someone as it is a genuine antique complete with patent design registration mark for the 1870s and cost us over £300. When you take into account the charges, the £30 we got was probably not much more than its scrap value. As I said, I'm not complaining, we needed to clear things out, we gambled and we lost. Mind you with prices like this I'm tempted to visit the auction as a buyer and restart the eBay selling that I enjoyed so much from 1999 for seven or eight years. I've still got all the reference books and think I'm still enough of an expert on antique pottery and porcelain to spot a bargain.

It's a good job that Bonhams in London came good with the sale of the Japanese stuff last month. Their cheque took a bit longer to come but it's now cleared and will pay for the new car.

We're heading off for Gatwick tonight as we've a flight to Spain to catch early in the morning. Our niece is getting married on the Costa Del Sol on Saturday so it's two days in the sun and a chance to see the family briefly before heading back to Framlingham on Sunday. How times have changed from our own wedding in the glamorous Chatham Registry Office and the reception in Rainham Scout Hut - the cheese sandwiches and sausage rolls were delicious and it was genuinely one of the happiest days of my life.

A Huge Thank You To Tony Of DNA Landscapes

Yesterday we saw an event that we thought was never going to happen - we signed off the garden with landscaper Tony of DNA Landscapes. 

It was Christmas Eve when we gave Tony the go ahead to start to landscape the garden and it was hoped that work would start in early January and be completed by early March. Tony started on time but a combination of terrible weather and our adding more jobs to the schedule (fencing, a path to the side and landscaping the front) saw us waving him off just yesterday; although, in fairness, the work was completed a couple of weeks back.

I suppose it was a bit ambitious of us to imagine that a job like this could be done in eight weeks in the middle of winter but the finished project was well worth the wait and Tony (sometimes assisted by son Carl) has been exceptionally thorough in carrying out the work. He is a true professional and a perfectionist who insists that every single aspect of the job is completely spot on. If any materials did not reach his standard he rejected them and I think that his attitude to quality rather than speed reflects well on the finished job.

Although many of the following photos have appeared on this blog before they haven't been on the same day and the sequence shows how the work progressed.

Not forgetting the front too.

So it's an enormous thank you to Tony who I think convinced several of our neighbours that he was moving in after five months. I've no idea how many trips he did to and from his home in Felixstowe but he probably found himself heading to Framlingham on autopilot by the end of the project. Although he underpriced some items in his original estimate as some prices went up, he didn't ask us to make up any of the difference (although we certainly didn't let him be out of pocket). Unlike some landscapers we have used in the past, he never asked for a penny in cash; he provided VAT receipts for everything.  We can't recommend him highly enough. 

Want A Fantastic Kitchen Company? Look No Further

We had a vist today from Aaron of Orwells in Ipswich who designed our kitchen. He came with photographer Graham (left above) to take some photos for Orwells' promotional material and we were delighted to welcome him back and tell him how well the kitchen that he designed is working for us.

The house was full of photographic equipment for a couple of hours.

And I was fascinated by the amazing computer linked digital camera that Graham was using and the incredible level of detail that he achieved in his 200 megabyte photographs. We had a quick look at the photos that Graham took on screen and were very impressed. We look forward to receiving copies when they are ready (they put my photos to shame).

Aaron's visit reminded me that I haven't blogged about how good Orwells are yet. Good is an understatement, they really are outstanding. We were introduced to Aaron by our interior designer Jemima from By George Interiors in September and he soon came up with a design that matched all of our requirements. 

From then onwards, the whole team at Orwells was a pleasure to deal with. Rachel organised all of the appliances. We did not have to buy them from Orwells but it made life far easier to do so and, whilst we may have saved a couple of pounds buying online, it would have been a minimal saving and not worth the headaches of arranging the purchase and delivery of a dozen or so pieces of equipment. Rachel arranged everything perfectly.

Cheryl in accounts was always friendly and efficient when my stage payments were due and when the job was completed Marina came to the house and did a fantastic job of positioning all of the crockery and cookware to make the kitchen work so efficiently.

The fitting team of John and Wayne were excellent and worked in very difficult conditions getting here in treacherous weather, always willing to help, polite, friendly and they cleaned up every evening before they went home.

All this reflects brilliantly on the charming director Gill Williams who oversaw the operation with military precision and an incredible eye for detail.She and Aaron could not have been more helpful. No wonder most of Orwells' staff have worked for the company for many years and seem so happy in their work.

You can check out the Orwells web site by clicking here.

If you've been following this blog you can click off now as you will have seen these photos before but if you've got here after searching for Orwells, this is how the finished job looks (and it looks even better in Graham's photos).

A Great Book, A Cold Weekend And A New Car

I wrote the other week that, now that the house project is finished, I would have to find something else to write about. Unfortunately life has been too hectic to write a great deal lately and things are looking pretty busy for the next few weeks too.

A good deal of the last week was spent reading the 2001 Pullitzer Prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. It's not a book that I would have noticed but Scott Pack (see Meandmybigmouth in the blog list over on the right) suggested it as one of his occasional social reading events and a number of his blog readers read it over the past few weeks and then discussed it online. It is about a couple of Jewish cousins - Sammy a New Yorker and Joseph a Czech emigrant escaping the Nazis - who get together and write comic books.  Their superhero character The Escapist based upon a mixture of their childhood backgrounds is their route to success. It's a tremendous book and I strongly recommend that you give it a try.

As for life here in Suffolk, we finally managed to open the bi-folding doors for the very first time on Friday afternoon as the sun beat down to line us up for a glorious weekend.

Unfortunately that glorious weekend did not materialise and on Saturday when we went to the village fete in nearby Kettleburgh we found ourselves shivering and the first thing we did when we got back was switch the central heating on. And it's been on again two or three time since - not exactly blazing June.

Today we went to NEXT in Martlesham to get a few plants for the garden pots. Here's a new one on me, the Flowering "Current".

After that we drove to the Mercedes garage in Bury St Edmunds to test drive a new car. I phoned the Ipswich dealership last Tuesday but they didn't seem very interested in my enquiry about a special deal that Mercedes had on for June only. They phoned me back the following day only after I had to phone them to ask if they had forgotten me and then they quoted for a car with a different spec to the one I enquired about. Feeling that they weren't exactly in a hurry to sell me a car, I tried the Bury St Edmunds dealership. They came up with a car to exactly the spec that I asked for and phoned me back less than thirty minutes later. Ipswich phoned again late on Friday with details of another car that was one of the colours that I had ruled out. The test drive went well and in a couple of weeks I should take delivery of a shiny new motor. I'm not very well up on cars and all the stuff about engine sizes, 0-60 in so many seconds and bhp goes straight over my head but I do know when I like what a vehicle looks like and we've gone for this purely on its style - it's lovely to look at and very comfortable too which will make all those thousand mile round trips to St Andrews and the two hundred mile round trips to Rochester a bit more enjoyable.

It's a bit of a change from the eco friendly Prius (which we're keeping for a runaround) but its mpg is not a lot lower and when you take into account the carbon footprint of building the Prius and shipping it from Japan, there's not that much difference (at least that's what i'm telling myself).

My Faith In Human Nature Restored

I had a moan on this blog the other day about the driver who destroyed my side view mirror and drove away without leaving a note and leaving me with a bill for £278 to replace it. "What happened to honesty?" I asked.

Well, I'm sitting at home today, four days after the incident, and the phone rings. "Is that Mr Brassey?" the voice asks and I'm immediately in unwanted sales call mode and ready to ring off at the earliest opportunity. The caller continues to talk about an accident that occurred on Tuesday and I'm intrigued. How does this unknown cold caller know that my car was involved in an accident on Tuesday?

Well, it seems that the person who carelessly smashed my mirror reported the "accident" to her insurers and told them about the damage to my car and provided my number plate. The insurers were contacting me to tell me that they accepted their client's full responsibility and, if I sent then the bill after paying it, they would reimburse me. What a surprise and what a completely unexpected bolt from the blue.

So, instead of asking what happened to honesty I should now celebrate that there are still honest people around and thank the subject of my criticism for doing the right thing and sorting out this reimbursement. 

Of course I could be cynical and say that with so much damage to her own car the driver had to report the accident and provide the details of the car that she hit, but I wouldn't say that would I?

Another Souvenir From St Andrews

Before we headed to St Andrews a couple of weeks ago we decided that, although it's one of our favourite paintings, The Race by PJ Crook looked a bit lost on the wall that we had chosen for it and we needed something a bit bigger to finish off the dining area.

After being so impressed by David Mackie Cook's exhibition at Fraser Gallery in St Andrews in November we thought it would be good to see if Roderick Fraser had any of DMC's pictures available in a size that would be more proportionate with the room. And I'm delighted to say that he did. We had a choice of five or six paintings but only two would look right in the room.

We went for this one of a spectacular foamy flecked sea. We think it's the perfect size for the room and looks much better in that spot than The Race.

That left us with having to find somewhere for The Race but with a bit of swapping around we found just the right spot in the hall.

I really love our paintings and it's a pity that we've no more room to hang any more. We'll have to store some in a cupboard and swap them around at different times of the year.