Robin Who ?

The beer tent at Sherwood was quiet again this year.  I don't know why, maybe people don't have the money anymore, or maybe people aren't interested in re-enactments these days.

Never mind, a few days later I was down to Ludlow castle for the food & drink Festival, and my birthday with my identical twin Dave.

While waiting (and waiting) for the train back, I had a quick look around Ludlow Brewery.

This is what you can do when you have a large budget!

Next it was up to the Old for the mountain rescue folk festival.  Great stuff, and over £3000 raised for Mountain Rescue.  Good Weekend

Craft beer or Crap Beer ?

We went to see Toyah playing at the Grand, Clitheroe, a great venue. A superb night out drinking beer and listening to great music.

I took the train down to Newton Abbot, as I had been invited to Tuckers Maltings for the South West Beer Competition.  I had not been to this part of the country since the seventies.

I got the train at Paddington, as I wanted to see what the sea wall was like at Dawlish.  As I was a little early for the train, I had a wander down the canal at Little Venice.

There was a historic working boat Bilster, looking very impressive, and a great boat selling wonderful fresh coffee!

The sea wall at Dawlish was quite impressive, and it is easy to see why it has taken such a battering

Had a great day at the beer competition, and even went out for a cider at Ye Olde Cider Bar. Then we went for a couple of terrible cloudy sour beers at ridiculous prices at the so-called "Craft beer house" called Teign Cellars.  Terrible beer, and poor bar staff who just dismiss it as "oh, its real ale"
I wont be drinking there again.

Gas, beer, more beer and music

 Now I have reached the kitchen!  Once I had cleared everything out of the way, the space looked bigger and, of course, I spent a day redesigning the kitchen layout!
The first thing to go in was the Gas. I was not looking forward to straightening the roll of 3/8 gas pipe but it was far easier than I anticipated.  I fixed a long line of plastic clips down the length of the boat, and simply rolled the pipe into them.  I left a decent length in the gas locker as I hadn't yet decided what I was going to do there, and fit a tee and two gas taps behind one of the potential kitchen cupboards.  There are two taps as I have a separate hob and oven.

Beer festival time again, so most of March was involved in running what may well be the first Padiham Beer Festival, and the fifth (I think) Ramsbottom Beer Festival.

They both went really well, except for the odd complaint that "The beers aren't in alphabetical order", and other such anal nonsense.  What matters is

•     Plenty of excellent beer
•     £2000.00 raised for RNLI (not enough but a good start)

   

Cleaning...

I was in London on Thursday, and Rachael Sermani was at the Union Chapel.  It was amazing to see such a large venue sold out, and the huge crowd completely silent listening to her fantastic, delicate music.






 


Uninteresting Fact : I noticed that Union Chapel seems to be made out of Cliff Bricks, which were made a few hundred yards away from where I grew up! Small world.

Now the wet room is (nearly) complete, I could build the laundry in remarkably  quick time.  I don't think that I am now working faster, it is just that there is only one way to do this, so I didn't waste hours thinking about alternative designs, I just got on with it.

  The oven was test fit into what will be the end of the kitchen and it fit perfectly.

 

Underneath Leeds Railway station on Tuesday, there was a large area behind fences where Railtrack are building a new exit for the railway station onto Granary wharf.

The dredgers have arrived to start cleaning up the river bed.

 

Wet on the inside

I have a combined shower sump/pump/float switch box that I bought, but it turned out to be no good.  The water entry pipe to the box was too high up, and ended up at the same height as the wetroom drain.

Time for Plan B (or was it C or D ?), I connected the shower drain to a small "sump", made from a shower drain fitment.  This sump has a float switch in it, and an outlet connected to a Gulper.  The float switch operates a 15 second delay relay, meant for keeping car lights on after the key is removed.  This means that the pump should keep running for 15 seconds after the water is gone, and should remove any problems caused by the float switch bouncing up and down on the "waves".
When operating, the gulper seemed to struggle when the sump was not full. It seems that when the water level is below the top of the outlet, the gulper sucks air instead of water, as the air is easier to pump than water.

A modification to the outlet pipe, using a strange waste fitting that has been in my plumbing box for years, makes sure that the gulper sucks as much of the water out as possible.  The only downside is that this pipe now takes up the room I was going to use for a float switch.

I will try to find a smaller float switch, but for now the gulper has a simple on/off switch.  I just have to remember to turn it one before having a shower!
The laminate and shower fittings are now complete and the wetroom is looking good.

 

I managed to find some "swimming pool changing room" tiles which, although expensive at £35 per meter, look good and are anti-slip.  Having borrowed an electric tile cutter, I spent most of the weekend getting extremely dusty, but overall I am quite pleased with my first tiling attempt.

A night to remember

 

I went to Rochester for the first time in 30 years.
I can't remember a thing about it.

Don't recognize a thing.

Can't remember the pubs...

Can't remember the gatehouse...

I can't even remember the castle.

I think I had a microscope made by Leech a few years ago.

However, have you ever had ideas like this about your boss ?

Anybody got a light ?

Saturday was a mad rush to finish brewing, because Rachael Sermanni was playing at the Met.  She just gets better and better.

The night was great because it was in the lounge at the Met, which is small, but a great atmosphere.  I was slightly disappointed that she didn't play Marshmallow Unicorn, but a great night nevertheless.

Coat after Coat

 Finally after six coats of sealer, the tub is nearly empty and I decided that this was enough coats.
Four days later the sealer was completely dry, and the laminate went on the walls quite quickly.  I am getting used to laminating now.

Lady P has started making the most amazing pies.  Fed up with the variable quality of pies that you can buy, she has now created a range of mini deep-fill Pies, stuffed full of meat, not gravy!

I was at Leeds the other day, and the end of the L&L was quite flooded, and the ducks seemed to be the only "people" enjoying themselves.