and a little bit more!

Work has also gone on in the kitchen and even though the floor is still not fully fixed, awaiting the electrician and the plumber the overall effect is sort of visible. The lovely wide floorboards were reclaimed from the old Naval Bakehouse down at the port and I really like their grey colour and will try and find something similar to repaint them in. I am keeping the floor as uncovered as possible to try and let some of the insidious inherent Portland damp escape.
The roof light is really fun and now the sun can shine right through into the very dingy bit by the bottom of the stairs. However, the room is still only 9' by 5' so try as I might I can come up with no natty scheme to make it look anything other than a tiny room with a single row of units.

It felt such a hole, damp smelly and 18" below the floor level of the rest of the house, ugh.

 At least now it is dry and dusty and much lighter with the floor raised by 9", if only I didn't have to fill it up again. The tiles are quite pretty and Mummy would have loved the blue walls. Unbelievably when stripping off the peeling paint I found that the whole room was once painted in the darkest of aubergine shades. Wow! Not a vintage trend I will be recreating.

Progress, a little bit!

Today I helped Bob build the unit to house the wash basin and then with the floor swept and the last floorboards fixed down it really started to look like it may one day be a useable room. Its still chaotic around the bath waiting for the shower to be fitted and I need to organise some panelling for the bath. Its encouraging to get a room that is almost to a merely domestic diy chaos rather than a holes in the floor, walls and ceiling type of scary chaos. The room does look huge though and I think it may need a chandelier and a chaise longue to complete it.

It looked like a room to start with...

 ...and then it looked like a derelict building....

... and now it looks a little bit more like a house, or at least a work in progress!

Summer.

This gorgeous weather has allowed us to make the most of having Noggin within walking distance. We go down after work, usually its a diet coke but on Friday we strolled down with our lovely neighbours, again, and celebrated the start of summer in style. great to fit all four of us into the cockpit and our little table really came into its own. Now we can't wait for the engine to be fixed so we can go out pottering around the harbour an evenings like these. Our friends with the new racy boat have nipped across to Cherbourg this weekend and the boat that is usually behind us has headed off for a three month cruise to the Baltic, amazing! 
Tonight we saw big mullets under the boat, they seemed to be lying just under the surface with their dorsal fins showing above, surely this was sunbathing? also silver fish in medium, small and tiny sizes in large shoals near the shore and one who looked like a domestic escapee with a bright gold body and black head. There has been no wind so the water goes mirror smooth and picks up the sunset colour, just bliss. 
The bowl on the table has olive oil and a tomato and wine and garlic mix I made up for dipping bread. Yum.

Barrels on the beach

The lovely warm weather has brought in some rare visitors to the waters. Heading down to Noggin in the marina we saw this chap quite happily swimming around. He was huge, at least 18" across by 3' long at the most conservative estimate and was right in amongst the boats. I was glad I wasn't one of the crowds of people heading out on the dive boats even though these big Barrel jellyfish are not the stinging sort.
This pic also shows just what a lovely colour our sea is down here, and so clear we can sit and watch the fish swimming below us.

Ross' birthday

Although Ross was away playing trains with the Hall Craggs for his actual birthday he came down to me on the Tuesday and we had cake and supper at the Cove Inn after a successful shopping trip to Mabbs in Dorchester to get him a gorgeous, outrageously striped summer jacket.

Euro vision.

Power to the Sheeple! We will never remember but that was Power to the People was the chorus of this years unsuccessful Euro entry. I thought it would be good to put a fun picture on my various social media sites and here it is for you to see too.
We had a happy evening with our lovely neighbours and various euro themed food and our international bunting left over from the Olympics. Emily and Ross also had Euro vision parties, it seems that this is how we cope with our total lack of success, ironic parties. Mind you any excuse for a party has to be good.

Small steps.

Work on the flat is progressing, there have been lots of runs to the tip with rotten wood and the kitchen units etc. Bob and the plumber have been in a good deal but it still is very much a building site and although we do a bit each weekend its never very much...the sun shines or there is some event on, so I can't really quibble that its going so slowly lacking the drive of the Hill Farm team and having to also make sheep and garden in a rush of Spring fever, but...

So nice to get rid of the rotten old units and the lino, there literally was shiny patches of water underneath, the plan is to let as much air into everywhere as possible now. The new floor going down in the kitchen should really make a difference. The skylight is already making the room so much nicer and brings light in at the bottom of the stairs too.

Part way through the bathroom works and the rotten floorboards here have been repaired, very glad we didn't just run a bath an jump in, we would have ended up in the room below. Unfortunately the plumber has had to pull up a few more boards and obviously that is not his forte, I mean I know I'm not an expert but he does seem to have cut holes in the wrong places and has yet to lift a board without ripping it. Luckily this is the one room where the boards will be covered by some sort of vinyl.