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Posts Tagged ‘Victorian’

Soggy Church News

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 15 January, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Oh dear. The sump pump the Vicar thought he’d got working last night didn’t do the business. When he went into the basement to check this morning he found that the water was at the same depth. As he’s off on the diocesan clergy conference for a couple of days, a church member is going to look into what needs to be done. But the Vicar wanted the water to be out so the church member could quickly get on with the work. And he was worried about the boilers that are in the basement. Thankfully, the Vicar had a brainwave and dug out the pump that we normally use to empty the portable baptistry.

A bit of Heath Robinsoning later and the Vicar and BytheSea had popped the pump in the sump and the delivery hose into the churchyard. The Vicar then left for his conference and BytheSea has been cementing his ministry training by popping out regularly to ensure that the water isn’t running back down the basement steps.

This was the sight that greeted me as I went down to the school to help with Christian Club. And BytheSea has now reported that most of the water has gone. For now.

Unexpected Churchyard Water Feature

Unexpected churchyard water feature

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Attic Progress: Sort Of (Progress, but not really Attic)

Posted in Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 8 May, 2012| 7 Comments »

Today I’m posting some pics of our hallway, where we had to change all the doors as part of the attic renovations. Alas. Mostly lovely Victorian ones – we’ve had to replace 12 in total. We need to have pukka firedoors to comply with building regs because we are making our top storey habitable. I’m sure it’s supersafe and everything. But the building has stood since 1844 with open fires blazing and not burnt down. But there we go.

So I’m a bit sad about the lovely original doors. But also quite pleased about the nasty 70s one with the frosted glass that opened into the kitchen. Now replaced by clear glass which makes the hall and kitchen seem larger, and has the added bonus of enabling us to spot if children on the naughty step are staying there.

Whilst we were having everything done, including carpetting the attic, we decided to change our hall, stairs and landing carpets which were very tatty. So, for one night only, I give you our hall floorboards. But the Vicar has said “No” to sealed and sanded floorboards. Too cold, draughty and echoey. Sadly, he’s right. They do look lovely tho’, so I’ll just look up this post when I think about them instead. And enjoy the warmth.

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Attic Progress: No Ceiling and Missing Floorboards

Posted in Vicarage, tagged , , , , , on 4 April, 2012| 2 Comments »

It has been a crazy day in the Vicarage. The lads upstairs have made some impressive progress on the attic. The Queen had a friend come over. A lovely friend came over to help me with the Passover meal and we made a selection of eclectic purchases at Morrisons. (Matzohs, strawberries, creme fraiche, spring greens, plain yoghurt etc – all in bulk). Our old MT from Wolverhampton days, Gambit, was here on a visit. The Vicar had a wedding rehearsal. Oh, and the Vicar and I had a lovely evening out at a comedy club, The Laughing Sole, that has just launched at The Public. A local monthly laugh night – we’re very pleased.

Anyway, here’s some pics of the upstairs at the end of today. It’s looking quite neat and organised, I think.

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Underway with the Wall

Posted in Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 June, 2011| 2 Comments »

Good news: the slow wheels of insurance, diocesan tender bidding and the sourcing of reclaimed stones have turned and this week we have a hard-working builder in our garden. He is repairing the wall that was stripped of its coping stones by an early morning thief back in October.

Interestingly, sourcing the stones was a bit of a challenge – they couldn’t find enough stones of the right dimensions. Then the builders came across a rather quirky local reclamation yard. The yard wanted to be paid only in cash and wouldn’t invoice the builders in the normal way of companies.

Recently I saw one of the millions of reality police shows on telly, about the team tracking down metal thieves, who found BT and Network Rail cabling in a yard. But only because it was labelled as such. How does a reclamation yard check the origins of the reclaimed items they buy? Noone labels their bricks or paving slabs. What chance that the coping stones going back on our wall came from there in the first place? Not entirely unlikely I’d hazard.

We’re hoping to keep these stones and thankfully, those laid last night stayed there until the mortar had set so they’ll be much more difficult to remove than the ones we lost. Our wall rebuilder told us of another vicar he has done some work for. This chap was so fed up of coping stones being stolen from his wall that he got the builders to take a grinder to them, defacing them so that they wouldn’t be worth anything at a reclamation yard. I have to say, we are seriously considering that option now, to save us from any possible future stolen-coping-stones hassle.

Our wall, the new stones and a well-deserved coffee break

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