In At The Deep End

So….. 27/28th September looks better for some people; 4th/5th October for others (possibly more?). We don’t mind, but we’d like to see as many people as possible and have as much fun as possible, so we’re going to do it twice! We have floor/bed/tent space available, as ever, and no set plans for either weekend (or, indeed, the Fridays before and Mondays after afaik) so you’re welcome to come early and/or stay late – but please bear in mind that that may involve helping out with getting ready or clearing away If you want to come to both and stay for the week in between, I’m sure that could also be arranged – and our children would be overjoyed!
Messy activities welcome – and we have a distinct lack of paddling pools, baby baths, cement mixing trays and other suitable containers so those would also be welcome. We do, however, have a football table
Food, drink and similar contributions also welcome

but we’re not looking hopeful for being organised enough to send emails out so best to keep checking for details. Rooms/beds/floor/tentspace available if needed – just shout. Contributions of food and (fun) mess welcome Bring your own watersquirters and lots of spare clothing and towels!

The building in our back garden that used to be a double garage was converted by the previous owners into a workshop (which is what we call it now). They swapped the big door for a wall, and put planks across the top of the inspection pit dug into the floor, and other things too. When we moved in, my father-in-law said that the house’s loft wasn’t strong enough to store things in, so we piled all the boxes into the workshop. Since then we’ve not unpacked many but added a chest freezer. It’s scary how much stuff is still out there given how full the house is without it… (We unpacked the essentials, and have largely managed without whatever is hiding in the slightly randomly labelled boxes in the workshop.)

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to get to something in the workshop and moved a box out of the way. It had been standing on the wood over the inspection pit, and I noticed there was a white patch on the wood. The inside of the box was icky, and I threw out most of the things in it. Then I noticed other white patches, and something like foam or cotton wool between some of the joists. I resisted the temptation to investigate as I knew I couldn’t make things better and might accidentally spread things and make it worse.

I got a damp and rot specialist in, and he lifted up the planks. The walls of the inspection pit were lined with dry rot – he said it was the worst he’d seen in 20 years. I’m trying to get someone else in to give a second opinion, but whatever it is looks bad. Assuming he’s right, in case it has spread under the floor around the pit at least a metre of floor in each direction around the pit has to be ripped up i.e. a metre of good floor once they’ve stopped finding rot – could be the whole floor. Then lots of spraying with nasty chemicals, and filling in the pit – as this is so deep it would have to be done in stages and compacted down between each one. If you are thinking that this sounds expensive and time-consuming, you’re right.

You may also be thinking that the workshop is rather full for all this ripping up and spraying, and if so you’d be right again. So I’ve been trying to unpack 4 boxes per night and avoid just dumping the contents into the house. For instance, all the various finds of pens and pencils etc. from random boxes have been put where Katy had already got some art and craft things, so I can now predict we will not need to buy another pen or pencil in the next year or two. I’ve also found money, the missing stuffer bit of the grater attachment to the mixer, and many, many other things. Fortunately lots can go in the bin or recycling, but the bins are so full now that I’ll need to go to the tip soon.

We had a look at the survey from when we bought the house, as we had the full one done. It’s long, with a big glossary i.e. quite a few ignored pages. It has a summary that highlights the work to get done, like the roof needs replacing (in a few years, according to my father-in-law), damp is starting to cause subsidence (which we’ve had fixed by having some soak-aways put in), and so on. There are about 13 things, which includes redecorating – but doesn’t include rot in the workshop. Rather buried in another section is a mention of something growing in the workshop, but this apparently wasn’t as serious as redecorating. Hmmm… It’s our responsibility, but moving house is stressful at the best of times so the layout of the survey was far from ideal.

The only silver lining I can see to the cloud is that it is forcing us to get unpacked, which I can see wouldn’t have happened otherwise. While Katy and the children were away I managed to make a reasonable sized dent in the box mountain, but there’s still a long way to go. The builder can’t even do the investigation (ripping up) work for about a month so I should get it done in time.

uses standard password

(for Gina!)

from here

12 oz pack of firm, silken tofu (ambient tetrapak)
3 cups soy milk (and a dash of vanilla essence if you have any)
4 tabs olive oil
3 cups plain flour
2 tabs baking powder
dash of salt

Put the tofu, soy milk, and oil in a blender, and process until smooth. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Pour the soy milk blend into the flour mixture, and use a whisk to blend smoothly. It should be rather foamy.

Grease a muffin tin, or use a silicon one Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full of batter. Pop into the preheated oven for 15 minutes. DO NOT PEEK!
When done, let cool in pan for a few minutes – this is best done with the pan upside down so that they fall out when they cool!

Recipe for the biscuit dough we took to the Beans

75g/3oz icing sugar
150g/5oz softened butter or marg
1 lemon (we had to omit as we had no lemons)
200g/7oz plain flour
2 tabs milk (we used water and it was fine)
food colouring

Cream butter and sugar, then stir in grated lemon rind (if you have any). Divide mixture into two bowls and add half the flour to each bowl, along with 1 tab milk. Colour each bowl differently, or leave one plain, and squeeze it all together to make dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for half an hour. When firm, roll out one ball of dough to about 1/2cm thick. Roll the other out to about the same size and shape and brush with a little water. Lift the first and place it on top of the second, then carefully roll them up together to make a sausage shape. Wrap and chill again to make it easier to cut. Slice the sausage into discs, put on baking trays and bake at 180/350/GM4 for about 12-15 mins.
Or do as we did: make up the dough with no colour, give each child two balls of dough and a choice of food colour pastes and let them go wild with the colour combinations!

We’ve just finished a Grand Tour of the North (which included London). First was the SOTP summer party, which was very nice. We met the welly boots tribe, one of whom is also the mystery commenter on the SOTP’s blog, which is good and reduces the number of things I have to hold in my brain (like learning that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person).

There were two walks – one in the wet and one in the dry – to take in the glorious countryside and water engineering. J occasionally left DS corner, for instance to play Ticket to Ride, which K and I enjoyed too. Lots of lovely food and nice company, and of course books.

We were out-tented by everyone, as we took two small, cheap, basic tents (including a cheapy Tesco children’s one). The interesting weather on the second night – to recreate the effect, sit inside a small tent while someone hits it repeatedly with a cricket bat and then sprays a garden hose on it – couldn’t defeat them, so they were The Little Tents That Could. I hope that those whose tents suffered have all now got things sorted out.

Thanks very much to J, J, J, M, C, R and M (I didn’t see S) for being such excellent hosts.

Then over the Penines to my parents. In all my time living there, I hadn’t gone to the viewing bit of Manchester airport, so when we took the children there it was new to me too. A real Concorde – from the outside as beautiful as it is I wasn’t going to pay that much to go on – a 3rd size willow Concorde (see Flickr) and Dad’s binoculars meant that this was a nice hour or so. We also went to a garden centre that had a miniature railway and loads of railway signs and other bits and pieces (more photos), which was also good fun.

Katy had to disappear home to run the toddler group, and took J and A with her in the car. Mum and Dad and I took K and L into Salford on the tram, and for once got to sit just behind the driver. The first stop was lunch down by the quays, where a cormorant was fishing. At the time K and I tried to remember the nonsense verse about cormorants but couldn’t. I’ve looked it up, and here it is (it’s by Christopher Isherwood):

The common cormorant (or shag)
Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
You follow the idea, no doubt?
It’s to keep the lightning out.

But what these unobservant birds
Have never thought of, is that herds
Of wandering bears might come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

The architecture of the new buildings is interesting and varied, and a lot better than it could have been. We went into The Lowry, saw some amazing huge inflatable alien plants hanging from the ceiling and then I took the children into the galleries while Mum and Dad had a cup of tea.

It was meant to be a quick look but it turned into a proper visit, because they were enjoying themselves so much. Most art galleries I’ve been into have Art pinned to the walls, made by famous worthy people, many of whom are dead and/or lived somewhere else. The Lowry has a thing set up permanently to get visitors to draw, and another room (complete with member of staff, aprons, drying clips and racks and a huge mirror with Are You Clean? on it) for painting. Drawing and painting aren’t particularly amazing, but having them as part of an art gallery I think is great. It gives the children a much better connection to the exhibits, and it’s fun.

The other reason for going to Salford was to visit Old Trafford i.e. Man. U’s ground. Mum and Dad had taken my nephews to Anfield, and suggested to K that we could see Old Trafford. To see the pitch you had to go on a tour which was £15 a head , so we made do with the shop – at least that was free. The size of a small supermarket, and the thing that put the lid on it for me was a baby’s dummy with the Man. U. logo on it: you can’t even turn over, but we can make money out of you. Mum bought them some Top Trumps, so I’m learning about the current and past squad.

On the way back to the tram we passed the other Old Trafford i.e. the cricket ground, which had a War of the Roses poster up showing all the Lancashire vs. Yorkshire matches.

A much cheaper trip out was going up Tegg’s Nose. Fortunately the sun was out, so we could see hills in Wales, Jodrell Bank, as well as all the lovely layers in the sedimentary rock in the quarry at the top.

As well as that, there was helping with planting and picking vegetables, playing Mousetrap, watching TV, playing Braintastic and lie-ins for me (yippee!) and a bit of computer technical support.

We caught a Megabus from Manchester to London, which was cheap and great apart from the light in the loo switching off randomly. While we travelled down, Katy took J and A to the British Library where they saw the Ramayana and some old printing presses. The rendezvous was for about fourteen hundred hours at Coram’s Fields, which was fab as ever, particularly as one of A’s sets of godparents was there with 8/10 of their children. Tired but happy children were then packed onto the train and off to bed.