Tag / House

by Gareth

Mum visiting and more rooms sorted

It’s been a couple of months, so time for a bit of an update!

Mum came up to stay for a week at the end of April / start of May. She was last up with Chloe back in November, and I’d not seen her since before Christmas, so it was nice to get a visit. She arrived on Monday lunchtime, and it was quite a quite a chilled week really. The next day she went to visit a friend in Rochdale, so I dropped her off first thing at East Didsbury so she could get the tram up there.

Then on the Wednesday, we walked into Stockport along the River Mersey, and had a bit of a look around the town, and then I showed mum the new Stockport Interchange and Viaduct Park which they’ve built on top of it. By this point, it’d only been open for just over a month, so all felt quite new, but I think it’s really transformed the area and the park itself is a nice relaxing area to hang out in. I guess we could have walked back home afterwards, but since we were already at the interchange, a bus seemed the better option!

Mum on our walk into Stockport.

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by Gareth

Christmassy stuff

It’s that weird time between Christmas and New Year, so an ideal time for an update!

Mum came up to stay for a few days a couple of weeks ago. She arrived by train on the Monday, and we then spent a chunk of the afternoon traipsing around looking to buy an artificial Christmas tree. Ever since I’ve been in this house, it’s never really been in a state to have Christmas decorations, so this year I thought it was finally time. I hadn’t realised how expensive artificial trees are though – most I was seeing were well over £100, and some quite a lot over that! I’d kind of resigned myself to having to spend a lot more than I wanted, but then saw some in ASDA that were much cheaper, but still looked decent, so that’s what I bought! I got all the tree decorations from IKEA (we went the next day), and also managed to get the glass sliding doors for my new wardrobe. Took a while to construct them, but now they’re on, it really looks great!

On the Thursday, we went into Manchester on the tram to check out the Christmas Markets. It was definitely a lot smaller this year (mainly due to Albert Square being out of us due to the town hall renovations), but also there wasn’t really much that stood out. Also, it was absolutely freezing – the weather had gone really cold (especially at night), so we probably ended up spending more time indoors in the Arndale!

That evening I cooked an early Christmas dinner for us both which turned out really great – to be fair, roast dinner is my favourite so I’ve had practice making it over the years!

Early Christmas dinner with mum.

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by Gareth

3rd Blossoms gig of the year!

Last night I was at my 3rd Blossoms gig of the year – which is probably a big excessive! I saw them at the Plaza back in May, and then in June they were supporting the Killers in – 3rd time… plus there was the film screening at the Savoy Cinema!

I arrived quite early, because it turned out that England’s World Cup quarter final game against France was also taking place last night and they’d decided to show it on a big screen, meaning the support act, Brooke Combe, had her set-time moved to just after 6pm! I do generally like to check out support acts at gigs, and I thought I could then also watch my first match of the World Cup with a crowd.

The screen came down at 7pm to show the match, with the plan that the band would then start their set at 9pm, but of course the game ended a draw which meant that it went into extra time! It was a pretty tense half hour, but the game eventually ended with a score of England 1-2 France, and I reckon I was probably the only person not hoping for it to go to penalties, because I wanted the gig to not be delayed anymore, knowing that there’d be a cut-off time later they’d have to stop at!

Blossoms gig at the Stockport Plaza.

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by Gareth

My garden has some plants!

I finally have some a bit of colour in my back garden! Mum’s been back this week to arrange all my new plants, and I think it looks really great! And I mentioned last time I needed to get more soil – well, I’ve spent an absolute fortune on dirt this week! I needed so much of it to bring it up to the level of the surrounding walls! I just hope all the new plants make it through the winter!

by Gareth

House guests and another gig

I moved into my house in 2002, and it’s been in a state of renovation and decoration ever since then! In 2014, the carpet in my bedroom was removed after having the whole room replastered, so I’ve just had bare floorboards since then, and there’s been none downstairs or on the stairs & landing for 18 years!

But now, I finally have new carpets throughout the house! It’s amazing how much it changes the feel of the place – it really does mean my house is finally starting to feel more like a home!

New carpet in dining room.

And on top of that, I also have a decent bed! For years I’ve been making do with basic single bed whilst I’ve been sorting stuff out (at one point I spent months just sleeping on a mattress on the floor!), but now I have a really nice ottoman bed with a reasonably expensive(!) memory-foam topped mattress, so it really feels like I’m now living in luxury!

New carpet and bed.

To be honest, it did take something to kickstart all this after living so long without carpets and a decent bed! Basically, Ali rang me a few weeks ago saying that she and the kids were going to be on a family holiday in north Wales, and was wondering if I’d be able to put them up for a few days if they came back via Manchester (so they also could visit some friends in Buxton). I said yes, knowing the house wasn’t ideal – especially for kids(!) – so it forced me into going out and choosing what carpet to have, and then arranging to get it fitted just a few days before they arrived! Also, I’d put off getting a new bed until I had carpet down, so it meant I could then buy a new bed from Dreams and arrange to get it delivered on the Monday, with my guests arriving on the Tuesday.

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by Gareth

Finally got my workspace sorted

So my office space / guest room is now pretty much finished! I put down some laminate flooring last weekend, and I’d bought the sofa bed a few months ago, and it’s been stored downstairs in its box until Lee popped over last Tuesday morning to help me get it up the stairs and into the room. I’ve still got to put some trim down where the flooring meets the skirting boards, plus get some shelves to put into one of the alcoves to store my camera kit.

My office / guest room.

Office work area.

The main impetus that got me to finish the room is that mum came up to visit last week – her first time since Covid – and I wanted to make sure she had somewhere decent to sleep! She came up to stay for a few days at the end of 2019, but that time I had to put a dust sheet down over a really trashed carpet, along with a blow-up bed that had a very slow puncture!

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by Gareth

100 days

At the start of my self-isolation, this landmark seemed a long way off – but yesterday was 100 days since I locked myself away! I think the official lockdown started 100 days tomorrow, but I’d not been out a few days before they made the announcement.

I remember thinking at the start that having to stay indoors until mid June felt like a prison sentence – and we’re now past that and we still have no idea when things might get back to normal! I know pubs and restaurants are allowed to open with restrictions from this weekend, but there’s no way I’d venture into one of them for the foreseeable future!

One thing that has taken a bit of a hit during this lockdown period has been my fitness. Obviously, with the whole heart-failure thing, I’ve been aware of how much more easily I get tired, and how my general fitness level has been pretty low, but I had eventually managed to get into a bit of a routine with going to the gym and building up my cardio fitness. But since lockdown, that’s all gone.

I’ve hardly been out of the house over the last 3 months (you can count the times on one hand!), and I’ve not really been able to get myself to do any decent exercise indoors. I know I could probably find somewhere pretty remote to go out for a decent walk whilst avoiding people, but the flip side of that is I’m worried that if I’m out somewhere and I have a problem caused by me heart, then there’s no-one around to help! I know it’s probably ridiculous, and it shouldn’t stop me, but it does stop me getting out there.

Flooring finally goes down in the living room!

Anyway, onto something a bit more positive – I finally got the flooring in the living room sorted! I originally bought it all way back in January 2017, but it’s been sitting there ever since, and then finally a few weeks ago I got Craig to lay it all! It looks really nice, but I now need to find a decent carpenter to box in the utility meters and to build some floating shelves in the left alcove, but it does feel that I’m a lot closer to everything being finished!

Another thing I’ve been doing is sorting through old photos that were taken before I had a digital camera, and there are lots of them! I’ve also got tonnes of the original negatives that I need to sort out, and I really want to look at scanning them all so that I have high quality digital copies. I’ve been doing a bit of research of the best way to do it, so today I’ve ordered a negative film scanner which will let me scan them all – it looks like it’s out of stock everywhere at the moment (I assume others have had the same idea during lockdown!), but hopefully it won’t be too long before I get it!

by Gareth

Lockdown

So last night, the UK was finally put in lockdown, after quite a bit of uncertainty and confusion over the spread of the Covid-19 virus these last few weeks. I’ve not actually been out of my house since Friday – I did a supermarket trip then to make sure I have enough stuff in to get through the next few weeks.

I’ve found it a bit confusing as to what I’m supposed to do with regard to my health issues. I’ve seen in quite a lot of places that I’m in the high risk group, because the virus causes lots of issues with your lungs, and generally your cardio system, which isn’t ideal when you’re living with heart failure. What has been strange is that heart failure was showing up on the official government list last week when they were suggesting that those people would need to shield for 12 weeks, but now they seem to have slimmed that list down, focussing on what they class as ‘particularly high risk’.

I follow a couple of heart failure social media groups, and they’re recommending shielding for the 3 months if you’re able, because the risk is still high, and it comes down to how your body then fights it you get it. And whenever they talk about people who are dying from this, it’s often the case that they have ‘underlying health issues’ which when you examine what that means, heart problems seem to be part of that.

So I’ve decided to self-shield for as long as I can, even though I’ve not had any official instruction from the NHS (but I’m hearing that other people who expected to be part of the official group also haven’t been contacted, so I get the impression they’re trying to keep it to a minimum).

The thought of staying in my house for such a long time is pretty overwhelming – I mean, we’re looking at the middle of June at the earliest, and it’s only March now… that’s quite crazy. It’s really annoying too because the last few months, I’d finally got into gear to make my house more liveable (after the world’s longest ever DIY project), and had electricians and decorators in doing stuff the last few weeks, and I was about to get my wooden flooring and carpets fitted, which meant I could then sort out proper furniture like a sofa and a decent bed, but now everything’s shut down, I don’t know when I can get that sorted!

by Gareth

The year so far…

It’s been a while, so here’s a bit of a catch up!
Yesterday I went to Liverpool Cathedral to hear Rob Bell talk about his new book – ‘Love Wins‘. I’d seen him do a Q&A at Greenbelt last year, so was quite interested to hear him in person talk about his new book which has already caused a bit of controversy within the church.

It was quite bizarre because quite a few influential people were highly critical of it via Twitter, even before the book had actually been released, so I decided I’d rather make my own mind up, rather than listen to emotional ramblings from people who can come across a bit arrogant at times!

large-rob-bell-photo-for-blog

I went with Tom Green from Vinelife, and met up with Dave Bateman (who’s now living in Liverpool), and I also bumped into Tim Follin and his wife who were both there too. The place was pretty packed, and it was really interesting to hear his thoughts, but even though I think some of the stuff he said was quite though-provoking, I’m not totally sure I agree with all the points he put across.

After he did his main talk bit, he was ‘interviewed’ by the host of the evening, but he wasn’t really very good at it and asked pretty rubbish questions.  And then they invited people from the audience to ask questions, but again I thought there were a lot of missed opportunities, and Tom went forward to ask a question, but they wrapped up just before he got a chance to which was a bit annoying!

I bought the book afterwards, and I want to read it myself to see what I reckon – I certainly think it’s good that he’s causing people to ask questions about it.

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by Gareth

Christmas and new TV!

Yet another Christmas has been and gone… and for this one I decided to stay at home and cook myself a Christmas dinner in my brand new kitchen!

I think Christmas dinner has to be the best meal you can have! It has so many different things in it, and you’re kind of allowed to over-eat for that one meal!

christmas-dinner-2010

I cooked a joint of turkey and a joint of gammon, and also had he full works with sausagemeat stuffing, bacon wrapped around sausages, roast potatoes, and loads of veg!  It was washed down with a nice glass of wine whilst watching Christmas Top Of The Pops on iPlayer live on my laptop!

And by the time the Christmas pudding made it onto the table, I couldn’t have been more festive if I’d tried!

Once I’d had my dinner I just relaxed and watched TV for the rest of the day! It was a proper lazy day, and I did actually enjoy it!

And last week, just before New Year, I popped down to Tamworth to visit my mum, sister and the twins, and give them their Christmas presents.  I bought Brandon and Chloe some Lazy Town costumes – a Sportacus suit for Brandon, and a Stephanie outfit for Chloe.  The only problem was that it freaked them out a little bit!

Obviously they’re so used to seeing those characters on the TV that they couldn’t get their heads around the fact that they could dress up as them! Maybe they’ll play with them sometime in the future, but I don’t reckon they’ll get much use in the immediate future!

And in other news, I’ve bought a new TV for my living room!  I’ve had a big widescreen CRT for about 10 years and I thought it was time to get myself a HD set.  I’ve bought a Samsung 37″ Freeview HD internet TV – and it’s got BBC iPlayer and YouTube built in. I’m quite pleased with it… now I just need to get Sky HD and a Bluray player!

by Gareth

My new kitchen

new-kitchen

For the last couple of months I’ve pretty much been without a kitchen, because recently I finally got around to getting it extended and re-fitted, making it just over double it’s original size.

It was so small before – you could pretty much stand in the middle and almost touch all the walls!  I originally had plans drawn up in 2005, but it’s taken this long to get my arse into gear!  The builders started work on the foundations in mid-October, and then just before my birthday, they knocked a hole through the back wall, so I’ve been pretty much without a kitchen from then until now.

I’m really pleased with it – the kitchen units are from IKEA, and I’ve got a Velux window in a sloping roof above the far end which looks really cool and lets in a load of extra light.  In my original plans it had a flat roof and 2 windows, but I took the opportunity to get them re-done so opted for just one window meaning I could have cupboards on the outside wall.  I still need to put some flooring down – I’ve bought some laminate which Rob’s going to help me with soon, but it’s so good to be able to cook food in something other than a microwave!

by Gareth

Hand washing is rubbish!

As per the title, hand washing certainly is very rubbish!

washing-machine

A few weeks ago, the drum of my washing machine broke and the whole thing has dropped down, so it won’t actually turn round anymore (I basically put too much washing in it!), and so I’ve just bought a cheapo portable washing machine from Maplin. It’s kind of like a food mixer for clothes – you fill it with warm water and washing powder, and leave your clothes churning around in it for about half an hour.  So far, so good.

But unfortunately, that’s all it does!

So you then have to take the clothes out of it, and spend hours rinsing all the clothes to get all the soap of out, and trying to squeeze out as much of the water as possible. And because they’re still really wet when you hang them up, the clothes take ages to dry!

Not sure how much longer I’m going to have to do it for… I obviously need to buy a new washing machine, but with me planning to get my kitchen extension done sometime this year, there’s not much point getting a new one until I know what the new kitchen will be like. I may even start going to the launderette – although the thought of doing that is quite weird!

dsc04984

Also, the Sunday before last, I went on another bike ride with Dave and Rob. Tom was planning to come with us, but had to drop out at the last minute, which was a shame. Although, since he’s such an experienced cyclist, I think I’d have been worried I was really slowing him down!

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by Gareth

Dodgy wiring

I know generally posts in my blog go on about how busy I am with work, and how tired I am(!) and that’s still true, and I may touch on that in a moment!

But I thought I’d write something that happened on Sunday that was a bit dodgy… I’d noticed recently that the mains switch for my shower could get quite warm sometimes, but assumed that it was normal, and just made sure I only switched it on when I was actually using it. But when I flicked the switch on this Sunday, it made a bit of a crackle, which I thought was odd, and then a few minutes later it did the same without me even touching it.

So I turned the power off and removed the plate to look behind the switch, and discovered that the live wire from the shower had welded itself into the terminal, and had burnt quite badly, and that the earth wire had melted through the plastic covering of the live!

Now I’m not an expert on house wiring but I’m guessing that’s not particularly safe! A quick trip down to B&Q to buy a new switch, and I now have electrics that hopefully won’t burst into flames! What is a bit worrying though is why it did it in the first place, and also why the mains didn’t trip when the earth melted into the live wire… need to get that sorted really.

Work’s still incredibly busy… have got quite a few projects on the go at the moment, and I’m desperate for some time off! I want to try and get some work on my house sorted but I just haven’t had the time. Hopefully next month should be a little bit quieter.

Right – need to get on with some work that was supposed to be done yesterday! Have a possibly interesting weekend ahead… may post about that later…

by Gareth

Random update

I’m really, really tired. I could really do with some kind of holiday, but now that I’m freelance, I just don’t like turning down work, which means I never seem to get any time off. Maybe in a few months I can grab a break, otherwise I’ll end up running myself into the ground!

I’ve been down in London this weekend filming some stuff for NuSkool. It was a performance of urban dance in Acton Vale so that I can produce a promo for them at some point. It was a very long day, but the kids seemed to get a buzz from it, and the community centre was packed on the evening which was great. I stayed at Prince & Laura’s flat last night, and then drove back today, stopping for Sunday lunch at mum’s on the way back up!

Today, the annual 10K run took place in Manchester, and I’m so glad I didn’t enter it this year! I found the training really tough both times before, and it really stressed me out in the lead up to it last year, although on the actual day I suppose I was glad I’d done it again. I guess the main issue is that the reason I did the run in the first place wasn’t really for the right motives… the only reason I signed up to do it the first time was to try and impress a particular person, and to give us something in common – and that obviously worked really well! And then the next year I just ended up doing it again and my heart really wasn’t in it for various reasons. Oh, well… I’m older and wiser now. Maybe.

Other stuff… last weekend I finally got round to fitting new skirting boards in my dining room around the chimney breast, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job even if I say so myself! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to paint them this week, although I know it’s going to manic with work for at least the next two. I need to get round to sorting out a kitchen extension as well because I’d really like to try and get that moving before the autumn.

by Gareth

Shelves take two!

You may remember that about a year ago I had a slight disaster trying to put up some shelves in my dining room, and I managed to pull out chunks of plaster, and basically mess up a recently finished wall.

Anyway, in the last few weeks, I had a go at trying to patch up the wall (which has just had holes in it for all this time!), and then repainted it all, and now you can’t really tell that there was a problem there.

To be honest, the wall is pretty rubbish – it’s pretty crumbly underneath the plaster skim – so I managed to find some shelves that weren’t as heavy as the ones I tried to put up before, and that had a bit more support.

So this weekend, I attempted for the second time to put up shelves in my dining room, and it seems to have been a success! I’ve used much longer screws and better raw-plugs, so hopefully they should stay up! I’m not planning on putting anything too heavy on them, so it should be okay.

I’ve still got loads of stuff that needs doing on my house – but I have started getting things done after a long period of doing nothing! I want to get my kitchen extended this year as well, so I need to get some plans made up, then will try and get all the rest of the work that needs doing done at the same time.

Also, had a really good time down at VideoForum with James. I saw so much cool kit (that I would really like, but can’t afford!) And we also went to some seminars on lighting and I learnt loads. Now just need to save up some cash so I can buy loads of video stuff!!