Plumbing & Murder

Now admit it, the title has you hooked hasn't it?

I know that you've all been waiting for a plumbing update. Andrew, poor soul, has been working flat out progressing the bathroom. Actually very little has taken place in the bathroom as such. Like always we've taken a seemingly simple project - a replacement bathroom and new en-suite  -  and turned it into an epic  that effects every room upstairs. This, the hottest week of the year, Andrew has been in the loft, lying flat on his stomach in the insulation, drilling holes at arms length. The hot water cylinder has been moved from one side of the house to the other. And not content with a perfectly satisfactory electric shower, oh no, we've installed the mother of all pumps so that I can stand under a rain showerhead thinking of the times we spent on Paragon, washing on deck during  tropical cloudbursts.

And we haven't even started on the en-suite yet.

So for the plumbing nerds among you a selection of photographs. Please don't ask me to explain them, I only recognise the pump which is so powerful Andrew had to make a concrete block for it to sit on.

And full credit to Andrew I've always had a hot shower in the morning and a flushing loo.

So what's the murder about?  Well, I'm not fluent in French. Nowhere near, if you were polite you may say I've reached a  reasonable holiday standard although I can read it quite well. But  the one area I excel in is estate agent-speak. I know my SdB from my RdC, my grenier from my sous sol. But this week I was flummoxed. An 'alerte' came in from an immobiliere and there was a word I didn't recognise, tucked in among the outbuildings was a 'meurtre'. As I was online I flicked to Google translate (I know not always the best option but I was comfortable on the sofa) and it said murder. Hmmm. So I did get up and went to the dictionary - murder. I went to the hefty brick of a dictionary. Murder.
Now as I said my French is not good enough to know if it's slang for something (an outside loo maybe?) or a mis-spelling of something. So if any of you French speakers can enlighten me I would be grateful. Meanwhile I'm giving that particular property a wide berth.

Oxburgh Hall

I really don't know where the time has gone lately - it's just whizzing by. Andrew is still under the floorboards plumbing away. I'm trying to knock a door into shape and doing various sewing projects and haven't read any of my favourite blogs for ages let alone written any. But we did escape the confines of Nelson House when Andrew's brother came to visit.
The weather forecast was a bit iffy so we had Plan A if it rained and Plan B if it didn't. Somehow the weather sort of swapped about during the day and we did both.

Plan A (rain) was a trip to Oxburgh Hall, a 15th century moated manor house with a chapel and an enviable kitchen garden.

Oxburgh Hall

Walled garden

If you're going to have a walled garden it should have a tower! And a gardener's bothy to drink tea in during bouts of inclement weather.

Gardener's bothy

You're not allowed to take photographs inside the hall but you are allowed on the roof, I'm not great at heights but I couldn't resist looking at the chimneys and standing in the towers.

Onto the roof

Every chimney is different

From one of the towers

Back at ground level we wandered round the garden where there was this beautiful mixed border. Not only was it a mass of colour there were hundreds of bees.

Andrew & his brother hiding from the camera

A mass of colour

I want this border

We got home at about 3.30 and decided to do Plan A(dry weather) as well, so we grabbed Mortimer threw him in the back of the car and headed for the beach at Old Hunstanton.

You can see from the sky that it had been raining but our timing was perfect,

Passing showers

Although Mortimer sulked in the car,he was convinced he was off to the kennels, once he got a sniff of the sea air he was off.

This is nice

I think the French call it thalassotherapy

Can I have a biscuit now? Please.

We resisted the temptation of fish & chips and all returned home tired but happy.

And next time I'll show you more plumbing.  Can't wait can you?