Apologies for not blogging lately – we have been on a Grand Tour! This has involved going on a church holiday, a whistle stop visit to my mother and seeing both of our daughters.
So much has happened lately and I fear I’m already beginning to forget things.
It has been quite a whirlwind tour, well over a 1,000 miles in the Toyota Avensis. Speaking of the jolly old Toyota, we had a couple of milestones. Firstly we saw the 100,000 miles being clocked up on the M6 and secondly a front tyre picked up a screw which caused a puncture. This meant the car’s jack and spare was used for the first time. When we visited our daughter Becky in Devon, the Toyota complained at the long rough track leading to her home as we could feel the underside of the car scraping against the uneven ground. A well maintained British made Toyota ought to last 200,000 miles or more, so I’m thinking ours should have plenty of life left in it. It is a nice smooth cruiser and averages 45mpg which isn’t too bad considering the weight and size of the vehicle.
I digress.
We went on a church holiday, except it didn’t really feel like a holiday and I was rather unhappy. I am sure some good will come from it and undoubtedly it was enjoyed by others. I might blog more about that another time and at least the surroundings were rather nice, including some misty, atmospheric dawns and dusks.
So then, once returning from the church holiday in Sussex, we dashed to the West Country to see my mother as it was her 87th birthday. We stopped overnight and then pootled down to Devon to see my eldest daughter for a couple of days before meandering our way home. Once back for less than 24 hours, we were off yet again and heading “up north” to see Hannah, our youngest daughter, in Cumbria.
Hannah is running a water sports business for the summer on Lake Windermere. We stayed with her and thoroughly enjoyed “messing about in boats”. This included rowing boats, kayaks and the safety boat.
We got home last Saturday and straight into the Quirky Museum having the new central heating installed. At least a start has been made; this is not a straightforward job according to Chris, the heating engineer. He will be here for the next week or two and so far we are very pleased with the work being carried out.
Actually it’s been a crazy week here. Not only have we had the work start on the new heating system, a specialist firm came to remove the old asbestos flue. While we were at it, someone else came to sweep the chimney. Our friend Nathan came to replace some of the double glazed units at the side of the house, various deliveries of radiators, pipes etc and some friends around for coffee one morning.
Discovering the well
One of the quirky highlights here in the Quirky Museum was getting into a conversation with Chris about the well in the cellar. I explained it had been capped with a concrete slab many decades ago and I had never seen down it. So we decided to have a look! A portion of broken cement allowed us to push a piece of the cover away and we could see down the shaft. The shaft itself is quite narrow, although wide enough for a slim man to be able to work down there. We could see clear water at the bottom and we measured the depth – about 15 feet down to the surface of the water.
Now I have no idea what this means, what we can do with it – if anything at all. Nevertheless it does seem quite intriguing. The village is on the top of a hill, therefore I can’t imagine the water will be very polluted. Moreover I expect it will be completely clear, although I am thinking it should be tested before we sample any ourselves.