LIZ TRUSS RESIGNS

Well, well, well, so Liz Truss has finally resigned!  The current political situation reminds me of that old 80’s joke ‘what lasts longer a pope or a wine gum?’  In this case, wine gums.  Inevitably, the only option left on the table was for Dizzy Lizzy to go home and eat a large slice of humble pie, washed down with a nice cup of tea. 

Of course, the question now on everyone’s lips is who will be our next Prime Minister?  In lieu of a general election, here’s my hot list of prime candidates to lead the UK:

 

Bring Back Burgers!

Ronald McDonald – Bring Back Burgers is his party’s motto.  Down with tofu and anything else that doesn’t come from cows.  His manifesto includes a Windfall Tax on beans and any vegetarian food that gives rise to toxic emissions which is pretty much everything.

 

Vote for Tickle Me Tuesdays

Elmo – Come on, everyone loves Elmo!  He’s got to be better than any of the muppets put forward by the Tories.  His manifesto includes a Tickle Me Tuesday where the nation will go outside every week at 8 pm to tickle their neighbour because some of these miserable buggers need laughter in their lives.

 

Not again!

Boris Johnson – Bring Back Boris?  Ok maybe a second season of the Boris soap isn’t such a good idea after all so moving swiftly on.

 

Always observe the Sabbath Day

Ozzy Osbourne – Who better to light up the nation’s way forward than the Prince of Darkness himself!  Ozzy’s mandate will ensure the preservation of bats, free prescription medication and observing the Sabbath Day on 3 December which will be declared a new UK bank holiday.

 

I can find you the cheapest policies

Auto Sergei – Can search the markets for the least disruptive policy and guarantee you a free cup of coffee to boot.  What’s not to like?

 

I'll show Larry the Mouser who's the top cat

Bertie – Who says cats can’t be Prime Ministers? 

 

I'm perfect for this political drama

Olivia Coleman – She’s been in everything except No 10.  No hang on, what about The Crown?  I feel a string of BAFTA’s coming on and no doubt she’ll cut a fine dramatic figure during PM Question Time plus her exit will no doubt feature one of those really hammy Hollywood death scenes.

 

Austerity's my middle name

Roland Rat – Err, do you mean Rishi Sunak?  Tipped as the red hot favourite, Rishi will make austerity look about as necessary as a colonic irrigation.  If he gets into power, be prepared to tighten your belts to the point you can’t breathe.  

I’m watching this space for political developments as well as watching paint dry as Fluvid has struck.  

Getting ready to mist coat the kitchen walls

Two diluted coats of matt emulsion

One undiluted coat of white matt emulsion as a base

And whilst our builder is stuck at home with a snotty nose and wracking cough, I’ve thrown open all the windows to paint the kitchen before the base units get fitted next week.

Dulux Soft Fauna 5 - my favourite colour

Kitchen all painted and ready for base units to be fitted

TILE TRAUMA

Something told me it was going to be one of those weeks …. 

So, Chancellor Khazi has been flushed down the drain by Dizzy Lizzy and I’m sure it won’t be long before she’s packing her bags.  Politics – it has to be the best comedy show in town!  Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. 

Khazi is not the only one that’s feeling traumatised.  My kitchen floor was going like a dream until Wednesday when I got home from work to be told by our builder that there’s a tile shortage and for once, neither Covid nor the war in Ukraine is to blame.  Aagh!

 

You're gonna need a bigger tile order

How could this be?  I used the tile calculator feature on Tile Mountain’s website rounding up my measurements and adding a few more for good measure so how could we possibly not have enough floor tiles?

 

What do you mean there aren't enough?

And as if that wasn’t bad enough when I rang Tile Mountain to order a few more boxes – shock horror!  My particular tile has been discontinued.  ‘But I only ordered them in May’ I wailed down the phone to the non-plussed young lady on the other end who showed as much interest in my plight as if she’d found a loose bit of fluff on her sweater.  

Here’s the thing that tile buyers might not discover until its too late.  When tile retailing websites show quantities online, it does not necessarily relate to the number of packs of tiles but to the number of metres.  For example when it says ‘1’ in the quantity box, you are not ordering a box that contains 7 tiles but you are in fact ordering 5 tiles which is 1 metres worth.  Confusing?  Not half! 

Thus when I ordered what I thought was 20 boxes each containing 7 tiles (140 in total) what I received was 20 metres worth of tiles (100 in total).  No wonder we’re short.  

Fortunately, I managed to find another tile retailer in Oldham that carried this same design and had some tiles in stock but it’s cost me an extra £113 to get these urgently delivered next week. 

My advice – check, check and double check the tile retailers website when you place your order that you are going to receive the right quantity of tiles for your project.  

In the meantime, the rest of the floor tiles have been laid and grouted.  They look lovely and go really well with the dark grey colour of the kitchen units.

Flooring begun

Gizmos used for spacing and levelling

Neatly spaced out

Blending the two rooms together

Finished with Manhattan grey grouting

New floor gets the Bertie seal of approval

KITCHEN PLASTERED

It’s one thing drilling holes for cables and power sockets but it takes a lot of skill to fill in holes where electrical fittings have been so that it looks like they were never there in the first place.

 

Extractor fan hole before plastering

And afterwards

The kitchen has now been re-plastered so whilst that is drying, the builders have begun to lay the ceramic floor tiles I purchased earlier on in the year and I’ve painted up the ceiling/cornice in the extension.

 

Kitchen plastered

and slowly drying out

Looking more like a proper room

Mist coating the walls under the Velux window

Extension ceiling before painting

And after the first couple of mist coats

A quick word on flooring before we take a sneaky peek at the new floor tiles.  

With so many different types of flooring available on the market today, choosing the right one for your project is always going to be a headache.  Do you go for function over fashion?  Trending now but is it going to age faster than our tortoise?  Then there’s the clincher – how much can you really afford to spend on flooring without bankrupting yourself in the process?

 

Floor levelled and ready for tiling

I'm still young in tortoise years

I think our choice of flooring reflects a balanced combination of all of the above.  Ceramic tiles are practical, easy to clean and Victorian style patterns are very much in vogue at the moment.  

The pattern I’ve picked is called ‘Southampton’ from Tile Mountain and is a geometric encaustic style design in grey/beige tones.    I liked this design as I thought it would go well with my overall Art Deco theme and blend in nicely with the new kitchen units.  The tiles themselves are quite large in size (450 mm x 450 mm) but made to look like 4 smaller ones.

 

Southampton porcelain floor tiles

Price wise very competitive at under £20 per square metre so well within our budget. 

I guess the biggest downside to having a ceramic tiled floor is that it may be cold underfoot or if you drop anything fragile onto it then you know it’s going to smash to smithereens as tiled surfaces are very hard.   So going forward, don’t be a butterfingers and note to self, buy a nice rug to go under the dining table to keep your toes from frostbite.

Enjoying the glorious October sunshine

SPARKS FLY

Well not literally as our electrician is far too careful to be burning the house down but he’s done a great job in deciphering my instruction posters and re-wiring our kitchen. 

Ready for the fridge/freezer

Electrical first fix completed

 

First fix in the kitchen completed including the removal of bricks to make room for a small wall mounted extractor fan.  Being greedy, I’ve decided to have not one but two extractor fans – a cooker hood type and a pull cord type. 

 

Relocating the hole further down

But as cornice is also being fitted in the kitchen as well as the extension, then the hole for the fan needs to be moved further down the wall.  This is not the work of 5 minutes even for a super-hero sparkie like ours.

 

Wall mounted extractor fan to fit in here

A very tidy job indeed, not a loose cable in sight which is just how I like it. 

The gas man’s done his bit too extending the gas pipe along the skirting to prepare for when the new gas hob is fitted.

 

Gas connection ready for new hob

Electrics and gas ticked off the list, all is now in place for kitchen plastering.