The New Kitchen

After several busy months of planning and preparation, our new kitchen is being fitted and nearing completion.  Our last kitchen lasted 25 years but became dated and a bit battered so my semi-retirement became an excuse to have a refresh.  Here are a couple of photos that give a flavour of what we did have (these were taken at Christmas many years ago):

I am sure I took some before the refurbishment started but seem to have lost them....a senior moment perhaps?

I won't bore you all with the pictures of an empty kitchen or one with half plastered walls etc......I am sure you'd rather see the (almost) final result.  This is how it looked last night before the replacement floor was started today:

Not bad, eh?  For anyone that is interested it's a Cooke and Lewis kitchen in gloss cream fitted by B&Q contracted fitters.  They have done a good job with a few very minor snags to come back and sort.  The cooker is a Rangemaster Toledo in champagne.  It's a cracker!  We even managed to get a glass splashback in a matching colour so are chuffed to bits with the overall look.

Let's hope we can keep it as clean and tidy as it looks at the moment.

Holiday in North Wales

We have just spent a week in North Wales in a querky cottage on the outskirts of Caernarfon.  

We have stayed here twice before and came back again as the cottage is great and it's location is superb.  It has a beautiful river running through the back garden just a few feet from the patio doors so we can sit and watch the wildlife any time of the day.

Some lucky visitors have spotted otters - which I would love to see.  We saw some red faced mergansers swimming down the river on one occasion which we had not seen before.  The heron we have seen in other years was nowhere to be seen.

The weather was typical of Wales - cool, mainly cloudy and, at times, wet.  Nevertheless we managed a nice walk on huge sandy beaches each morning (when the tide was low so there was a huge expanse of sand for Lucy to run on).  We were treated to helicopter and (red arrow) hawk jet pilot training (from RAF Valley) a few times to amuse us on the nearby beach.  From the cottage we could walk along the river and alongside a railway line for 20 mins and then arrive to a splendid view of Caernarfon castle and the harbour.  

The railway line is the Wales Highland Railway at this point so runs with rather quaint steam trains.

Another place we visited was the Copper Mine in north east Anglesey.  It was both fascinating and beautiful.