Skip to main content

"New" house

I promised my grandparents some house photos months ago (are you sensing a certain theme here?) but kept thinking, "I'll take some when that bit's organised" or "when it's tidy" or "when we've got those shelves up".  Finally yesterday I decided it was about as good as it's going to get.

So: pretty standard front view.  Useful garage for stashing stuff in (and Graham's just got a chin-up bar and dartboard in there) and huge driveway.


Welcome!  I think... Not sure what that expression's about!


The hallway leads through to the living room on your right...


...which is nice and long, so we've partitioned off a toy section, which is not normally so tidy...


...and also off the hallway is the kitchen to your left.  The floor and counters have the curious property of really not showing dirt, which is useful to an extent, but quite disconcerting as well.  I always feel like I'm cleaning blind.


Looking the other way, through to the dining room and with the utility room, downstairs toilet and door to garage off to the right.


Toby wanted to be in the dining room photos, but he always pulls the worst faces he can think of for the camera right now!  This is looking through from the kitchen, and that door at the end goes back into the hallway again, right by the front door.


I've got my books and piano out after almost a year in boxes.  Feels good!


The utility room, which is perpetually full of washing.


And our spacious and amazingly well-kept (by the previous owners, I mean!) back garden.  I haven't been out there much lately, but I notice some bulbs are coming up, so it should gain a bit more colour soon.

Up the stairs we go, and, anticlockwise from right, it's the master bedroom...


...the spare bedroom, with sofa-bed made up in case we have to call the neighbours in the night when the baby starts arriving.  There's a desk back there behind the door, too - it's a decent-size room.


The room that is, really, going to be ready for the baby, just as soon as I put the curtains up and move those boxes out...


...the bathroom.  Not much to say about a bathroom...


...and last but not least, Toby's room.  The front windows, including his, have a view of the cooling towers from a now-disused power station (which sounds appalling, but actually they're strangely atmospheric).  For the first few weeks after we moved in, he would wake up, look out of the window, and announce, "Mum!  Dad!  There are five cooling towers!"  Now we've moved on to the more mundane shout of, "I want breakfaaast!"

Here endeth the virtual tour; but if you're in the area, you're very welcome to come and see it in reality.  Sorry it took so long, Grandma and Grandpa!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...

Erewash Valley Trail: Strelley and Broxtowe

I'd had another four-week gap between walks (who invented half terms and inset days?), and was itching to get out on my explorations. The weather forecast optimistically predicted sunny spells. Unfortunately the weather hadn't got the memo; it was overcast for my entire walk, and then the sky cleared as I was driving home. Oh well. I arrived at the Nottingham Canal to find bulldozers buzzing up and down the towpath. The car park I'd intended to park in was closed for renovation, but there was a layby a little further up the road towards Cossall, so that was fine. The first part of the road had nice wide verges - easy walking - but after the canal bridge it was called Dead Lane, which felt descriptive. It was tightly hemmed in by hedges and I had to flatten myself against the hawthorn when cars passed. Cossall Road Dead Lane The bridleway to Strelley was mostly paved road, but blessedly traffic-free apart from a couple of bikes and a bin lorry performing manoeuvres. Tim Brin...

The Churnet Way: a wonderful walk

The loop from Oakamoor to Froghall and back was one of the most enjoyable walks I've done in a long time. It had a bit of everything: woods, ponds, rivers and railways; steep climbs and sweeping views; an unusual church, an ex-industrial wharf, and, as a final bonus, car parks with toilets. Of course, the sunny weather helped too. I parked in Oakamoor and set off along a quiet lane called Stoney Dale. This is the route of the Churnet Way, which deviates away from the river for a couple of miles. After a while I turned right and climbed up through the woods on a gravelly path, then dropped down to the B5417. a spring in Oakamoor   Crossing the road, I entered Hawksmoor Nature Reserve. It has some fine gateposts commemorating John Richard Beech Masefield, "a great naturalist". I found a photo of the opening of the gateway in 1933; unsurprisingly, the trees have grown a lot since then! A track took me down through the woods to East Wall Farm. Lovely view! Nice duck pond as ...