The Pig Yard

April 2012

This month seems to have come to an end and we didn't really notice its passing. At the beginning of the month we were spending a couple of days in London staying with Jane's brother, Richard, and then, suddenly we're thinking about what's happening in May. Life just goes too quickly and is a consequence of how busy we are. We both spent part of the month fighting off colds and although we missed a couple of our weekly swim sessions we still managed to get out on our bikes. The strangest thing about the month has been the weather. At the end of March we had some really warm weather then is suddenly turned cold at the beginning of April with some severe frosts and the end of the month has been extremely wet. Some days it seems to have rained all day without a let up. It did give us a chance to decorate one of the spare bedrooms, more on this next month.

Chris Rea @ Hammersmith Apollo

We frequently keep a look-out for concerts to go to but so often we don’t get in early enough to get the best seats and despite picking up on the Chris Rea tour details quite quickly the stalls had sold out and so we were in the circle. The tickets showed a start time of 6.30pm which we thought was early and so it was because in fact this was the time the doors opened. The concert didn’t start until 7.45pm with the support act, Nell Bryden, starting the evening. She had a clear, well pitched voice and good acoustic guitar work. She played for half an hour to an audience that spent a lot of the time coming in, going out and generally not paying a great deal of attention. After a twenty minute break Chris Rea and his band walked onto the stage to tumultuous applause and without introduction he broke into the first song. For the full set list click here…

To cut what could be a long review short we thought it was an exceptional night. His gravelly voice has lost nothing with the years and he played so many songs that were instantly recognisable. His bottleneck guitar is faultless and his commitment to the blues is wonderful. It would have been nice if he had said something to the audience but he never once spoke to us except to introduce the individuals in the band. As this was the last concert of the tour we did think he might have said something at the end, but no, he just walked off the stage and was gone.

Now for the strange bit. We go to concerts to watch and listen; we don’t go to drink gallons of beer, pay numerous visits to the toilet and therefore spend as much time out of the seat as in it; and we don’t go to spend the whole evening using our mobile phones to take photos or video and text our friends about what a great time we’re having. The idea of enjoying the moment and sharing it with the real people around us seems to be disappearing; instead the people around us wanted to share their moment with a virtual world – so why didn’t they buy a video of the concert and watch it at home where they wouldn’t annoy us? The times they are a changing…

Quiz Night

We often attend Quiz Nights at Nether Heyford on a Saturday evening with as many of the usual suspects that are available or in the country at the time. Steve goes along but doesn't really enjoy it whereas Jane loves the challenge and takes great pleasure in writing down the answers.

Of course we don't go along to win but equally we don't like to show ourselves up so we do try hard to get the best score possible. There have been times when we've come in the top three but on this occasion we were in the middle running. Like all quizzes it would be easy if you knew the answers but we didn't.

Progress Report

We had hoped that the house plans would be submitted to the council for approval but we had to amend the Design & Access Statement written by the architects. It took several iterations to get it into a format that we were happy with. It was important that it didn't commit us to any unnecessary expenditure and at the same time convince the planners that we would be considerate to the environment and be carbon neutral.

Steve & Nick also went to visit other Timber Frame manufacturers in Wales. This meant Steve had to get up very early so that they could meet the first supplier at 9.30am. Up until this time we were going to use Potton based in St Neots however we have no other companies to compare their prices or their service so we decided to take a look. The difference between all three companies, Potton, FrameWise and EcoFrames is quite distinct. Potton are at the top of the range with several show homes, a large factory and offices to match They tend to build homes listed in a catalogue rather than bespoke designs. FrameWise also have a large factory and a reasonable sized office block however they don’t have any show homes and apart from social housing they assume all self-builds will be bespoke. EcoFrames are the smallest of the three with very basic offices (no carpet) and a factory that is really just a warehouse with two large work benches and a small workforce (we only saw one person). They are very enthusiastic about bespoke properties and the more unusual the better. They even went as far as to say they don’t build boxes. We have asked for quotes from all three. We think the way forward is to await the quotes and then ask the Architect/project manager to prepare a tender document for all three and see who delivers the best service. All of this depends on us getting planning permission.

Murphy Update

Our Murphy has changed character slightly since the demise of Millie. He is now more demanding of our time; often meows to gain attention and comes up onto the bed after being fed first thing in the morning. He will then stay on the bed unless he thinks we’ve lit a fire when he will come downstairs and curl up in front of the log burner, pictured. In the evenings he has taken to sitting on our laps once we’ve settled down.

We had a bit of a scare with him last week because he was having trouble eating. We thought it might be a rerun of Millie so we took him to the vet immediately and she quickly assessed that his teeth were fine but his gums were infected. She gave him a couple of injections, one was an antibiotic and the other a steroid. He quickly recovered and now demands to be fed whenever he feels hungry and eats everything that’s put before him.