1. The weather is amazing.
2. After several months’ hard work, Tom has just been awarded two new grants.
WOOOHOO FOR THE BARR LAB!
3. We have central heating, and actual running water. THE NOVELTY!
I particularly like this bathroom radiator. What a shame its not for me! Work on the kitchen and electrics starts next week, which is likely to prove just as disruptive. I’m envisioning a salad-based diet for the next fortnight – as long as I can still boil the kettle for a pot or two of tea all should be well. . . will keep you posted.
KDD & Co 
Congratulations on the grants for Tom and the settling in on the home front. This is such a lovely pairing of science and art. I’m looking forward to the posts ahead.
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WOOHOO indeed. At least you don’t have to be in the kitchen to use the kettle, and can set up a tea station in another room!
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I’m a sucker for reno’s – both boys doing older houses as we speak – so any pics welcome. The teezer of the bathroom heater was cool . Re kitchen upsets, during such escapades in the past we used to put our Coleman stove outside on the picnic table. You can do a lot with a cast iron fry pan and eco friendly cardboard plates (sometimes you have to be a bit easy on yourself). Your send ons great fun as always, robin
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Great news all around: progress on the remodel and two (!!!) grants for the Barr Lab. I have a serious, potentially fatal autoimmune disease, so his research means a great deal to me personally. I’m going to celebrate the grants by starting Catkin – BRE’s Titus was delivered as I was reading your post. Thanks to you both and fond greetings to Bruce.
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Life without a proper kitchen is difficult. Life without tea is impossible! Hope your new place will be as comfortable as your old one post renovation.
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I am so happy to hear all is going well for you , Tom, Bruce, the house and the lab ! My advice to you is to fix up your new house, wherever it will be, with the very same bathroom radiater and things you chose to upgrade your flat. You deserve it ! :)
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Congratulations for grants and running water! You’re doing a very good job of making the renovation look tidy!
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How do you cook when you go camping? Camping stoves can work indoors too. Or you can get a plug-in twin hob thingy for around £20. When my parents had their kitchen redone, their main issue wasn’t cooking but washing up.
I hope it all goes as smoothly as possible for you!
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You can cook an awful lot in a rice cooker in the bedroom…….I can personally recommend that!
I still have no oven and only one power point and the kettle is in the living room with the tea things and the dining room table while the dishwasher is in the bathroom with the freezer. And the bathroom is an outside trip because the back veranda is not covered in yet – it snowed last week!
Renovations!
viv in nz
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Huzzah for Tom! Well done for the grants (tough to come by in these Harsh Economic Times). And isn’t indoor running water and plumbing a marvellous thing? Hope the kettle keeps well.
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Right now, I am feeling so blessed that you and Tom and Bruce are so generous as to share such beautiful portions of your life with us. Thank you so much for your beautiful pictures, words and work!
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Sounds like life is good! That looks like a spunky new radiator- we’re just about to have heating for the first time and very much looking forward to it. Spending a year without a bathroom and showering under a hose in the garden during a long-drawnout renovation certainly made me appreciate how quickly we can acclimatise to having very few mod cons- but the warm showers of late have been blissful!
Enjoy that gorgeous weather!
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Way to go!
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Good news all around! Also, “HURRAH FOR THE BLACK LAB, BRUCE!” ; )
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Glad to read things are going well.
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Ah the good with the bad (or at least inconvenient) – congratulations and have a good reno. I’d sleep with the darn kettle (sorry Bruce and Tom). :)
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All good news! You have my sympathy re the kitchen as we too are beginning that journey- trying to explain that no, we cannot survive for the next 2 months with just 2 saucepans, the others are needed, not decoration!
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Yes, the kettle, the most important kitchen appliance!
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It will be well worth it – and you will soon have your wee house in the Highlands!
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Heat and water are so nice to have… And hope to see some photos eventually!
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UGH, is that not always the way…..Improve to Move! You have my sympathy and Tom has my congratulations on the grants…….they are a bear to get. Cheers
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Couscous! It’s the tea of starch products :-B and congrats to Tom!
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Tea is a necessity. My two neighbours are both having work done which includes knocking a party wall about to take out the chimneys. A quiet moment in the garden, or in the house in general, is impossible. I take my teapot, mug and camping chair to the local square and commandeer an area of calm. Pollen preferable to Radio 1 and bare bodied builders let me tell you.
Congrats to Tom and good luck with Phase 2. x
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You can boil eggs in a kettle as well :) Probably not recommended by the manufacturers though. Congratulations to Tom on his two grants, well deserved indeed. The scenery where you are is spectacular. One of things lacking about living on a marsh is anything other than flat stuff :)
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You can do a lot with a kettle and a packet of super-noodles… they cook perfectly well in a teapot with some boiling water over them.
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good luck on your renovations and CONGRATULATIONS to Tom!! wonderful news!
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Woohoo for the Barr Lab indeed! That’s no mean feat getting two grants approved at the moment, well done Tom.
I hope the kitchen works aren’t too disruptive for you, and that you get your pots of tea.
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