By Rich:

Well we're Landyless, yes the old Land Rover that has served us so well this last few years (almost four) has gone on to pastures new, sold within 48hrs of putting my advert up. To a chap who works for a specialist land rover re-manufacturers where it will be done up, possibly with a view to shipping her off to America where the V8 Landies are popular.  Yep, Kat was never too happy about driving the Landy due to the heavy clutch and we really had to reduce our 'car pool' down to just the one practical vehicle (the Ka will have to be sold too in favor of a larger vehicle which Kat is happier to maneuver around Bath) and my Cortina MK3 will stay - you can only afford to have so many toys it seems!!

So what have a I learned from my time with the old girl (not Kat) that I can pass on to anyone who is enthusiastic about these big old trucks. You will love it and hate it in equal measures, you'll love it when it snows and you will find any excuse to drive it (We sold ours the day before the heaviest snow fall we've seen in the four years we'd owned it!!).  

 You will love it when you have something particularly large, heavy and dirty (or all three) to carry.  As a bonus feature mine had a ladder fitted so that you can swing off it like a monkey while unloading which is both fun for onlookers and a good upper-body work-out.

You will however hate it when you have a clean shirt on and something goes wrong meaning inevitably you need to crawl under it to fix it while getting rained on by various fluids, sometimes your own tears as you realize it wont be cheap.  They are not soulless vehicles and have a sense of humor of sorts - so it will always wait until you have the aforementioned clean shirt on before pulling any funny business. 
You will also need to have a set of tools and preferably know how to use them too! As almost everything on a landy is heavy duty and over engineered, they are simple to work on but everything requires a fair amount of swearing, skinned knuckles and reaching, lifting and pulling.

All that said it was one of the best cars we've ever bought, it just did it's job (sometimes reluctantly) but it was a good truck and never really let us down, I never let it down either by doggedly continuing to maintain it even when lack of funds/time or appropriate tools caused jobs to drag on and much knuckle skinning and swearing ensued.

Now my greatest regret about buying such an awesome bit of kit like a landy is never taking it properly off-road.  Yhea, I've seen the signs with "not suitable for road vehicles" before and taking it as an open invitation proceeded up there anyway (albeit carefully and with consideration for both the road and anyone I might meet) but I mean proper off roading! If you decide to buy a landy sign up with a local club who organises 'Green-Laneing' or trips to a 'Pay and Play' site and find out what your vehicle is really capable of, this is something I never had time to do but I think it's something I missed out on...

...What?! I imagine this is exactly what Green-Laneing is like, isn't it?

Anyway bye old friend I really miss you, although it is nice to have my knuckles fully healed up for a change.

Ok, its not tiled or anything and we are still waiting on a radiator after the first one I ordered arrived bent and had to be sent back, but on the plus side I have a flushing loo once again (not something to be sneezed at).

Aarrr look at him, Rich fitted the loo (fiendishly complicated) and the sink (even more complicated unbelievable) all by himself, including rerouting pipes and sweating new one together (I am reliable informed here that you get extra 'Man Points' for any DIY job that involves fire). 

I love my new loo! You have no idea how embarrassing it has been for the last two years to have to say to friends as they get up to use the loo "be careful when you sit down, it rocks about a bit because the floors rotted away, try not to lean to far in any direction... also when you flush you really have to be quite violent with the hand or it won't... also if water starts to leak out from round the flush handle just push that bowl under it. Thats whats its here for..."

I love my new sink too, I have always liked bathroom furniture with really squared off edges! When we did up our last house, although I was really pleased with the bathroom, we plumped for a cheap basic suit as at the time it was all we could run too. I always regretted not having spent a bit more and got something more classic looking.
Another thing you notice is the quality of the product, even the plug has got quite a nice chain and the flush mechanise on the toilet looks like you might be able to hook your iphone to it!  Unlike the one in the last house, because we brough the basic model the push button flush was rubbish and was forever breaking, in the end Rich fixed it with two bits of dowl, some electrial tape and half a dozen rocks! Weird I know but it worked brilliantly after that. When we sold the house to some very lovely people who we have since become really good friends with, we forgot about the toilet until one day they took the lid off to discover our Heath Robinson flush system... I think they where secretly quite impressed.

And the new sink wouldn't be complete without my £10 eBay bargain Bristen 1901 taps!

Still a fair bit of work to do, we are tinkering with the floor covering at the moment, I really want black and white check Lino but the tiles we have are way to big and make the room look tiny (ok it is tiny but they make it look more tiny). On we go...

Yes despite bad backs and removed teeth we are carrying on with the bathroom as we have reached the point of no return, yes as we speak we currently have no toilet...Hmmm.

The bathroom as turned out to be just as horrible and complicated as suspected, everything takes three times as long as it should as Rich has to figure out how he is going to work round yet another problem (usually pipes in weird places!), thanks to Rich's Dad we now have our sink (it was residing up in Shropshire and some kind soul needed to bring it 150 miles south for us, thanks very much Rick!). He also hung about to give Rich some moral support and watch him do some pipe sweating, what better way to spend your weekend!

At the moment we have the new bath plumbed back in ( so I can wash my hair, yay!), The pipes in place for the shower, the pipes in place for the sink, the water feed for the toilet cistern moved and about half the new floor down.

Poor Rich is shattered, my tooth (or lack off) wont stop hurting and basically we just want this to be over with, we are hoping to get the loo back in today but I'm not holding my breath. 

Don't you love house renovating!! The old green bathroom is starting to look pretty nice now!

And the 2013 house renovations are off and running! We have finally made a start on the Bathroom, it has been a long time coming but it really was getting bad in there, the floor was rotten, the loo was only just hanging together and kept leaking (not the horrible stuff I might add, the clean water from the cistern!). 

Of course as usual with us nothing even runs smoothly, we managed to go and get all the stuff we needed to make a start, new flooring, tiles ect, only to then get 10 inches of snow the day we made a started. Meaning that everything has to be cut in our hallway and kitchen so nothing gets wet or frozen.

Our Bathroom is very hard to get a decent photo of as its so small but heres a few shots of how rubbish it was looking, please note the mould green colour suit!

The other little annoying thing besides the bloody snow has been that I have managed to break a tooth a few days after starting this project, not to go into to much detail but it is one of my molars and I've had a issue with it for years, but last week it steadily got worse and worst until Wednesday night when I think I would have quite happily pulled the damn thing out myself if it would have stopped the pain! One rush trip to the dentist, to be told it will have to be removed! So for the last week I have been on high strength antibiotics and fist full's of pain killers none of which has really touched it while poor old Rich soldiered on pretty much alone as I lay in bed sobbing!

Honestly, when we rewired the house I ran away on holiday with my Mum, this time I lay upstairs whimpering, he's going to thing I do these things on purpose to get out of doing any mucky jobs!

This was the moment the water supply pipe to the loo pulled free by accident, unfortunately we hadn't shut the water off yet....there was quite a bit of screaming and shouting!

Bath tub out and the rotten floor up, ready to be replaced.

And heres Bath in the snow, pretty but really annoying when it means you cant get the car off the drive! 

Must dash now, got a date with a dentist we has a set of pliers not dissimilar to the ones Rich used to rip the loo out with, thats encouraging!

I am a self confessed hoarder, although I am trying to be good these days and not go as mad as I used to at car-boots and junk shops. However I do seem to acquire little collections, sometimes without even realising it. This Christmas I noticed I seem to have started a collection of vintage sewing machines quite by accident. Let me explain...

My Mum sewed  A LOT when my sister and I where little, she made most of our clothes, our baby blankets, cot liners, changing bags and pretty much anything else she could find a patten for or sometimes just get a good look at then go home and make it up on the fly. Both of us have very clear memories of her sitting at the dinning room table in the evenings and weekends making something. She still has the same sewing machine she had then and it is still going strong. The sound of that machine whirring up to speed is very heavily rooting in my childhood. I love that sound, its one of those things that shapes you before you even realise its happening.

Although I have always loved sewing machines thanks to Mum I came to sewing late, I got my first sewing machine when I was 28, I was always put off them as I didn't like the look of the modern machines, my Mum got round this by managing to find my a working condition hand powered Singer Sewing machine from Freecycle.

My Dad cleaned and oiled it then brought it down to Bath with them one weekend and I have never looked back. My Singer is, to put it nicely a beast. She is a 66K made in 1919 with the Lotus pattern and still works like a dream (when I thread it correctly!), she also weighs a flippin ton!

I have made countless things on her in the nearly 4 years I've owned her, I can safely say I wouldn't swap this machine for a modern one in a million years. There is something very satisfying about a bit of machinery that manages to be both useful and beautiful at the same time. Also anyone who has one of these will know they made a tremendously satisfy 'tink tink' noise as you turn the handle...I love that!

Last year for my Birthday Richard got me this little cutie...

This one is a Willcox and Gibbs machine probably made in New York but for a British company. This one had resided in a friends shed for many many years, it found a new home with us when Richard happened to mention that I already had a vintage Singer. This little G doesn't sadly work at the moment as its missing its drive belt but it sits proudly in our studio window.

Then for Christmas Richard found me yet another little unloved machine...

This one took a bit of hunting to find out what it is as the makers mark is covered with rust, but I pretty sure this is a German made Muller Model 12 toy sewing machine. It is in a bit of a state but I actually quite like it looking that way, the shape is just so pretty. This one now lives out in the open again over the fireplace in our living room, where she is loved blemishes included.

I have always believed that more than two of anything is a collection so I guess I now collect old sewing machines (apparently the more unloved the better!), I think we will have to hurry up and build that garden workshop if this collection is to continue as we are fast running out of flat surfaces!

This post is not just about sewing machine bragging, it is also a little thank you to my Mum. Who helped make me who I am without either of us realising it...

...so basically its all your fault Mum! xx

Ok, my brain is still surfing on a post Christmas/New Year chocolate hazy, so rather than a well put together and coherent post, heres a bunch of stuff we've been doing in the last few weeks...

Clear as Mud?...good. 

Normal service will resume once my brain is functioning properly again...about mid February.

Hope everyone is enjoying 2013 so far!