Just for fun, we thought we would just pick today and list the stuff we did. No day is typical because they all tend to be like today. [Was that an oxymoron?] Anyway, here's the list.
Drove to Feltwell to post a letter and pay the garage for restoring our van from a 2 speed back to a 5 speed.
Stopped at a tenant's home where we are installing a whole new kitchen and drilled hinge pockets in an oak dishwasher panel so it would function as a door on a wall cupboard.
Helped another tenant repair a garage door that almost fell on his car.
Cleaned up and burned a mess of lumber and carpentry scrap that infested our storage units.
Sent several emails to people like vendors, the Mission President, and family.
Made phone calls about issues at Camp Liahona, repairs on houses and tents, and pricing propane shower heaters.
Finished pruning the apple tree in the front yard.
Talked with the farm manager about the results of last Saturday's service project (Sponsored by Thetford Ward Elders' Quorum) that cleaned up, painted, refurbished and secured some vandalised toilets out in the middle of the farm fields.
Had lunch of soup and sandwiches.
Took delivery of the new, super quiet generator for Camp Liahona.
Planned the next two weeks work with our primary handy man.
Drove to Ely to pick up our new clogs, a chain saw chain and return a key to the Agency for the Environment (used in researching handcart trek routes).
On the way home stopped to enjoy this rookery (cluster of crows nests) we often pass along our way, but today each nest has a crow by it. It's spring!
Continued work on organising the next service project for Camp Liahona.
Had supper of potato soup, steak, carrots and grape juice.
Crashed in front of the TV to watch one of our favourite detective serials - Hercule Poirot.
Checked for friends on faceBook.
Did some genealogical research.
Made and entry in our blog.
Responded to blog entries by family.
Went to bed at 11:00 PM.
Yesterday, we finished inspecting the homes that are in our stewardship. This 7 homes was located in Kelsale, in Eastern East Anglia. We could not inspect them all in one day so we spent the night in the Moat House Bed and Breakfast, a beautiful country place in the midst of the countryside. Here is the main house and the back "garden".
The place was recently completely remodelled and was beautifully done in natural wood, including the step down out of the shower.
For breakfast, we had a traditional English one. Fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, bacon (like Canadian bacon), sausage, fried egg, wheat toast with jam or jelly. After the big meal we had the evening before at The White Horse pub, we were stuffed and ready to go all day.
One of the homes we inspected was a 500 year old hunting lodge called Kelsale Hall Lodge.
Kelsale Hall was a large, manor house back then, about 10 miles East of this hunting outpost. The structure itself was in remarkably good condition, considering its age. It needed a lot of work though. Ceiling plaster was separating from the lath behind and a couple raised panels in the front door had rotted clear through leaving a small hole in the corner of each of them. We are hoping it will not be too expensive to replace the two raised panels in order to save the very old door which is nearly 4 feet wide and barely 6 feet tall. Here is the old hunting lodge with a old wing added on one end. Many of the windows need to be replaced and the brick work needs to be repointed to keep the rain out. If you look carefully at the far end, you can see a change in the bricks there also where an extension was added some years ago. It is amazing that these old buildings have so little problems with foundations cracking. A two story brick has a lot of weight. The old builders obviously knew how to do it right because we had to really study the outside walls carefully to find a couple of cracks and those were from lower windows to upper ones.
On the way home in the afternoon, we took a few pictures because the scenes were so classic for this area. Here is a couple Englishmen out for a stroll in the evening, a scene down a typical narrow highway and one of those late afternoon landscapes that looks like it should be a picture puzzle. You see a small farmhouse
in the distance nestled among the mixed forest of broad leaf and conifers, the mighty oaks standing in the hedged winter pasture with grass in tiny hummocks all beneath that unsettled sky that so often graces these picturesque vistas.
