Spring and houses

Oh yes!!!

Spring arrived in our backyard for an afternoon and we rushed to make our first Pimms in a jug.... We got the mixing instructions on the bottle wrong and ended up mixing it way above recommended octane levels resulting in us getting well and truely in rapid time. It was about halfway through this process we decided it would be a great idea to set up a timed shot of us both....It says 1 part Pimms, 3 parts mixer, I sort of read it as 1/3 Pimms and 2/3rds mixer. And gave it a glug or two extra Pimms....probably ended up 50/50. Which was how we felt hence the somewhat less than level photo and stupidly grinning posed result.

The days have been bringing some pleasant sunshine, we even had a few days where it was over 13 degrees.... maybe nothing to write home about but we think of these events for days afterwards. You will see from this shot that the season has bought new visiters to our landscape. Along with their happy quacking when we enter into the yard there is the ever present downside of what they leave behind.... All duck feeding has ceased. It is heartwrenching trying to get them to understand they should return to the river or wherever their natural food is. I think they have fallen in love with our place.

This strange sculpture of a telescopic sheep with wool of flax rope and the shot of the fascade of the building below both have quite a bit to do with the fact that Greg has become an early start member of a writers group called the Leeds Savages http://leedssavage.com which has as its occasional base the Temple Works Building which by happenstance is not far from where we first lived when we came to Leeds three years ago. http://www.templeworksleeds.com/tw/ All of which may be interesting but not as interesting as why a sheep has telescopic legs and flax hair.

The building is quite famous because for a while it was the largest undercover open workspace in the world. As it was used for flax production and weaving there was a need for constant temperature which was acheived by putting soil to some depth on the roof. Well, naturally grass and trees took root and it was decided in order to keep the forest from re-sprouting and the grasses overgrowing the roof windows they would put a bunch of sheep on the roof. Now sheep have to eventually get down from roofs to go to market, get sheared and that sort of rural stuff. It was a problem which saw the world's first lift invented to take the sheep up and down from the roof. This is not the world's first sheep lift you understand. It was the worlds first mechanised lift of any sort. Think of this next time you are waiting in line for a elevator...... I tell you the things we love about Leeds gets longer and longer...... Now at least you can understand about the telescopic flax sheep sculpture.... We had been wondering for some time.

What you see here are a numer of shots of houses we have been looking at around Manchester. There is a thought between us that we may rent out Wetherby and buy another place closer to Gail's work which seems to be mainly based oer that way. Yes another property renovation..... Will it ever end? Really we don't know as Gail may decide to change employers i which case we would be closer to her work here then.

It is key to us that if we move it has to be to a canal side home where we could benefit from the network of national waterways...... more on that in later blogs if the move ever comes off.

You will see from the snaps the size of home is not going to be huge for our budget nor will it be in great shape (again). But we have found places with fantastic views, good sized frontages or rear-ages to canals and yet agai we are getting the smell of dust and cement in our nostrils and have started pawing at the doors of banks and real estate agents in anticipation of that ellusive deal.

Not suprising then I guess that we also find ourselves pausing for thoughts over the odd margharita and ales in various bars and nightclubs across the country. I can't tell you much more at his stage but I will when something wondeful happens or even if it doesn't. Oh and Gail was quite tickled to find these springtime boot-thongs in a shop in Warrington. Thankfully the shop was closed or they would have walked , so to speak. I ask you, legwarmers and toe straps? Only in the UK I think.