Out With The Old

It's the start of another new year and so this year we have decided to make a few changes. Out with the old and in with the new so to speak.

And the first item to be part of this cull is our membership of Lincoln Boat Club.

We found that during 2015 we were spending less and less time in the club, we didn't attend any of their cruises and towards the end were only going in to do our bar shifts. So a few months ago we took the decision that we would end our membership at the beginning of this year. Tomorrow evening will be our final bar shift in the club.

We have made some good friends over the last few years in the boat club but feel that for us now the time has come to move on to pastures new. We will still pop in occasionally from time to time to have a quick catch up and a natter but our time as members has whiled away.

So what next for the chop?

Colours Chosen

After much deliberation we have finally chosen a colour scheme for the hallway, who would have known it would be such a difficult choice to match paint to wallpaper? 

It is a little way off being ready for paint just yet, but not that far now. It is finally getting there with real progress being made in the last couple of weeks.

The panelling is all but finished now with just a very small section to finish off and a few pieces of trim to fix which finish off the edges, then it is time to finish sanding the walls and then finally it will be time to start applying the paint to the panelling. We expect it will take a couple of base coats of a magnolia colour to mask the pattern and tone of the wood prior to applying the final colour coat of the stone colour Rocky Cliff.

Then finally we can get the paper on the walls and the new flooring on the ground floor hallway and we will have a functioning room again rather than the current workshop!

A Face Full of Food

We were both suffering from the first day back blues yesterday evening after work, so to cheer us up a little I made these belly busting burgers for dinner.

The burgers were simply steak mince seasoned well with salt and pepper and formed into balls, you need two balls per burger. Flatten one out and then add blue cheese and chopped chillis to the middle and then flatten out another mince ball and lay on top before then forming into one sealed rather chunky burger. These were then baked for half an hour at 200 degrees. They took longer to cook through then plain burgers due to their size.

I served these on a toasted muffin smeared with mustard mayo with cajun sweet potato wedges, onion rings and salad.

Now one tip here, these are messy burgers to consume, a proper face full of food and it helps if you let the blue cheese centre cool down a little before diving in, otherwise the cheese erupts from the centre like molten lava!

Back to the Grindstone

And it is back to the grindstone again for both Liam and I today. The first day back at work.

Perhaps the hardest Monday of the year.

On the plus side we have had a great Christmas and New Year and are looking forward to a great year of cruising with Naughty-Cal as well as a new look house, eventually. 

We have some great trips lined up for this summer and now that the nights are slowly starting to draw out again it really does feel like we are heading in the right direction again.

In Bits Again

The boiler has been in bits again.  Turns out the refurbished PCB unit is also faulty and worse than the one we took out.

It worked fine for a few days but then this morning refused to fire up leaving us with no heat or hot water and no amount of cajoling would coax it back into life.

So we had no option but to swap it back for the one that produces heat and hot water but needs resetting on a regular basis.

The "new" one will have to go back again.

Back to Grafting

Well after a lovely couple of days at the boat it is time to head home and get back to grafting on the hallway.

Deep joy.

Happy New Year