Sunday, July 29, 2012

Tales from Coastguard Cottage - Thursday 26th July

Another glorious day, and a trip to Shell Bay for some serious sand castle making.  We picked a spot right by a stream running off the heath across the beach and into the sea.  After a series of sand dams were breached, a huge body of water swelled into the moat and eventually undermined the foundations of our castle, which very quickly became a ruin resembling Corfe.  It was truly exciting stuff.  A glorious day to end a wonderful holiday.  Bye bye Kimmeridge, we'll be back.


Tales from Coastguard Cottage - Wednesday 25th July

Corfe Castle was beseiged once more, this time via steam train and after enjoying a slap up cream tea at it's famous tea rooms in celebration of Grandma's birthday. 

Tales from Coastguard Cottage - Tuesday 24th July

A gentle day at the Blue Pool, or more aptly named the Green Pool.  The highlight was the multitude of amorous dragonflies making beautiful heart shapes with their bodies whilst mating. 
We ended the day with a walk up to Clavell tower to watch the sunset with our boys.

Tales from Coastguard Cottage - Monday 23rd July

After a long day at Brownsea, we went for a slow relaxing day at Kimmeridge Bay, just a short walk down the secret path from the cottage.  We spend the day enjoying a bit of snorkelling, followed by a barbeque with lashings of ginger beer, and then back to the beach for some fossil hunting.  
It was all going so well until Grandma took a step too far on the green seaweed.  After a quick trip to A&E she returned with her head glued back together as good as new (apart from a headache and a pile of washing to do)
Another old fossil on the rocks (sorry Grandma!)

Tales from Coastguard Cottage - Sunday 22nd July

Three generations of Scouts went on an expedition to Brownsea Island to pay hommage to Lord Baden-Powell.  As well as being a Mecca for Scouts around the globe (purely on account of it's "epic" shop according to Daniel),
Browsea Island is also considered by some to be the inspiration behind Kirrin island from the Famous Five stories.  Our very own Julian, Dick, George and Anne (but sadly no Timmy aka Maisie) explored the land for hidden ingots.

Tales from Coastguard Cottage - Saturday 21 July

The jet stream kindly changed course last week, giving us a week of splendid sunshine to bask in during our holidays at Coastguard Cottages. 

It wasn't long before James and Daniel committed high treason and were subjected to a spell in the stocks followed by a lucky reprieve in which they escaped a gruesome death and lived to enjoy more adventures by the sea.

Tales from Coastguard Cottage - the Trailer

Click below to view the trailer

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Rubble

 It's getting to crunch time in the Sunnyside house.  The kids room is out of action due to the large air vent the builders put in for us today, and the layer of rubble on the floor.  So we're all huddled together in one bedroom tonight.  Thankfully we are escaping to the sanity of Dorset for what we hope to be a week of lovely sunshine. 
Bye bye Sunnyside, the next time we live in you, you will be much bigger, and hopefully less full of rubble.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Onwards and upwards


Building works have progressed despite the rain, and we now have the beginnings of an upper storey.








James is peering through the window into Mummy and Daddy's new bedroom, and Jenny's bedroom is to the left.



Friday, July 06, 2012

Progress report

Since the scaffolding arrived, the builders have topped the windows, put in some steel joists, fixed in the floor joists for the upper storey and begun putting up the roof timbers of the utility room.  They have also finished the brickwork around the front doorway. 
Despite a few technical hitches, none of which - fortunately - were insurmoutable, we are making good progress.  The toilet has been reconnected after a whole day out of service (what would we do without our wonderful neighbours?), and the waste pipes have all been cleverly hidden from view under the floor and within the roof space of the porch.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

The new playroom

The next stage of the building works means we need to vacate the house for a couple of days while they remove part of the kitchen ceiling to put in a steel joist.  We thought we would get ourselves aclimatised to our new lodgings, so we've spent the weekend in the shed.