Kitchen Replacement - Day 16

We now have more doors and some handles on the units, fridge/freezer and dishwasher.

This Year's Chillis

 

A change of approach to chilli plant growing this year.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 15

Well things are starting to look more like they will when the work is finished with many of the doors being put on the units today. No handles yet, though.

U3A Cryptic Crosswords Group

Today we had the first meeting of the new U3A Bury St Edmunds Cryptic Crossword group that I've started.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 14

More painting for Dawn today.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 13

Dawn has been busy doing some preparation work and undercoats for the gloss today.

Bury St Edmunds Spring Beer Festival

After enjoying last year's I just had to go along to this today.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 12

More construction and installation work in the kitchen and utility room today...

Kitchen Replacement - Day 11

Another great day's work from Tony our fitter today.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 10

From an empty kitchen yesterday it is now full of furniture under construction.

Kersey Mill Walk

Today, while Dawn was busy painting, I joined Joyce and 5 others on a walk from Kersey Mill.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 9

The flooring was due to be laid starting today, but it was agreed to wait until the furniture has been installed.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 8

Today it was the turn of the Floor Dimensions fitters to have a go at creating our new kitchen.

John's Walks 2024 Updated

I've done an update to John's Walks 2024 to cover March and April (so far). It provides an index to all the walk blog posts so far this year. You can access it via the menu bar at the top of the page or the "John's Walks" section in the sidebar. As usual, I'll continue to update it periodically during the year - every couple of months on average.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 7

Dawn has been busy (understatement of the year) this weekend doing some painting.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 6

 

This is how the kitchen looked this morning... ready for painting.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 5

Today, after another 7:30 am start, James finished the plastering in the utility room by early afternoon.

Weekend Quick Cryptic 101 - Solution

Phil Jordan, Sawbill and I are continuing to produce our series of Quick Cryptic crosswords. We take turns, publishing one a fortnight, and this week it's  Phil's turn. 

You can find a link to the crossword here and the answers below. Feel free to leave any comments or questions here as you would do on TfTT. You can find an index to the complete series of crosswords here. 

Weekend Quick Cryptic 101 by Phil Jordan

This time it is Phil's turn to provide the fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic crossword, Number 101 in the series.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 4

More plastering today and now the kitchen is done.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 3

Today we had some more electrics done and a start  made on the plastering.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 2

Superficially, not a whole lot more to see after today's work.

Kitchen Replacement - Day 1

This was our kitchen as it looked this morning.

Bluebell Walk

Today, in a lull before the onslaught of the kitchen replacement, Dawn and I did the perennial Bluebell Walk from Suffolk Food Hall.

Orford Ness

Today we had a group trip to Orford Ness where we had a guided tour.

Times for The Times Reaches 1000 Active Subscribers

Announced today on TimesforTheTimes.

Wedding Cake Update

We just had to find out. Is our 34 year old wedding cake still edible?

Wedding Cake Anyone?

It was still in its box on top of the cupboards in the kitchen, which we are busy clearing to make way for the new one....

Weekend Quick Cryptic 100 - Solution

Although The Times has bowed to pressure and started providing a Saturday Quick Cryptic crossword, my fellow TimesforTheTimes contributors Phil Jordan, Sawbill and I are continuing to produce Quick Cryptic crosswords to fill the gap left by the Sunday Times not having one. The plan is for us to take turns, publishing one a fortnight, and this week it's my turn. 

You can find a link to this week's crossword here and the answers below. Did you find the Nina? Feel free to leave any comments or questions here as you would do on TfTT. You can find an index to the complete series of crosswords here. 

Weekend Quick Cryptic 100 - X squared

Click here to read about the origin of this series of crosswords.

A brief history of the origins of these crosswords for those who are new to them. As a blogger of the Times Quick Cryptic Crossword on Times for The Times every other Friday, I often had comments on the blog bemoaning that The Times only provides a Quick Cryptic on Mondays to Fridays. When I finally gave up work at the end of February 2020, I decided that I would try my hand at compiling crosswords. It was with some trepidation that I published, in May 2020, the first of these Weekend Quick Cryptics to fill the gap. Well it seemed to go down well so I did another. And then my fellow crossword solver and commenter on Times for the Times, Phil Jordan, volunteered to produce some too. And then, more recently, so did Sawbill. So now the three of us take turns, publishing each new crossword via my Friday Quick Crossword blog. The popularity of these has been such that The Times has bowed to pressure and started publishing a Saturday Quick Cryptic online. But there is still no Sunday Times Quick Cryptic so we will continue with these as long as there is sufficient interest.

This time it is my turn to provide the fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic crossword, Number 100 in the series, entitled "X squared". As usual, there is a bit of a hint in the title but this time to a Nina (hidden message) rather than a theme. Finding and completing it could help with a few clues. Enjoy!

You can try and solve the crossword interactively here on MyCrossword or here on crossword.info.  As usual you can download a PDF to print which you can find here. Alternatively you can copy and print the image below. Comments and queries are welcome with the solution post (which also gives tips on some of the clues).  I will react to any comments or queries there as soon as I can. You can find an index to the complete series of crosswords here. 

U3A Knettishall Heath Walk

Today it was my turn to lead a walk for the Bury St. Edmunds U3A Longer Walks Group. I chose to do a walk that was familiar to me but not to most of the other members of the group - from Knettishall Heath.

Goldfinch

Spotted on a family walk yesterday morning near Sybil Andrews Academy.

Family At Easter

We have William, Laura and Laurence staying with us over Easter. Here we are at the dinner table yesterday.