English Rose Kitchen

I didn’t sleep too well last night what with all the excitement at the prospect of finally getting my hands on a load of genuine English Rose. I was wide awake at about 4am thinking “If I’m this awake now, just imagine how awake I’ll be at 7am after a few hours sleep!”. I woke at 8:30am, dog tired, my plan to try to get to the M1 before the rush hour somewhat compromised.

Actually I made quite good time as it turned out, getting to the M1 in a respectable 25 minutes. With no traffic (starting out just before 7am) I can do it in 15, in the rush hour sometimes 1 1/2 hours, the first half of which is often just driving the 300 yards or so through Harlesden. I guess I just missed the rush hour, so my sloth had paid off.

There are a couple of 50mph restricted sections near the start of the M1 at the moment, but not much to worry about and the traffic was running fairly smoothly till around Newport Pagnell, where it dropped to 50, then 40mph and finally to a standstill.

Knowing my ability to choose the slowest lane in any given traffic conditions I decided to stay exactly where I was, in the fast lane. Except that no one was moving anywhere. I remember thinking that the car in front was emitting a lot of exhaust … er no – wait a minute, that’s steam and it’s coming from underneath my own bonnet! What’s more the needle on the temperature gauge was politely hammering at the end stop.

I switched off the engine and considered my options. I was just parallel to the end of a turn off so I indicated and luckily the truck driver to my left took pity on my plight and let me go. The driver in the outside lane wasn’t so forgiving at my driving at right angles to the flow of traffic so I had to be a bit pushy, but with just a minimal amount of off road skill I made it onto the slip road.

I set about finding a mechanic to take a look and I noticed that as I sped up, the temperature went down. In fact, not unlike the movie Speed, as long as I stayed above 50mph everything seemed to be OK. Clearly this wasn’t a tactic I could maintain for long. I pulled into a gas station and called Ray to see if she knew whether her AAA (American Automobile Association) covered her in the UK as she thought it might, then while she was looking managed to find a mechanic on my own, who told me that it was probably the thermostat that had gone.

To cut a painful story short, I called Al in Leeds to let him know I couldn’t make it, turned round and came home with one eye on the road, one on the temperature. I sincerely apologise to the driver of the white van (you won’t hear that phrase too often!) that I cut up while turning onto the North Circular, but I wasn’t able to slow down for fear of the head gasket blowing.

I took it to Farouk, who told me that as a result of the thermostat going (price around £15) the radiator had cracked and would need replacing (price around £350).

M1 1 – English Rose 0

We just won the nearly new Electrolux American Fridge Freezer ENL62981XX3 we’ve been watching for a few days for £440. Great price we think – they sell new for something like £1,200.

It’s down in Brockenhurst, Hampshire. Not a clue how I’m going to get it up here, but I’m sure Chris the Driver will be able to help.

I was round at Gary’s working on some Rotten Hill Gang material when Ray called me to let me know that we’d just won our first lot of English Rose Kitchen units for a £205.20. They’re up in Leeds and I have absoluely no idea how I’m going to go up an collect them, but we have been told that the units come apart completely. I hope that’s true!

It’s a small start, but it feels like we’re moving at last.

The first lot enjoys the English sunshine

While I’m waiting for actual English Rose eBay auctions to end I’ve ordered an English Rose Ktichen advert cut out of an old Punch Magazine. It arrived today. Smaller than I’d imagined, but it’s taken pride of place on our fridge to remind us what the finished item is going to look like.

The floor of our kitchen, which runs through to the living room, needs replacing. It’s sad, because it has a lot of character, most of it being original. In fact it has a little too much character because the gaps are now far too wide in some places (the newer floorboards mainly) and there are holes in the wood in others. We have to keep something over a particular pair of holes to stop our inquisitive cat from going down there.

We’ve looked at oak flooring and if we go with that we’re going to want each board to be prety wide just for the look. We’re planning to lay it across the old flooring at right angles to the current direction. I realise that’ll raise problems if we ever have to go under the floor for any reason.

Another flooring idea (Ray’s) is to use some sort of veneered MDF and paint it with harlequin style squares (i.e. the squares will be running diagonally). I have no idea how practical this could be, although it certainaly would be cheaper if it was and would fit the look of the kitchen. Ray also wants to put some of that aluminium flooring around where the kitchen units themselves are.