English Rose Kitchen

I’ve lined up a van for Monday with a company whose website I look after, Tiger Tours. The plan is to go down and pick up the fridge first, then the kitchen units. Mr Poole says he’s fine all day long. Slightly-angry-woman (with the fridge/freezer) has turned into slightly-angrier-woman because I can’t pick up the American style fridge/freezer at the weekend. This is proof of Al’s theory that English Rose Kitchen fans are of a certain type and the rest of the world are of a certain other type.

Then Martin (nice chap) at Tiger Tours called to say that there’s a problem with the van that I’m hiring (a transit type thing), so would I mind taking a Splitter van instead? Tiger Tours specialise in hiring to bands (we’ve used them ourselves). This thing is a 9 seater behemoth with another few feet of storage at the back. The whole thing is 6.5m or 21′4″ long. I guess the fridge/freezer will go in the storage bit (which serves it right) and the kitchen units can be split between the storage and the seats. It’ll probably have DVD players and broadband and all sorts of stuff that’s complete overkill for the task, but Martin said they’ll give it to me for the price of the van I was going to get.

I was trying to get Chris the Driver to fetch the American style fridge freezer this Saturday, which would please slightly-angry-woman but he hasn’t come back to me, so I’ve arranged to hire a van on Monday. That’s rather convenenient because I can pick up the Poole lot of English Rose Kitchen units in the same run. I just hope slightly-angry-woman and Mr Poole can both accommodate me on Monday.

Remember Dave, the builder/decorator we met in the North Pole last week? He arranged to come round at mid day today. Dave couldn’t make it so he sent his partner instead. Unfortunately his partner’s name was a bit unusual so I didn’t quite catch it.

For the first time the process of describing what needs doing to didn’t seem like a chore. We’ve asked him to quote for the floor, the kitchen, lighting in the living room and the shower/steam room (probably the subject for another blog I should think).

He was the first person who seemed to just “get it”. He was totally unphased at the prospect of having to fit an English Rose kitchen and suggested that before we go ahead and restore the units we let them place them roughly so we can all see what we’re dealing with.

In brief, he filled us with as much confidence as Dave did when we first met him. Let’s see what his quote is like when he gets it to us in a few days’ time.

My mum emailed me from St Petersburg today to tell me that it was fine for me to store the units in their garage. Told you I love my parents!

The woman from whom I’ve bought the American style fridge/freezer emailed me to say “No it’s not OK for you to leave it here till next week”, so I need to work out how to get it to West London from Dorset. Trouble is that I can’t find my driving licence at the moment to hire a van. Guess I’d better start looking. Ray’s the bloodhound when it comes to finding things.