Krysten makes up for us not being able to go on holiday by performing crab like movements for our benefit

The Sun is bright, hot and relentless, the cocktails smooth and exotic, the sea laps around feet dangling into the clear waters of the Mediterranean. Yes, our contractors are enjoying their annual summer holidays.

Unfortunately however, we are not. The renovation grinds on and we decided months ago that we didn’t want to go away and come back to a building site so, with the ever increasing delays, we find ourselves without a summer holiday this year.

On the face of it there’s only a little more to do. 5 weeks ago they gave us an estimate that it would all be finished 3 weeks ago. There’s now no chance whatsoever that it will be complete by Carnival, so sadly no chance of putting any friends up that weekend.

Which is probably for the best actually. It’s going to be a pretty busy one for us, not least because on the Monday (Aug 31) Rotten Hill Gang are playing on Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues stage on Talbot Road outside The Globe and then one of our singers, Krysten Cummings, has to dash straight off to Leicester Square for the première of a movie she’s in, “The Descent 2″.

Sorry just rambling because there’s currently nowhere else to sit around here but in front of the computer!

What were all those non English Rose Kitchen posts doing here anyway?
OK It’s finally happened. From the word go Ray was nagging me not to post non kitchen renovation articles to this blog. “If you must stray from the subject, at least make it related!” she’d say. “Bathrooms, fine. Interior design and home renovation in general, also fine!”. I toyed sheepishly with my mouse as she said “But why on Earth do you think you ought to post items about your band, about Notting Hill or about Timothy bloody Taylor beer to a site about our home?”.

And she had a point. Well – not the “Timothy bloody Taylor” bit actually, I made that up. she’s American, so if she said that it would have sounded something like Liza Doolittle, but that was the gist of it.

The trouble is I like writing
I like the sound of my own typing too much. And so Notting Hill Diary was born. The site is about our neighbourhood. It’s growing all the usual stuff about the history Notting Hill, Notting Hill Carnival, bars, pubs, restaurants and cinemas in the area. But I’m also I’m trying to keep it topical and entertaining with interesting articles you won’t find on one of those sites that’s little more than a glorified RSS agregator.

And I’ve sent all the offending articles over to their new home. I’ve enjoyed having them here, but we all know that it’s for the best that they reside in a more relevant location. Fairwell irrelevant tittle tattle that I can’t help writing. We’ve enjoyed entertaining you, but now it’s time to get serious about kitchens once again. We’re nearly back sleeping in our bedroom (we’ve been sleeping in the living room for what seems live forever), which means that we’re about to take the Great Leap Forward as far as our English Rose Kitchens plans go.

Footnote: OK I’ve finally removed all the non kitchen related articles to http://www.nottinghilldiary.com. It’s sad to see them go, but they’ve found a better home there.