Our 'new' bungalow has a beautiful conservatory - but this fine structure has one big snag.  The conservatory was built without allowance having been made for the guttering above, which takes all the rain off the bungalow roof.  So the gutting has distorted and much water is seeping into the main bedroom.

We need new guttering anyway, so approached several companies and the best solution to this problem is to insert a box, or parapet, gutter (see diagram below).

Unfortunately this means that the conservatory will have to be altered and the best idea which anyone has come across, rather than actually doing away with the conservatory altogether, is to raise the roof. At the same time the slope of the roof can be increased, so that the rain will drain off competently so that the roof will get less mucky.

We will need to replace what the salesman termed the 'top' of the conservatory, which doesn't mean just the roof, it affects the double glazed panels above the dwarf walls too.

So the double glazed panels and the roof are to be dismantled and taken away.  

There's not much wrong with these so I'm planning to sell them - but for how much, and where? I had a quick look on Preloved, eBay and Gumtree to get an idea of price, and it seems to vary between about £100 and many thousands.

The best ads were very clear, had good photos and stated who was to dismantle and when the conservatory would be available for collection.

This site gives advice on selling a used conservatory: http://www.self-build-conservatories.com/selling-a-used-conservatory/.  They suggest that the prospective purchaser has a look at the conservatory before it's dismantled so that he/she can see what it looks like in situ.  They also say that it's important to be clear as to who is to actually dismantle it: you may get more money if you do but that may deter a purchaser.  We have no problem with that as the double-glazing company are to do this.

So far as actually selling is concerned, how do I reach the right people?  After all, conservatories are not items which can be parcelled up and sent to the other end of the country.  And what's the best time of year to sell a conservatory? Summer perhaps, but we want this one out of the way by the end of February.  Do people have the spare money at the end of January to splash out on a conservatory?

eBay: http://www.ebay.co.uk

Gumtree: http://www.gumtree.com/sheds-gazebos/uk/conservatory

Preloved: http://www.preloved.co.uk

For me manners matter

from an article by Alan Titchmarsh in the Sunday Telegraph


It's not a case of being polite for the sake of it but an indicator of a considerate underlying character.  So I'll happily continue to open doors for others and give up my seat on the train for my elders


Is it bad manners to talk about good manners?  Like politics and religion, there is a feeling in certain quarters that such topics are best left unmentioned in polite company. Since good manners seem to be on the decline perhaps few people care any more. 


The trouble is that all too often the niceties of life get lost in the welter of heavier issues, but then, as we were always told as children, if the pennies are looked after, the pounds will take care of themselves, and so the demonstration of good manners is surely an indicator of a considerate underlying character.  

My own upbringing as the son of working-class Yorkshire couple (father a plumber, full-time mother a former millworker) taught my sister and me the importance of 'please' and 'thank you', of 'please may I', rather than 'can I', of asking before we left the table, and of never using the word 'hate'.  These are mere highlights of a code of behaviour that became accepted in our house as the norm.  It did not involve any discomfort on our part, and it did seem to help us get by in life without putting too many backs up.

When walking down the street I would take off my school cap if a funeral cortege passed by.  If someone in our street died, all the neighbours would pull their curtains.

The last two customs have fallen by the wayside, but I still baulk at those who wear hats (or baseball caps) indoors, and I find it impossible to walk on the inside of the pavement when accompanying a member of the opposite sex.  My neat sideways step behind them does sometimes cause women who are not acquainted with this old custom to wonder what the heck I am doing, but there you are.  It comes to practicalities, it is me who gets splashed by the passing vehicle when it goes through a puddle.

Table manners make for the comfort of fellow diners as well as being useful in avoiding embarrassment.  Who wants to listen to someone chomping away with his or her mouth open, or talking when it is full of food and sending gobbets of it onto the clothing of their companions?

And yet, with more of us glued to the screens of computers, laptops, mobile phones and tablets for the better part of the day, and fewer sitting down at a table together to eat with knives and forks, one wonders how long these social graces will continue to survive.

Operating in isolation, with little need for social intercourse, it is no surprise that social and sociable behaviour suffers when many have so little opportunity to practice it.  We stalwarts will still open doors for ladies, in spite of frequently being on the receiving end of either a glare or else no reaction at all.  At the risk of sounding like your grandma: 'a thank you costs nothing'. And I open the door out of respect, out of helpfulness, not because of a misguided feeling of superiority.

Those women who deplore this kind of behaviour say more about their own grim attitude to life rather than that of the perpetrator of the act.  It is intended as a pleasant compliment and it would be nice if it could be taken as one.  I'd lay down my coat in a puddle for a smile. 

What is also underestimated, more and more in the business world, is the value of good manners towards employees.  With ever more importance being placed on profits and cost  effectiveness, it is astonishing just how many large companies place no value at all on staff relations.  

Now, if this sounds like mere whimsy, forgive me, but if you work for a company that treats you well, not just financially  but in terms of thoughtfulness and consideration of your feelings, you will more than likely be willing to go the extra mile.  A boss who says 'hello', especially if he knows your first name, will engender far more loyalty than one who breezes by and ignores you.  


This attitude to staff costs nothing, and yet is pays dividends in terms of staff morale and - ultimately - profitability.  It astonishes me that more businesses do not appreciate this simple and inarguable fact.

And it is not just in business that good manners yield surprising results.  Think how grateful you feel when a fellow motorist signals to you to come out in front of him in a traffic queue.  It works in reverse, too.  Let someone else in and what do you lost? Five seconds in terms of getting to your destination.  What do you gain?  A warm feeling inside.  That said, underlying the outward demonstration of good manners must be a firmly held belief in their value; the cynical use of such niceties is worse than their being ignored.

I shall battle on.  I shall keep walking on the outside of the pavement and being splashed by cars; I shall insist on removing any headgear I may be wearing when I enter a house, and I shall keep offering my seat to ladies and my elders on the train and opening doors for anyone at all, regardless of their age and gender.  I do it because I can and because I think it matters.  Even if they don't.


See: http://www.wikihow.com/Have-Good-Manners; and
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/377638/Are-good-manners-a-thing-of-the-past
and an interesting view: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2424760/How-good-manners-really-make-human--help-free-disease.html

20 of the best tips for keeping little hands occupied!

1. Firstly, invest in a mat to protect your surfaces (or use newspaper or oilcloth).
2. Collect empty margarine and ice cream tubs or yoghurt pots, then use them to keep the craft zone tidy.
3. Raid your cupboards for bubble wrap - children can transform these into shaker cards by adding a little glitter or beads and backing with card.
4. Visit the Tate website (http://kids.tate.org.uk/create/) for loads of arty children's projects.
5. Children love making rubbings.  Simply show them how to hold thin paper over a textured object and rub with a crayon (held sideways), then let them loose in the garden.
6. The children (and you) will love making pop-ups (https://www.robertsabuda.com/).
7. Protect clothes and make your own smocks from old grown-ups' shirts. Button them on to mini crafters back-to-front.  Or for super-keen children, Play Wear stock children's size aprons for as little as £4.50. (or make them an apron using an old shirt or skirt)
8. Check with your local art gallery or library for children's craft workshops.  
9. They can draw around their hand and then practice cutting out the shape.  Stock two together for a fab butterfly.
10. Let children stamp onto a card blank for quick colourful results.
11. Still stuck for ideas? Then try http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/ for free colouring pages and fun craft project to kick-start your children's card making.
12. Invest in a few stash basics like safety scissors and a set of easy-to-grip pencils. 
13. Capture their imagination with the amazing range of kids' craft supplies - or use your imagination with thinking of craft uses for everyday objects from around the house, such as an old (empty!) chocolate box.
14. Find easy projects to try at home at http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/.
15. How about making a scrapbook from their holidays activities, especially days out or trips to the beach.  Try the Creativity for Kids 'It's My Life' scrapbooking kit from http://www.crafts4kids.co.uk/.
16. Teens can get in on the action with a craft party or sleepover.  For some cool craft projects see: http://spoonful.com/create
17. For younger children, take a look at http://www.crayola.co.uk/ for lots of colouring in.
18. Look at The Kids Zone at http://www.prittworld.co.uk/en/prittworld.html for craft inspirations.  All projects are specially designed to only need basic materials and three or four simple steps to make.
19. Enter competitions.  There are often top craft prizes, and exciting monthly challenges plus an online children's art gallery at http://art.lookandlearn.com/.

I've always felt it was important to live near grass and trees, plants and hills (even more than the benefits of living near the sea) - and now research from the University of Exeter Medical School has come to the same conclusion.

Green spaces improve mental health


Living near parks and green spaces improves mental health, with the effect  lasting for three years, even after a person has moved, research has found.  Those who live near greener areas reported less mental distress and higher life satisfaction, the researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School have found.  


This was still the case even after the researchers accounted for changes in residents' income, employment, marital status, physical healthy and housing type.  The study also showed that people moving to more built-up areas suffered a decline in mental health.

This fall occurred before they relocated but returned to normal once the move was complete.  The study, published in the journey Environmental Science & Technology, is one of the first to consider the effects of green space over time.

Take your green space with you!

The study traced 1,000 participants over five years.  These findings are important for urban planners thinking about introducing new green spaces to our towns and cities.




From an article in the Telegraph newspaper, 7/1/14

How Suds can stop the floods ....

After our wet Christmas we have been wringing in the new year with more than a week of flooding in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and even the Isle of Man .  Further deluges are forecast for the next few days, and the Met Office has warned there's no end in sight, with more depressions expected.

Yet last week marked the fourth new year since legislation was passed to tackle one of the most important and intractable causes of floods, which ministers have so far failed to bring into effect, protesting that they do not want to implement it in haste. 


This is on top of the disclosure that hundreds of staff at the Environment Agency could lose their jobs.  This suggests an extraordinary complacency, even by Whitehall standards.


The laid-by law aims to allay the impact of 21st century conditions on 19th century attitudes and infrastructure. We have sought to remove rainwater as quickly as possible, speeding its passage back to the sea through pipes and sewers, culverts and canalised rivers.  Natural draining systems have given way to engineering.


But as populations have increased and construction has spread, this  infrastructure has become inadequate.

It's made worse by new developments, such as front gardens being paved over for parking, causing water to run off faster.


Rainfall has risen 5% in Britain in the past 20 years and, more significantly, heavy bursts are increasingly replacing our archetypal drizzle, something expected to accelerate with climate change. 

Much of the massive flooding of 2007 - described as Britain's greatest even civil emergency - was caused by just such factors.   In Hull, for example, a month's rain falling in 24 hours overwhelmed even a relatively modern drainage system, flooding 7,200 homes and 1,300 businesses.  

Even when the sewers do cope, increased flow causes rivers to break their banks and raw sewage to surge out of some 14,000 storm overflows in England alone.

a swale

So attention is increasingly returning to measures that mimic the natural processes; reducing the amount of water reaching the man-made systems.  Boringly entitled sustainable draining systems (but more attractively acronymed as Suds) slow the flow, store it and encourage it to seep into the ground.  Suds include 'green' roofs planted with vegetation, permeable paving allowing water through to the soil below, grassland depressions called swales that carry water off into ponds, and even garden water butts.

Typically they cost less than half as much as traditional draining systems and far less than the flood defences rerected to safeguard communities, essential though both continue to be.  And they can improve areas and property values by encouraging wildlife and adorning landscapes.

Financial incentives drove up numbers of green roofs in Germany 19-fold in just 12 years.  In Melbourne, Australia, a five-year scheme is establishing 10,000 'raingardens' - flower and vegetable beds underlain with sandy soil to help water filter away.  The Augustenborg suburb of Malmo in Sweden, has been relieved of reguolar flooding by a network of green roofs, swales, ponds and mini-wetlands.  Several cities in America, including Portland and Philadelphia, have established similar natural infrastructure, while the city of Aurora in Colorado so reduced run-off that it avoided building a costly new plant for treating waste water.

There are some good Suds in Britain: a nature reserve near Doncaster, for example, absorbed 200,000 cubic metres of floodwater in 2007, saving thousands of homes from inundation.  But they have not spread widely, for the lack of legislation.

In 2008, new rules meant that planning permission was required to lay impermeable paving in front gardens.  But the big breakthrough for England and Wales was supposed to have been offered by the 2010 Floor and Water Management Act, which, amongst other things, allows new developments connection to drainage systems only once they have been passed by a body overseeing Suds.


Nearly four years on, that provision has yet to be brought into force.  Ministers first pledged - and failed - to do so by October 2012, then by April last year.  Their most recent target is April this year.

A Commons committee has repeatedly registered its 'great concern' and 'dismay; at the delay, but to no avail.  and even when it does come into effect, it will only tackle a tiny part of the problem, since it will address only new developments, which make up less than 1% of the built estate.

Surely, as a nation, we should be good at coping with rain? But familiarity seems to have bred complacency.  The consequences, you might say, are flooding in.


From an article in the Telegraph by Geoffrey Lean, January 2014.

See: http://www.groundwateruk.org/Groundwater-issues-SUDS.aspx
and also: http://noels-garden.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/olympic-glory.html

Foundations of a nation

Head of English Heritage, Simon Thurley, picks the 10 buildings that changed the face of this country - what makes England special.

During the Christmas holidays over 9 million people tuned in to Downton Abbey for a festive dose of nostalgia.  Downton's masterly evocation of country life captures, for a global audience, an image of Englishness: the country house, the rolling countryside, quaint villages, dogs and cucumber sandwiches.  

These are of course central to our national identity, and need to be cherished and preserved, but a more critical look at what makes England special takes us to a different place.

After the Battle of Waterloo, Britain changed to being a world power built on mechanisation, minerals and urbanisation. Hard, dirty, crowded places built the machines and manufactured the goods that gave Britain global dominance for around a century.  
The glorious buildings of of the English countryside, the lanes, the villages and the cathedral closes became junior partners in a much harsher view of our national identity.

Danny Boyle's inspired Olympics opening ceremony (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18971766) captured this perfectly.  While our cathedrals are glorious, our country houses sublime and our villages the most chocolate-boxey, what sets England apart is our mastery of industry.   It is home to the earliest monuments of industrialisation, the first factories, warehouses, railways, docks, power stations and much more.  

Half of this list of the most influential buildings are products of engineering and technology and were all built in the space of 45 years.


These places have a sublime beauty all to themselves.  Although many of these places are heart-stoppingly beautiful they are in need of a new use. The heritage crisis of the 21st Century is the fate of our industrial past.

The 20th century saved the country houses, and we can celebrate that, but the effects of our long obsession with the countryside have been a neglect of our unique industrial heritage.


Ditherington Flax Mill, one of the top 10, was rescued from collapse by English Heritage in 2005 and is only now finding a new use.  Another on the list - Liverpool Road Station, Manchester, the earliest surviving railway station in the world - faces the prospect of its original viaducts being demolished. 


This would never be contemplated if a line involved the demolition of part of Highclere Castle (where Downton Abbey is filmed).  We need to accept that our unique contribution to the world was not cucumber sandwiches, however nice they are.

This year will be important for our nation's heritage.  In 2013 we celebrated a century of heritage protection by the state, allowing us to enjoy our countryside.  In 2014, all three national heritage agencies - Historic Scotland (http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/), Cadw in Wales (http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/castles-and-historic-places-in-wales/?lang=en) and English Heritage (http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/) - will be under review, and the outcome will affect their ability to continue to do their jobs into the next century. 

Each agency will have its work cut out, and perhaps facing the consequences of de-industrialisation  will be somewhere at the top of their lists.

Full article is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/architecture/10549001/englands-best-buildings-top-ten-best-buildings-britain-english-heritage-simon-thurley-westminster-abbey.html

Liverpool Road Railway Station, Manchester

1. Westminster Abbey, London (c.960): which set the standard for aspiring builders for centuries.
2. Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire (1147 - 67): the dominant architectural style for 300 years.
3. King's Bench Walk, Temple, London (1677): blue-print for urban houses, even for today.
4. The Peckwater Quadrangle, Christ Church, Oxford (1707): style adopted for houses, churches and public buildings everywhere.
5. Ditherington Flax Mill, Shrewsbury (1797): ancestor of every large building today, even sky-scrapers.
6. A&G Murray Mills, Ancoats, Manchester (1801): Britain's industrial revolution entered a new phase, creating the largest economy the world had ever seen.
7. Liverpool Road Railway Station, Manchester (1830): familiar architectural style gave an atmosphere of confidence.
8. No 6 Slip, Chatham Historic Dockyard (1847): enabled enormous ships to be constructed, pushing the limits of technology.
9. All Saints Church, Margaret Street, London (1849): polychrome brick, fusion of architecture and engineering.
10. Bedford Park, London (from 1877): inspiration for suburbs.

All Saints Church, Margaret Street

And here are other key landmarks

Thirty buildings that also shaped England (listed in roughly chronological order):

1. All Saints Church, Brixworth, Northamptonshire
2. The White Tower, Tower of London
3. Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament
4. Dover Castle keep
5. Canterbury Cathedral
6. The Wheat Barn, Cressing Temple, Essex
7. Lincoln Cathedral
8. The Divinity School, Oxford
9. Woollaton House, Nottinghamshire
10. Canterbury Quad, St John's College, Oxford
11. Forty Hall, Enfield
12. The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford
13. Chiswick House, London
14. St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
15. The bridge at Ironbridge, Shropshire
16. The Royal William Yard, Plymouth
17. Albert Dock, Liverpool
18. Gower Street, London
19. St George's Hall, Liverpool
20. Cromford Mills, Derbyshire
21. Windsor Castle
22. The Houses of Parliament
23. The Palm House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
24. Newcastle upon Tyne railway station
25. The Bass Maltings, Sleaford, Lincolnshire
26. Boundary Estate, Bethnal Green, London
27. Selfridges, Oxford Street, London
28. Battersea Power Station, London
29. Speke Airport, Liverpool (now Liverpool John Lennon Airport)
30. Letchworth Garden City

Royal William Yard

From the Sunday Telegraph 5 January 2014 by Simon Thurley

'The Building of England' is by Simon Thurley (HarperCollins £35)