The Winds of Bardsley Hall

It's a very solid, well built old house. Turn of the century semi. there's a pleasing (and undoubtedly apocryphal) idea that as Lutyens lived around here for a while it's possible he designed houses for the Astor's estate. (Actually I think it was the Palmer's estate then)
Anyway when we bought it, it was a bit of a bargain and came with two coal fires, a copper and a pump to pump water from the copper upstairs to the bath. Also a huge attic and a walk in larder.
Oh and to be truthful, there was an ascot heater in the kitchen and a slightly larger one in the bath room which if coaxed, would produce about a gallon of hot water. If you really wanted a bath, you had to do several ascots full. Naturally, each load had cooled by the time you got your next load so you had to leap in as soon as the last lot went in to feel the last gallon of heat dissipating into the tepid remainder!
Once, before we got the central heating and water system in, we boiled the copper up and washed the nappies in it. This was great fun and involved clouds of smoke (because the copper's flue was blocked) and masses of steam. A good deal of ash and general disorder as the copper's fireplace was just a hole, at floor level, under the basic structure. the childen couldn't really understand what a historic thing we were doing but they thought it was all quite exciting.
Anyway we 'modernised' the house quite succesfully and over the years added stuff that makes it quite comfortable. (Particularly the wonderful, enormous power shower which is of course a bad thing in ecological terms but a truly heavenly thing in a ny other way you care to look at it).
But it is at heart an old house. This means it's airy in Summer. Which is to say there are draughts. Good old fashioned ones too. Like if you don't light the fire in the dining room, and you choose to sit there blogging, for hours in the middle of the night, you leave without any feeling from the knees down. If there is any wind outside, it comes down the chimney. (and we're half way up a hill so there is usually wind). The pretty, arched door we put in at the back of the house suffers from a bit of rejection by the rest of the house so there are gaps round it's edges and down its centre. At the moment we have to keep it locked otherwise it opens itself and lets the dog out. We have the fridge in the larder so we have to keep the larder window open to stop the fridge from having to work too hard. It's very important to keep the larder door shut through the winter!
When we converted the attic, we put lots of insulation in the roof assuming that this would keep the new rooms warm and cosy. But there is a mysterious draught that comes from somewhere and gets inside the insulation layer. As a result, when the wind is blowing a certain way, all the cunning little eave cupboards' doors fly open and the carpets upstairs turn to ice. As you come up the stairs, you can feel a waterfall of cold air tumbling down from somewhere into the rest of the house. This is not heat efficient or sensible but exhaustive hours spent on my knees, tracing the draughts with wet fingers and feathers, lead to sealed, carpeted, insulated corners where nothing could get in! Surely?
So we are not alone in this house. The glorious outdoors comes in on a regular basis to freshen us up and remind us that we live in the country. And the house remembers its age and keeps us from getting stuffy. and the ceilings are slightly curved and the floors slope gently and the walls lean a trifle. (This means the work surfaces on one side of the kitchen are nearly high enough for Barney to work comfortably and the other side is nearly low enough for me).
I love it here.

And right now I am a very happy bunny. I just went out with the dog and I thought, take the camera, the sun's shining, I could always practice moving dog pictures :)

And the buzzards were there.