The bathrooms clearly Had Issues that needed to be addressed, so what was there has been removed and today we went and picked out New Things to replace the old. And so it seems fitting to fill y’all in on the histoire up to the point of the open plan bedroom/bathroom layout we currently have in place. You can see the “before” in the intro-to-the-house post here: https://www.jude.hanlon.co.uk/blog/?p=4313
Phase 1 was panelling removal, which revealed that indeed some of the walls were quite rotten.
Next was bath removal, which revealed that the underfloor appears to have been made out of 1970s bean bags, and also that “someone” has been “at it”.
Now it starts to get more dramatic – all other hardware removed including the shower & stud wall in both the main bathroom and enquite, making the bathroom and ensuite “as one”.
Next visit we found that we had gone fully “open plan” into bedroom 4. We’re planning to reinstate this wall, but this move has handily taken away the problem of how to fix the hole/cardboard box arrangement that was here, and made it look like the wall was vomiting into the pink room… It also saves us from having to paint over the pink!
We’re a ways further on now, but I haven’t uploaded the photos yet, so the rest will wait until another post.
We (got someone in to) found the well cover and replaced the old pump with a new pump. Once we have electricity we can have running water again.
A lot of topsoil and other junk had been dumped around the back of the garage, which Owen has dug out with his digger. Lily spent some time clearing the foreign objects out of here, and said she was half expecting to find a body back here. So far so good.
The garage is a decent size, unfortunately both doors out of action so we had to break them to get in. Some evidence of the offputting graffitti someone added to put buyers off… that we didn’t see until after we’d bought the place.
The roof space of the garage was a treasure trove of electric fans, lamps, plastic, and other indoor gardening items – all of which has now gone to live on a skip farm in the country.
Here’s a brief guide to inside the house as it looked when we acquired it…..
Opinions on the kitchen range between “well, this will all have to go, won’t it” to “it was clearly a luxury at some point”. It’s pretty sturdy, and the ratio of wood to storage space is quite high. We’re inclined to replace it before too long, but we’ve pencilled this in as a phase 2/3 job – we’re mainly going to live with it for now, but with some tweaks. I like the floor. We checked the fridge/freezer for bodies – no evidence of any currently.
On the other side of the kitchen is a garden room which has spectacular views down Carlingford lough. The insanely elaborate and it turns out massively heavy kitchen island is theoretically moveable. It has since been moved… That’s a brief glimpse of the living room through the door.
I was looking for a picture of the utility room, but it turns out we don’t have one, and now it’s full of doors so we’ll all just have to make do with “after” pictures.
Instead, here’s another view of the kitchen which shows the massive pantry cupboard and the area we’re planning to put the kitchen table in. More scenic views at mealtimes, and the patch of garden you can see to the right is where we’re planning to grow vegetables.
Here’s the living room. We like the fireplace and stove, the deep red not so much. A previous occupant was presumably thinking about putting down shiny floor tiles in here, hence the samples laid out on the floor. We’re not going to be doing that.
The hole in the ceiling was for a vent installed by the previous occupants, which it turns out they routed through the chimney – when O&J (contractors) took the coving down, a whole load of rubble fell through the ceiling. Fortunately it was just rubble, not the rest of the chimney and the experts have concluded it can be patched and doesn’t have to be rebuilt.
There’s a generously proportioned hallway – the vestibule/front door is off to the left here, doorway at the right is the living room, next one’s the study, next one will be a bedroom and the corridor leads on to the master bedroom at the end of the house. The floor, although it looks like it used to be good quality, was rotten in places so we decided it had to come up. That has been a right old job, as it turns out it was very deep wood (nigh on an inch or so) and was VERY well stuck down.
Two for one here, this will be a study/bedroom and a bedroom, currently earmarked as a workspace and Lily’s room. Much evidence of previous use here, see the vent holes and glue from sticking insulation to the ceiling…
Another bedroom, earmarked as Joel’s room/workspace. It’s been difficult to capture the true glory of this colour on film. In some lights it’s fuschia pink, in others it’s quite purple. A lot of it has gone. It’s a shame to lose the “mouth being sick out of the wall” art installation, but needs must – that hole goes right through to the bathroom and privacy ranks above art in this instance.
And speaking of, here’s the bathroom as it was. The cardboard box attached to the wall above head height covers the hole through to the bedroom. Honestly, the mind boggles.
The bidet is going because even though it’s a lovely spacious bathroom, who on earth has a bidet these days. The panelling by the toilet is rotten – we think due to leakage from the ensuite shower on the other side of the wall.
This is the master bedroom, which has a dressing room/space off to the left, then an ensuite, and views out towards Newry, although a lot of that view is obscured by trees. This room is relatively unscathed but fairly alarmingly there was a bolt on the outside of the door.
And finally…
Here’s the ensuite. The sanitaryware actually seems reasonably new – we’re going to try to re-use it if possible.
It’s quite weird going through these and referring to “what we’re going to do” as a lot of it has actually been done already, because I’m not up to date on progress. Watch this space, so – more pictures to come!
The house we bought had a lovely, spacious deck with amazing views (so, somewhat exposed) however, it looked like Rumpelstilskin had been having a party on it, as several of the boards had been smashed through. Also, trusty contractors Owen & Jerry have work to do repairing a hole in the roof, so lovely spacious deck had to go…
We at least know now that if there was a nest of unwelcome creatures under the deck, they have had to move elsewhere at a moment’s notice. Eventually this will be replaced, but in the short term, we can enjoy walking around this bit of the house without worrying that we’re going to disappear… (we’ve picked up the water bowl since I took this picture!)
…And on a smaller scale, I did a bit of a thing this weekend on the box hedge, which was thratening to obscure the view…
And an after-I-cut-things-but-before-I-tidied-up picture from while we were taking a short rest.
I’ll neaten it up when electricity is easier, and I can get the hedge trimmers onto it.
Late last year, November 2025, we …somewhat unexpectedly acquired a house. I say unexpectedly because it was a repossessed house which was up for online auction. It was ideally situated, slightly up the hill at the lough head, amazing views, reasonably near to Omeath, didn’t look like it had *too* much that needed doing to it (I know, famous last words), and the starting price was “attractive”.
We went along to the viewings and, not going to lie, I was disheartened by the number of other people there, some of whom looked “monied” and who had brought builders along – well-prepared types.
We decided to give it a whirl, and with reckless optimism and an upper limit in our hearts we participated and… we ended up as the highest bidders.
And so we are the proud owners of a 3/4-bedroom bungalow in Cornamucklagh, Omeath. Work is ongoing to bring it back to liveable – more on that presently – and we hope to be living there …sometime in 2026.
I’ve seen the film starring Steve Coogan (surprisingly good in a straight role) and Judi Dench (majestic, as always) and one of my kids bought me the book for Christmas. I was hoping the book gave some deeper insights or at least more colour to the story than the film (there’s only so much you can include in 90-ish minutes, so that’s not meant to criticise the film at all) and it didn’t disappoint.
Both the film and the book are summarised in the blurb “the poignant story of a mother and the son she had to give away” and while technically true, the book and the film are actually very different. Philomena fell pregnant in Ireland at a time where unmarried motherhood was not a viable state, so her family sent her to the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey for her confinement and to “look after” her and her child. The details of how the church dealt with the women and children in this situation is well documented, and isn’t flinched-from in this book. The first part of the book covers the three years that Philomena and her son spend at the abbey.
The book then follows Anthony as he is adopted by an American couple, and renamed Michael, and a pretty detailed biography of his life in the USA follows. It’s engaging, and must be very comforting for Philomena to read as she is able to learn more detail of her son’s life, its highs and lows, than she could possibly have hoped to learn. I enjoyed reading this story, but honestly, I was expecting more about Philomena’s search: more of the content of the film. As the bit of book that remained shrank further and further I found myself thinking “but what about Philomena?” She was, after all, the main subject of the feature film, and the book is named after her… but in the book, this aspect of the search is confined to a short portion at the end of the book.
That Philomena’s search isn’t covered in detail (there isn’t much detail to cover, quite honestly) doesn’t detract from the book, other than serving as a bit of a distraction – this book is engaging and an entertaining read. It’s just a surprisingly different focus than the film.
There has been furore recently about the government’s report into institutional racism in the UK, and how terribly white-wash-y and inaccurate it is. To read the press, you would imagine that this is a report that’s been written by a bunch of white men in suits whose only qualification was that they had met a black person once, and that the report utterly denies that anyone in the UK is in any way racist.
I thought it was worth going to the source, and reading the report itself, to form my own opinion. This morning I read the chairman’s statement and introduction, plus one of the recommendations (number 8) before I had an overwhelming urge to go and do something else (have breakfast, make a brew, then write this, it turns out).
An aside: this is one of the reasons I fear I may not be cut out for a life in politics – my stickability for ploughing through documents like this is not great. Give me the executive summary every time…
I think it’s possible that the report has been a victim of the spin our dear government has attempted to weave around it on its publication. For a kick-off I was surprised that the report’s authors were mostly BAME, with one exception. Steve tells me these are, however, people who are not learned experts in the field of race relations (apart from, presumably, living the life of a BAME individual in the UK for every day they have lived here)(that sounds like a counter-argument now that I write it: I don’t meant to imply that this makes them experts per se, just more experienced than a non-BAME person).
Reading through the sections I did, I didn’t encounter any obviously denying or upsetting statements. It felt like nuance included in the report was lost in translation in places, and in others, the language of the report was maybe unhelpful in the context of current discussions around race. For example “we are acutely aware that the door may be only half open to some, including the White working class” in a paragraph about how racism may not be the only factor disadvantaging certain people would have been far less objectionable without the word “White”.
The report reserves the right to use the phrases institutional and systemic racism only in places where such can be demonstrated as opposed to racism/bias being shown in a range of microaggressions and minor disadvantages which pile up to constitute barriers to BAME colleagues. Is this a denial of the existence of institutional racism? I may have missed it, but I’m not aware of concrete definition of such, and it feels like fostering an atmosphere where microaggressions and minor barriers are OK could be interpreted as at least semi-institutional acceptance. Institutions are made up of people, after all, and if those people are a bit racist, then so is the institution.
Recommendation Eight, which wants to stop unconscious bias training and support more conscious attempts to foster talent from a wide range of backgrounds, feels misguided in its optimism to me. It’s my belief that we are still at the stage that the majority of white people are still blissfully unaware of the problems encountered by non-white people, and could do with having it pointed out to them. If unconscious bias training disappears, then I think a valuable foot-in-the-door conversation-starter is being removed. Having just read “Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge (would recomend, review coming in another blog post near you soon(ish)) I’m keen to engage with a non-defensive attitude and find out how I might be unwittingly perpetuating the effects of my white privilege. If unconscious bias training helps to kick-start that conversation, then bring it on, I say.
All this is to say, I don’t think the bits of the report I’ve read warrant quite the horrified reaction it’s had so far (although, caveat: I haven’t read it all and I’m not a person of colour, and I have enormous respect for Doreen Lawrence and others, who have slated it) – I get the impression there is more nuance and helpful recommendations than the press reaction would suggest. I really hate to attribute value to anything issued by our current government, but I want to believe that this could be further manipulated into having a positive effect on UK society. When I’ve had some recovery time (maybe after I’ve done the ironing) I’ll dive back in and read some more…
Last month I was *finally* able to give blood again – I had to have a brief hiatus because I went to Kenya (after which your blood is considered “malarial” for 6 months), then I was booked to give in July last year, which was cancelled at the last minute Because COVID and quite honestly finding a session that is reasonably near and at a convenient time is surprisingly tricky. For some reason, the centres I go to seem to switch when they operate – it feels like for ever since they have been at the Civic Hall in Ormskirk, for example, where I can walk to and where last time I bumped into my mate Gareth.
This time I went to Formby Hall Golf & Country Club, 20 minutes drive away, at the not-super-convenient time of 13:45 on a Wednesday. Honestly, the hands-free, excessive personal space experience of giving blood during a pandemic very much worked for me, and as always it was something of an effort to stay awake while reclining, with only the rythmic clenching of my hand to keep me conscious.
One brief moment of excitement came when the nurse “sorting me out” shared that “the people from PR9 are here” in a stage whisper. This confused me, until she clarified that PR9 is where the South African Variant is, and they aren’t meant to leave their homes. At this point I was on a recliner with a needle in my arm, so there wasn’t much I could do other than shrug and carry on not touching anything.
This was a month or so ago and I don’t appear to have caught anything, so bullet dodged, eh.
Today I got a link through saying that my blood has been given to a person in need in Preston, with a link to a map of its journey.
Amazing what technology can do these days, eh?! I’ve got 17 donation credits so far, I’m aiming for at least 25 so have got my next one booked in for as soon as I’m allowed, which is mid-to-late June.
Just for kicks, here’s a view of the veggie patches from “the other side”.
Today I focussed my clearing up energies behind the garage, working my way through this (below) in the hopes of having a clear space by the end of the session…
After a couple of hours with the twig-muncher and a wheelbarrow to take leaf mould to the compost heap, I’ve got as far as this:
…which I like to think is further than it looks. Next week I plan to clear off the wall and try to (re) build it a bit higher, which will separate out some of the brown rotten wood and leaf matter and hopefully make things much clearer!
