The Bathroom

Hi,

Well,as the title says,the bathroom on Chyandour is almost finished.John has been away on holiday and Mick has been very busy,with the very able assistance of his number two son,and fitted all the main components.Me and Lisa,unfortunately,haven’t seen the result of their endeavours,so I’ve pinched some photo’s from Kingfishers Build Blog.Anyone wanting to see all the photographs is more than welcome to visit their website by clicking the link above.

Since our last blog we have been doing a bit more of the tourist thing.This time around the coast of Kent and East Sussex.Lisa found a holiday park doing four night breaks for a very good price,so,off we went to Kent to see the delights there.To break up the journey from Ferndown we decided to stop off at the town of Battle,in East Sussex,a great little town which was the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066.It was also famous for the quality of its gunpowder.Don’t know how true it is,but I’ve been told it was the source of the gunpowder that Guy Fawkes was using in his failed attempt on King James 1st in 1605

      

Battle Abbey on the left and the beach just a couple of miles up the coast from Dymchurch on the right.I think the season hasn’t started yet ‘cos it was largely deserted even though the weather was excellent.

Our base for the four nights was near Dymchurch and this proved to be an ideal starting point for our travels.The first attraction we visited was the Romney,Hythe & Dymchurch railway and,after getting a couple of Rover tickets,we enjoyed a great day out.The RH&DR was opened in July 1927 and the trains that were first used then are still running today.The one on the left below is Northern Chief seen here leaving Dymchurch for Hythe and the one on the right is Hercules seen here at Dungeness.Hercules pulled the first train on the opening day in 1927.Both engines were built by Davey Paxman of Colchester.

   

There is a canal in this part of the country but sadly it isn’t connected to the main network and I don’t think it would be navigable to narrowboats anyway,being only a metre and a half in places when it was built. It is called the Royal Military Canal,it was built in 1809 by navvies with picks,shovels and wheelbarrows,as a defensive barrier to halt any invading French.Did you know that the word Navvy is short for Navigator?that was the name of the labourers who built the canals throughout the U.K.and then the railways and roads.The canal is 28 miles long but we only walked a bit of it.The next couple of days we spent visiting Canterbury,Folkestone and Rye.I’m not going to bore you with any more photo’s of our travels.Let’s just say that we had a great time and all the places we went to were well worth the visit.

Now we will get back to Chyandour and her progress report.Mick and his son have been working hard,and below are some of the photographs of their achievements to date.

                       

The one to the left is what you would see through the door into the bathroom.There is the loo on the bottom left of the picture,this is a cassette toilet,which every few days we have to empty at one of the many sites available on the canals.We have spare cassettes and anyone who has used a Motor Home will be familiar with them.No flush and forget here.There is the vanity unit and sink beyond the loo.Nothing fancy,it has to be functional and easy to maintain,they are our only requirements.The picture on the right as the shower,this also makes best use of the space available and is a standard size.

            

There you can see the loo properly,and yes the seat does rotate,you can sit at an angle to make the best use of the space.The photo’ on the right is one of the window trims,there are five of these and four round ones for the portholes.They are to be the finishing touches to the windows on the inside of Chyandour.

OK that’s all for this blog,we have one more week down here in Dorset then we move up to the Midlands to be closer to Chyandour and the action,can’t wait.Hopefully there will be another update next week so bye for now.