Tag: flood 2026
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Chicory Keys
There's a special spot in my wallet where my "front door key" lives, but - despite the practical reasons to do so - I've resisted adding the Chicory House key in that spot. Instead, I've found myself keeping it in the "secondary key" spot, as a tiny reminder that the current state of affairs is a temporary one.
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Unpacked Kitchen
Today's mission in what we're calling the Chicory House - our home while our actual house gets repaired - was to unpack the kitchen. I think it's looking pretty good!
(The cardboard box you can see contains pans we brought with us that turn out to be incompatible with the induction hobs at the Chicory House, boo!)
Next weekend's mission will be to set myself up a workspace that isn't the conservatory dining table. ๐ฌ -
The dog is concerned. Why, despite all her warnings, am I still letting these men take all of our (surviving) furniture?
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A French Bulldog sits on a lawn outside a house where a removals company is loading furniture into a van.
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F-Day plus 55
It's fifty-five days since my house flooded. Since then, I've lived in hotels, with friends, on volunteering retreats and - mostly - in a series of one- or two-week AirBnB-style short-term lets. It's been wild. It's also been wildly disruptive. To our work. To our kids. To our general stability.
Today, we make a change. Today โฆ -
It's my final day in the cute garden office of the AirBnB we're living in, this week, and every time I step through the door I catch a glimpse of our small, sandy-coloured dog squatting in the garden.
Except the dog isn't even here. My brain keeps getting tricked... by this statue of a pig:
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I've lived in a LOT of different places these last few months while we've been arranging a place to live for the next six months or so of our house repairs. Each new AirBnB has had its pros and cons (and each hasn't felt like "home").
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Two laptops on a glass desk in an attractive garden office/summer house, bathed in bright afternoon sunshine.
But man, I really like the "garden office" at our current one. So nice to work in the sun!
(I don't like the slow WiFi as much, but yeah... pros and cons!)
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The final of the short term lets we're staying in (before we switch to a medium-term one!) while our flooded house is repaired is also perhaps the prettiest. Our village this week is peak-Cotswolds, for sure!
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Children play in a village green flanked by grey stone cottages and a pub.
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Found GC1ZEKG Church Micro 2809 - Bledington
QEF for the geohound and I as we came out for a walk from the house we're borrowing this week - the latest of many AirBnB-like week-long lets we've had to decamp to after our house was rendered uninhabitable by a flash flood around fifty days ago. Hopefully the last, though, as the insurance company may at last have found us sonewhere to live longer-term while our house is repaired!
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Food divided by Distance
In the kind of dream that only happens when I'm ill, I invented an app that would track both your location and your food consumption, and report to social media your journey progress as a proportion of your remaining meal.
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F-Day plus 38
It's 38 days since our house was damaged in a flash flood, and today's the first of our 'BER' assessment. BER stands for Beyond Economical Repair. It basically means that anything on the list is something that the insurance company intend to 'write off': to declare irreparable or not-worth repairing and scrap, replacing it with โฆ
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Found GC79ZK3 Wootton Word Wall
This morning, the younger geokid and I came out for a walk with the geopup. After a little difficulty getting a GPSr fix we eventuality found a good-looking host, and after a few laps we had the well-camouflaged container in our hands. A good sized, well maintained container and an interesting puzzle, even if the way we solved it might be considered by some to have been cheating!
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It's F-Day plus 35, and I'm spending a few hours working in the habitable part of our flood-damaged house while I'm "between" two AirBnBs.
The dog, who doesn't normally get to come upstairs, is sitting with me on the landing. Except she also wants to keep an eye on what's happening downstairs.
The result? Her back legs are sitting and her front legs are standing as she peers blepfully down the stairs.
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A champagne-coloured French Bulldog wearing a teal harness is on the top step of a cream-carpeted staircase. Her hind legs are folded so her bottom sits on the top step, but her forelegs are extended so she's standing on the one below. Her tongue is out in a full blep.
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A Hundred Inconveniences
It's F-Day plus 31, and our flood-disrupted lives have become defined by the hundred or so daily inconveniences that are imposed by our accidentally-nomadic lifestyle. Here's hoping we can sort-out some more stable accommodation sometime soon!
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Found GC4MJY0 RโnโR #9 โ Thumper
This checkin to GC4MJY0 RโnโR #9 โ Thumper reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. The younger geokid and I had a plan, this morning, to drive out from our temporary (post-flood) accommodation in New Yatt, park at St. Peter's in Wilcote, and then walk the dog around the area between โฆ
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Cold Giraffe
My mum painted a cold giraffe onto a postcard and sent it to me.