I forgot to add the best photos from Castell Coch

 This hexagonal room has struck me more than another room anywhere. It has been damaged and restored in places, but no matter, it is glorious.  If it has any faults, it is the limited view of the outside world. It is in the big tower.  I will let the photos speak for themselves. The panelling below these painted walls finishes at about six foot up.

 All of them are worth clicking on to enlarge, but this one of the ceiling in particular.

Don't change the bathroom just before Christmas....

I really must blog more often. Life gets in the way. I had a plan to swap out my bath tub and replace it with a shower of the same dimensions. Now troubling the rest of the bathroom or the floor tiles. Or so I thought. And whilst we were at it, we would replace both radiators in the bathrooms with chrome heated towel rails. Sounds simple doesn't it.  It appears the current tiles were not laid properly and three came up when the radiator was removed. Yes they could have been stuck down but knowing how much wetter the floor will get with a shower rather than a bath we decided to replace the floor.  Well that meant, I didn't have to have a long narrow shower so a new shower enclosure had to be chosen and bought immediately as the plumber was here.  And of course the new square shower means where the wall is wrecked from removing the tiles round the bath and will have to be replastered.  Having so much done, meant it would be a shame not to replace the sink and the loo at the same time..... and so it goes on. So why is there a quilt in the photo? This is one of my plumbers dust sheets..... It was given to him by a previous customer and already had paint etc on it. Shame on him!

I meant to take a 'before' shot but forgot.  This is fairly much how it was but the bath is full or tiles, radiators etc.

 The tiles took a lot of arranging to get an even (ish) distribution of colour and then they all had to be labelled to be laid down. I took this photo as you can often see details in a photo that are not immediately obvious. That pink tile had to be moved..... and it was.

This was half an hour ago.

Fliss came up and decorated the tree for us. Next year the tree will be downsized....

My new toy and other irons.

 It is a Sealing Iron. I think it is designed for tradesmen to add the edging strips on laminate worktops and the like. Unlike other irons for prepping applique this gets hot enough to do the job properly. And it has a little weight behind it to assist. The pointy end of the iron has a slight curve upwards as well and this helps too. The only improvment I would like to see is a heat proof cord like on my old iron below. Clicking on the photo above should take you to the Amazon UK page for it.

The stand is very stable which is a must.

And whilst I am on the subject of irons, this Rowenta dry iron is my favourite for patchwork and quilting. This is my seccond one. The first got dropped one time too many, but it lasted over 15 years before that happened. I cannot find replacements for it easily anymore but I did find one on Ebay which was being sold as a vintage theatre prop in it's original box. Keep your eyes open. It gets nice and hot, is heavy enough to do most of the pressing for you, but not so heavy your arm ends up hurting,

 

And this one was a mistake on my part. This is the first model of the little Clover iron. This one did get hot enough but because it is so light and is straight you have to use quite a lot of strength to make it work. And it kept falling off it's little stand and/or the stand would tip over so I ended up having a porcelain mug on it's side and would slip it into that whilst hot. I gave up using it years ago and went back to using the Rowenta dry iron.

To give you an idea of scale.

This is my big steam beast. I use it for yardage and for domestic ironing. The steam has real power. Mine has 5.5 bars of pressure but the newer one has 6 bars. This is a serious investment so if any of your friends nearby has one you can try out, then do. It irons several layers of fabric in one pass. When I tell you it even irons jeans flat from one side, that gives you a glimpse of how good the are. Before I had an ironing board with a large standing area at the end, I had to have it on the window sill with the ironing board end on to it. I now use the water from my condensing tumble dryer and this one has lasted longer than the previous one. And my viscose t-shirts get a vertical steam from it. Clicking on the photo should take you to the Amazon UK page for it.
PS Don't use it with a reflective surface on your ironing board, you want the steam to pass through the fabric.