Dr Lock delivers first lecture

So, the first lecture of Adam's course in Advanced Nutritional Physiology took place this morning.

It went very well by all accounts, despite the small matter of no electricity to start off with thanks to bloomin' weekend builders (we're blighted by them at the mo) and the fact that Adam had to lure his 20 students in for an extra-early start with promises of coffee and donuts! Because we'll be back in the UK next week he had to roll two lectures into one so he kicked the course off with a 2-hour double whammy an hour earlier than normal.

Let's hope the students don't expect coffee and donuts every week...

Sunday roast disaster averted

Tonight's roast dinner was in serious jeopardy when Jayne in her wisdom managed to lock the oven door open...

Long story short(ish), this morning she'd set the oven to 'self-clean' in an attempt to avoid the usual smoking that happens when the oven's whacked up high for the roast teddies... only problem was she went and opened the door just as it was locking (to check there was nothing in there that wouldn't survive the cleaning cycle) and then it was too late - door locked open, the lock light flashing in a most offensive tone of voice and nothing at all happening in the oven whatever knobs were twiddled. Oops!

The helpline was of course useless - nobody there - they were all probably off having their own roast dinners. >:[ Clearly emergency oven situations should be planned well in advance so as not to happen on a Sunday.

So, Google to the rescue... a few promising sounding sites were no help at all, and then came "The Appliance Guru", who seemed to offer lots of pointers to people whose ovens were locked shut (the norm I guess) but nowt that was any use to us with our somewhat ancient and decrepid old oven... the solutions talked of 'keeping buttons pressed in for 30 seconds'... what **$$##@@ buttons Jayne screamed at the computer?? We only have knobs which fall off if you do anything other than turn them slowly with due care and attention.


So, armed with a trusty wire coat hanger, Jayne had a good old go at the troublesome door lock which was sticking out like it was blowing a raspberry. Sadly it was to no effect other than to inspire lots of cursing under the breath and sending lots of manky bits of burnt-on goodness knows what flying across the kitchen. Eeeew!

Unplugging and plugging back in is usually a good bet for most electrical problems (well, it is on planet pink anyway) but did nothing either. Grrrr.




Finally, after more trawling on the internet, Jayne found http://www.appliance411.com/com/ and deduced it was a solenoid locking mechanism and that there should be a little switch on the inside of the oven that detects if the door is open or shut.




Breaking into an excited trot Jayne dashed back to the kitchen, found the very switch, pressed it and... whirring as the latch moved to the right... hang on, the door still won't close... pressed it again and whirring as the latch moved to the left... BINGO! The lock light went off and the door closed and all was well once more. :))


Disaster averted and oven cleaning now underway... Fingers crossed for a yummy roast later on.

Great feedback on Certificates of Competence

Last year Jayne was up to her eyeballs developing material for a new qualification scheme for the British pig industry, and now it's great to see the scheme rolling out and being so well received.

The aim was to 1) develop a skills and qualifications structure that is relevant to industry needs and accessible at all levels and flexible in structure, 2) to provide and promote an attractive environment for a progressive career in the pig industry and 3) to promote skills development as being central to business improvement.

Here's a short piece on it, which came through in this week's BPEX Weekly newsletter:

There are now 40 registered with Agskills covering the stage 1 basic stockmanship and stage 2 pig husbandry. There has been a 100% success rate in the assessments of employees at Skimble Crown, Ermine Farms, Richard Lister and JSR while those for other members are in the diary and are progressing well.

For members with no one registered yet, comments passed include:

"not as bad as I thought"

"the practical assessment was excellent, I really knew my stuff"

"the multi choice question was straight forward - I passed, oh that is brilliant, the first qualification I have ever got" (this guy was almost in tears)

The author of this snippet (I assume Gerry Brent of Agskills and PCS, tho I may be wrong) went on to say:

To give an idea of my satisfaction and enjoyment, I was assessing two very quiet guys who were very worried about the assessment but when we got going and during their assessments they showed their true capabilities and were bounding about because they readily knew all the answers. It was an absolute pleasure to report back to the members their success. Feedback from their managers has been one of praise for getting them to do the certificates of competence and showing that "they do know their stuff".

A pretty good start to the programme, and most satisfying to know that what we set out to achieve looks to be coming to fruition. Fingers crossed it does some good.

The Lockmeister goes from strength to strength

Adam's hard work is paying off left, right and centre at the moment, and deservedly so - and that's not just the proud wife talkin'!









A couple of weeks ago Adam learnt that he'd been awarded a $40k research grant from the Vermont Dairy Promotion Council and the New England Dairy Promotion Board to expand his programme of milk fat and human health research.

Good going Dr Lock!








And just today we got word that Adam's been selected as UVM's Searle Scholars applicant. This nationwide program makes grants to selected universities and research centres to support the independent research of exceptional young faculty in the biomedical sciences and chemistry. Each university puts forward it's best candidate, selected from a number of nominees from within the relevant schools and departments.

Here's the note from Tom (Adam's boss):
Dear Adam,
I'm delighted to pass on the attached news - that you've been selected as UVM's Searle scholarship applicant. Lets meet to discuss any details of the application and any assistance you may need. Please note the deadline of September 28.
Congrats and good luck!
Tom

And this from the Dean of the College:
Adam and Tom - This is wonderful news. My understanding from Ruth Farrell is that Adam was selected from a pool of very competitive nominees. Tom - thanks for making the nomination and Adam -Congratulations! Best, Rachel

So Adam, I guess this confirms what we always thought - that you're quite exceptional... and still young too (those grey hairs are just a smoke screen!)... Yeeaaay!

Adam's initial thoughts on the matter:

Good news...I think.
Something else I need to get done anyway.










... I just hope he doesn't burn himself out (that's the concerned wife talking now).

Bravo Dr Lock! And good luck with the Searle Scholars grant.

The house build - 18 August

Some more pics taken yesterday. Most things are just about there now :) Well, except for the small factor of continued contractor screw ups... wrong carpet laid in the office this week. Idiots.

Mail boxes are up outside the house - no chance of Safi being put on the post office's dangerous dog list like she was in SB!

Outside the grass and shrubs are doing better since we reminded HDI that watering them would help a bit!



Looks the same as last time only the wood floor is finished and you can just about see the carpet in the office...


... OK, so this is "Outback" instead of the "Nectar" that we ordered... Humph. Someone had better change that before we're back from UK.


Kitchen is virtually complete now, and looking good :) Just need the missing drawer front to be put on and some last bits of trim around the dishwasher.

Wood floor just needs the beading added around the base boards, and a damn good polish!

You can see all the 'touch-up' spots on the ceiling... the whole house looks like it has chicken pox at the moment!

Stairs are all carpeted too, in the right colour thank goodness, tho you can't see it 'cos of the protective cover (at least HDI thought of that all by themselves... aw, a gold star for some thoughtfulness for once)

Master bedroom and the rest of upstairs all carpeted - for how long I dunno tho... the edges in our room look all raggedy in patches so it may in fact be yet another HDI screw up to be fixed before we close.

All in all things are very close to being done, but we're glad the closing date was extended - not a chance of all those last bits being ready to for Aug 24... fingers crossed for Sept 14th.

So, it's not cricket...

... but croquet's pretty British isn't it?? We received this piccy recently, which has prompted this little posting.

The obligatory posed croquet shot, taken by Karin.

L to R: Jayne, Adam, Anna, Tom, Nick, Peter (the winner!)

A while back now we had dinner with our South African friends at their home 30 mins North of here. Turns out the Karnezos family are pretty devilish when it comes to croquet, as is Adam. Not surprisingly Jayne found the pre-dinner game a challenge... hand-eye coordination was never a strength! A post-dinner game of Taboo made up for it a bit tho, and a very good time was had by all.

Mouse v Locks, 3-1

During the mammoth clean up when we first moved into The Brown House almost a year ago Jayne found some evidence of unwanted visitors (aka mouse poo). No more signs of them darn vermin were to be seen. That is, until this weekend...

We have assumed "Show no mercy" as our motto in the fight against those stinky pooey mice (especially when they get into the chocolate stash... what a mistake-a to make-a).

Results so far: three traps cleared of cheese and peanut butter with no trapped mouse (3 well earned points to the mouse/mice), one trap containing a rather large mouse (1 point to us... hopefully it was the lone culprit).

No more signature trademarks have appeared so far...

You stinky mouses are gonna need that helmet...

The house build - Aug 11

After a trying week of reshuffling arrangements to extend the closing date at almost the last minute (I think we knew weeks before the builders admitted that they weren't gonna be ready in time... humph), we were relieved to finally get things sorted, and without getting stung for extra lender fees (HDI are picking those up and rightly so, idiots!) or having to mess too badly with our UK visit.

Checking in on our house this weekend we were glad to see that many of our concerns were at last being addressed, things getting fixed up and the final installations well under way... a frustrating number of things still on and still being added to the *hitlist tho.

Similar pic to last week, except you can see the oak floor in the living room is mostly done now :) Good progress considering we had them rip it all up a few days ago after they got over halfway done laying it the wrong way round...

Looking good... just don't look too closely at the edges like we did - the beading had better cover up those little gaps properly or there's gonna be trouble!

Cabinet hardware installed (even though we're still not quite happy with the finish on the cabinets...), and the granite tiles have now been laid to make the hearth.

Kitchen heading towards completion - countertops all in, appliances are at least there if not quite installed. Just the finer trim details etc to be finished up really.

Ahaa! The sink. That hole on the right must be for Jayne's chain...

Can't wait to get those Margaritas and Mojitos lined up on that bar...

Master bath mirror and cabinet hardware fitted - might swap the brushed nickel finish for shinier chrome ones... it isn't looking quite right yet...

Washer and dryer going into the upstairs laundery closet... and no, the Americans aren't much into the front loading washers yet - well, they are starting to, but only if you have LOTS of $$s to spend on 'em! Ridiculous.

Funny how HDI have not yet replaced the guest bath cabinets with the ones we actually ordered, but in their wisdom have gone ahead and caulked the sink top, fitted the mirror etc, AND put our hardware on 'em... like we said, idiots!

Adam adds it to this weeks *hitlist of issues... only 21 this time >:[

Closing on house delayed!

We were all set to close on August 24th but because of those bloomin' builders we'll now be closing and moving on September 14th... we hope!

What else happened at the w/e?

Well, Adam was in Minnesota speaking at a conference, but it wasn't all work for him. The Elanco reps took a group of them out to a ball game afterwards to show them all a good time. Here are a couple of pics he snapped with his phone...




Jayne, in the meantime, was back at Shelburne Farms for the grand finale of the Vermont Mozart Festival. Betsy, another friend of ours and also UVM faculty, does volunteer work with Vermont Public Radio so had managed to get hold of some freebie tickets (hurrah!). Her kind invite was not refused and a most pleasant evening was had with a bunch of folk including Tom and Holli (Adam's boss and his wife).

The house build - Aug 5

So here we are in the last couple of weeks before:

* Adam starts lecturing his new course, which he's frantically still putting together whilst keeping all his other balls (!) in the air :/
* we're scheduled to close on the house and move
* we head back to UK for a fleeting and crazy pinball-like visit

...and we're gettin' STRESSED!


The bloomin' builders seem to be creating more problems than they're fixing and it's making us so mad. Grrr.

We just have to trust that those small things like HDI fitting the wrong bathroom cabinets and the wrong shower, and putting a dent in the wall oven and installing a chipped sink unit blah blah blah will all be fixed up to our satisfaction in good time. Pleeeeeease let it be so! We're contractually bound to close within 5 days of Aug 24, but we don't want to close if we're not satisfied with everything, but we can't do it when we're not even in the country and...

Deep breath... count to ten... and continue...


All in all the place is looking great tho, as we hope you'll agree looking at the latest pics.

Front door (which still needs repainting!) through into hallway, office on the left, living room straight ahead

Downstairs loo and sink are actually installed now (woohoo!) - Adam will be most relieved. You can also see the lighting is starting to go in too :)

This is our bar top, currently languishing covered in dust in the garage - please don't let it get scratched or broken...!

Lights are on (but nobody's home...) Note the window pane that needs replacing in the garage door... humph.

Hallway through into the mud room to the kitchen. Like the diagonal tile? One of our neighbours has already copied it (tut) - we'll have to change our name to the Jones's!

Aaah, the kitchen :) Knobs and pulls yet to go on the cabinetry, counter top to be added, dishwasher still to go in on the far left, hob and base oven to go in the gap to the right

The bar top you saw in the garage will sit on top of this sticky out bit. Fridge and freezer will go in the big gap at the back of the kitchen.

The guest bathroom upstairs... note the wrong cabinets - it's supposed to be 'Muslin' and this is clearly not it. Pah!

Master bath tile and cabinets are thankfully looking good, tho you can't see the chipped sink top from here... grumble, grumble...

Sunapee Vacation

We got back home on Tuesday evening after a lovely few days break in a cottage on Otter Pond, just a few miles north of New Hampshire's Lake Sunapee.

A few months ago we'd gone halvers with friends Matt, Anna and baby Brody Waldron and 'won' a weeks vacation in a silent auction at a UVM alumni event. Trying to plan the hols was tricky with the guys' work schedules so the week turned into a 5 night stay for us, and only 3 nights for the Waldrons. Oh well, it was definitely better than no vacation at all :)

We arrived at the cottage to find it mostly as we expected, cosy and rustic with only a minor ant problem - oh yes, and no hot water...

The view down to the cottage.

The cottage sat right on the waters edge which was perfect for swimming and going out in the pedal boat :)

First morning there and Adam seemed a bit confused as to the point of going on vacation...



Safi had a better idea and headed out for the first dip in the pond (we followed suit later in the day).

This is Sunapee Harbor where we enjoyed an ice cream soda before meeting up with Matt, Anna and Brody who got there around lunchtime.

Saf high steps it into the water for another swim... she's quite obsessed with water now, understandable given the heat.

The next day was Jayne's birthday so, after a nice lunch out in New London and a telephone catch up with family back home, we went for a walk around the local bog... what else could a girl possibly want??

It was quite good fun actually. The whole walk way is made up of wooden planks, some more stable than others, which float on top of the vegetation mat. The whole place moves as you walk and in one place there's a submerged pole you can pull out to see how deep the soggy bogginess is... officially 20' deep.

Adam manages to extract the pole without falling in (by the skin of his teeth)...

Anna nearly over balanced while trying to snap photos of bug eating plants, as did Jayne just after snapping this one... saved only by vigorous windmilling of the arms. Saf didn't really help matters by pulling on her lead in exactly the wrong direction at exactly the wrong moment.

Anna had made Jayne a very chocolatey cake that morning (thanks again Anna!) and here's Matt trying not to singe his eyebrows in the inferno of candles... half way across the floor and he encountered the fan blowing at full speed and had to start over after they all blew out (Is that bad luck?? Will my wish still count??)

Jayne gets to make her wish at last

Brody gets stuck into his Mom's cake and ice cream

Next day we all headed to the top of Mount Sunapee to see what we could see... too steamy hot to walk up...

Beautiful views down over Lake Sunapee

The Waldrons. They took a similar pic of us so we'll post it up if we get hold of a copy.

Pretty flowers and butterflies all over the place

Just about every band stand and harbor in the area has free music at the weekends so that evening we sat out at a small open air blues concert. We picked the only one that wasn't sponsored and we found out why - the popularity of the songs they picked almost made up for how badly they performed most of them ;))

The Waldron's take their last ride out on the pedal boat on the morning of their last day at the cottage. Later Matt and Adam headed out for a round of golf while Anna, Brody and Jayne went into Concord, the state capitol. Anna and Jayne only did a little bit of exploring before they learned there was a Target store nearby so headed off for some shopping instead :)) Oh how we miss Target... our nearest one is in Albany, New York :(

Our last morning at the cottage - this was 5.30am (yes really, and even more surprisingly it was Jayne who was up to take this pic). The place was so tranquil with the morning mist on the water... no water skiers etc at this time of day.