The son of a friend of ours who lives in SW Florida is still trying to get a palm tree out of his pool and conservatory (do you call them that or sunrooms?). Glad to see yours survived. Couldn't have been easy dealing with Wilma, even so.

Like the sunny shot and that pool. I think I'll have to dig the floor up inside ours. Mind you with the regular wet weather we have here I might not have to as we get our fair share of water inside anyway. You'd think the Brits would know how to build 'em so they didn't leak, but seems not. Everyone I know who has a conservatory suffers leaks! Although, having said that, ours is holding out so far this year after some repairs during the summer...(mustn't speak too soon).

Dark morning and evenings now here so will have to wait until the weekend for the picture of the big house (the one I have which I thought I'd use isn't so good)

Ah...this is another reason I love The Cellar. At long last, I now know the significance of a line from Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" -

"And he pulled her on astride, and down to Box Hill, they'd ride".

I love these little moments of enlightenment.

I'll try get you a photo of the two places they meet - one is at the bottom of Box Hill, Ryka's Cafe, and the other at the top - used to be called the Zig Zag (after the road but think it may have changed). HD have a big outlet/showroom in Dorking which is the town below Box Hill.

Will post in Cities and Travel all going well...

LJ would say......Caulk. :lol:

Good catch Elspode.....love that song.

Don't mention caulk - the first AH who came to fix the roof put sealant all over the edges of the glazing - so badly that he caused leaks where before we hadn't had any, and in the end had to have the glazed panels individually removed cleaned and replaced (by someone who knew what they were doing!)

My God. Your houses are so wonderful. I cant buy any apartment in my city, Guangzhou now.

Billy, you have to find a woman that has a house. ;)

That's kinda how I got mine, found a woman who was good with money, but it wasn't really worth it. :boxers:

Headley Park House
 

Here are the pictures of the main house in Headley Park - hope you find them interesting. A bit of house history: The original house was destroyed by a fire in the late 19th century, and this one was built around 1905, and owned by Mappin (of Mappin and Webb, well known London jewellers). The architecture is therefore very much English Arts and Crafts movement.

Two more photos:

Strange to hear of Guangzhou right now - I'm just about to start managing a contract for a ship that has been built there called the Maersk Belfast (it's Belfast not Baltic, but I keep writing Baltic even though I'm thinking Belfast - it's probably an age thing!). One of our directors was in Guangzhou at the end of September attending the naming ceremony. The ship delivers to the owners Maersk on 23 November, and then takes its first cargo of vegoils loading in Philippines and Indonesia for a voyage that ends up with cargo discharging in Italy (Ravenna and Genoa). Small world...

I didn't know Guangzhou is a port city. Thought it was inland where the three rivers meet. :smack:

Well, it is some way in from the coast, but up a reasonably navigable river, so the vessel could get out unladen, if not in laden. Maersk are building a series of 29,000 tons cargo size vessels at Guangzhou. Found a picture of the one that was launched before the Maersk Belfast

Crude, dirty or clean petroleum products, vegoils and easy chemicals! :speechls:
And how do they clean this sucker between loads?

There are cleaning chemicals these days that allow a ship to change straight from a dirty cargo like fueloil or crudeoil to something like jet fuel, especially when the ship has high quality coatings to its tanks (coatings are made of epoxy resin - like a non-stick pan, but on an industrial scale) or the tanks are stainless steel lined.

Generally a ship can change from dirty to clean by stages of trading in clean(er) cargoes, like taking a semi-clean cargo like Marine Diesel Oil, then three cargoes of clean Gasoil. The amount of cleaning between grades is comparatively negligible this way. This method is generally accepted as being sufficient to then trade very clean cargoes like Naphtha or Jet Fuel. A vessel that has traded the last two products mentioned would have little trouble then trading easy chemiclas - but the vessel would have to be specifically certified to carry easy chemicals first - there are different levels of certification and a vessel will generally be built to meet such specification.

Oh BTW all cargoes need to be lead-free to continue such trade - not so much of a problem these days, but it used to be.