Isambard Kingdom Brunel

The famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (IKB) was an illustrious Victorian gentleman with his finger in many pies. The architect of Balintore Castle, William Burn (WB), was also an illustrious Victorian gentleman with his finger in many pies.

It is almost inevitable, therefore, that at some stage they should have their fingers in each others' pies, and friend of Balintore, Gareth, has just unearthed some evidence of this at the new museum in Bristol dedicated to the life of IKB.

Gareth's photos tell the story, but it is astonishing to think that WB was going to build IKB, his own version of Balintore albeit with sections of the building in a very different (and clashing) style. IKB himself was an architect and constructed many buildings including a house in Abingdon, close to my home in England, that was once pointed out to me. So for IKB to engage WB, must have meant that he rated him very highly.

The Toilet Paper Mystery

I have been charged twice recently for unpaid postage. My suspicion was that someone in the Post Office was on the fiddle, and there was no indication of which eventual deliveries had merited the extra charges.

However, today this letter arrived:

Inside was a short section of toilet paper folded in an exceedingly neat manner:

Can anyone solve the mystery or identify the printing? All I can conclude is that someone in the Glasgow area (the post mark) wants to wreak revenge for some unidentified wrong-doing of mine by charging me postage by using no-longer-valid stamps. £1.10 is a lot to pay per wipe. :-)

PostScript

The mystery was solved by my housekeeper who contacted the guest that took away the key to the AirBnB in error. He attempted to post it back and was able to identify the envelope. It's still a mystery why the key was not inside the pocket of toilet paper, but the envelope has been with the Post Office for 3 weeks so anything could have happened.

Butler's Pantry 2

Gregor and Gavin have finished repairing the lining of the window reveals in the Butler's Pantry.

Here is the after:

And here is the before for comparison:

The restoration of the original door of the room is underway:

Gregor asked me if I wanted him to restore the original door. I responded "What kind of question is that?". Gregor knows that I am scrupulous is re-using every single bit of original fabric when I can, and of course in reality, it is good that he actually did ask. Gregor misses no opportunity to tease me mercilessly, so it is only fair that I reciprocate. :-)

The original door would have been here:

I have decided to move this blog more into the multi-media age, as a video can give you a far better feel for a space than a sequence of photographs. The video below hopefully captures the feeling in the Butler's Pantry, largely before the full restoration that lies ahead. 

 

You will notice in the video that Gregor has freed up the three-point lock on the large iron door to the silver safe. The relative proportions of brute force and WD40 required have not been revealed. :-)