Anthony Bourdain

So it's my birthday this week... and Anthony Bourdain was here for a charity lunch thing. Em got us tickets, I took a day off work and we went to see him.

He was absolutely great - he's a lucky guy but very appreciative of that. He gave a nice talk about how he came to write Kitchen Confidential and about his travels with No Reservations.

I lined up with tons of other people and got his autograph - a bit sad but it was nice to meet him :-)

All in all a good way to spend a couple of hours!

Thanks Em

Lights, Camera...

So we have working pool lights now :-)


These pictures overemphasize the effect a little bit as we had to turn the flash off... but here are a few of the colors:

We love it! The so called party mode and all that are a bit slower to change color than expected but the overall effect is fantastic :-)

Guess what we did this weekend

So... the pool is finally full!... after about 36 hours it is at the right level... it looks pretty good, even in the shade:


The water is really, REALLY cold at the moment because it gets chilly at night and the sun isn't on the pool long enough to warm it up much... that didn't stop us... this the favorite mode of entry at the moment (trying to ease your way into the water is a losing proposition!):

This isn't a great photo but you get an idea of the response to the cold water - it's a shock to the system!... After swimming (a bit) on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I think we're both ready for a stint on the Deadliest Catch - those wussies wear survival suits when they jump in the cold water - we wear bathing suits! :-)

This week we get everything started up - pumps running, chemicals in... can't wait for next weekend!

What is blue and red and half full of water?...

...our swimming pool :-)

Pics to follow.

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And here they are...

Here's the spa, now full of water:

Here's a shot of the tiered spillway from the spa - you can see the water level in the main pool too:

And lastly, here's the whole thing... the greenish tint will go away when we get the water properly balanced with chemicals and filtered.

Oh so close :-)

So the Pebbletec guys finally turned up - yay!

They set up a huge truck out front with a mixing machine:

And strangely, they then wrapped their feet in polythene and duct tape:


Before donning wellington boots with spikes:


The pebblesheen comes out like plaster:

Getting it poured, troweled, rinsed and ready was quite labor intensive:
It dried out overnight so today they come back to acid wash and polish the finish... then I think we start filling it up!

To say we're excited is a bit of an understatement!

Still (still!!) waiting... but oh so close

Well... the pool builder still has his endocrine system inside his body so I'd call that a win for him all things considered...

But we have had to accept that we just lost another week in the pool build... we should have the pebbletec guys here TODAY to start the coating process. Most people think a swimming pool is tiled but no-one does that any more - they only use tile on the waterline for ease of cleaning. The rest of the pool (the part that's under water) is either plastered (either white or colored) or it's coated with something like Pebbletec or Pebblesheen. These latter coatings are a lot more expensive but they last at least 20 years whereas modern plaster lasts 5 to 7 years and is prone to staining (because they had to remove some useful additives like asbestos recently!).

So we chose Pebblesheen. It's a resin that is covered with tiny stones. The result is a slightly rough surface that looks pretty nice. We went with Blue Granite as the color - we're hoping for a nice blue water color without it looking like a resort pool (we don't want the aqua blue).


Here is the official color chip for Blue Granite pebblesheen - the top is what it actually looks like when applied, the bottom is an approximation of the water color:





Here's a pic of a blue granite pebblesheen pool - ours is obviously not quite as spectacular but you get the idea of the water color:



What do you think?