Summer news from Bristol - Bristol Home Stay Tuition (finished - almost!)

SUMMER IS COMING!

View from the roof of my new extension

Look at that view! Standing on the roof of my new extension, you can see across the new development next door and to the countryside which surrounds Bristol. Isn't it wonderful?

Class photo of final day

I thought I would update you on the recent developments here in Bristol and tell you about my latest adventures and students. As I mentioned in my last blog, I went to Rome to visit a former student, Cristiana. She invited me to come to her school and meet her students, who range in age from 11 to 14. They were very excited about meeting me. They prepared many, many questions for me, such as 'What is your favourite colour?', 'Do you have any pets?', 'What did you do last week?? 'What is your daily routine?' For many of them, it was the first time they had met an English person. It was a great experience for them and really lovely for me too. It was good to be back in a classroom with young students again!

Dinner with Cristiana's friends
 and fellow teachers

I also explored Rome, where I had lived many years ago. Cristiana arranged for me to meet her friends and other teachers of English and we ate a marvellous dinner of delicious Italian food, most of it prepared by her mother.

View of the famous Colosseum

The founding myth of Rome
Romulus and Remus

I returned to teach Gianni, a 63 year old man from the Veneto region of Italy.  He came to visit Bristol in April with a friend and  had four hours of lessons with me. He decided to come for an intensive course for one week in June. He was very low level but even with this short course, he really made enormous improvement.

Before my little break in Rome, I taught Marcus, a policeman from Switzerland and Rudi from Barcelona. Marcus decided he needed to improve his English because he has to attend many presentations in English. Rudi loves travelling and diving, and wanted to improve his English to help him with this.

So far this year, I have had five students who have come to Bristol for an intensive course to improve their English and discover this lively city. Now I have a little break without students, until July.

Rudi from Barcelona in class

Marcus, in front of the M-Shed,
Bristol Harbourside

Dinner with Gianni at The Lido

In July, I will teach Jan from Switzerland. He is a professional singer, a counter-tenor, specialising in Baroque and early music. Then Agnès will come for two weeks. She is a professional restorer of paintings at The Louvre and needs specialised art vocabulary. She is also vegetarian and has a catering business. I'm a little nervous because in fact, she's vegan! This means that she not only doesn't eat meat and fish, but also no eggs, cheese or milk. I will find it hard to cook without at least yoghurt or feta cheese. However, I'm sure we will have a very interesting time and I will certainly learn some new dishes to cook.

For the moment, I have the first two weeks of July which are still available and the last two weeks of August. So please contact me quickly if you are interested in a course this summer. It's a busy time of year and with one booking, as you know, I am full!

And already, I have bookings for October and November this year. So don't delay - write to me today!

Lucy at Briswool
Exhibition at the M-Shed

Woolly Bristol
Bristol landmarks knitted by volunteers

Dinner time at Bristol Home Stay Tuition

Building Bristol Home Stay Tuition: Spring in my new kitchen!

Cristiana at lunch in new kitchen

Spring has almost arrived - the days are starting to get lighter, spring flowers are growing and the sun is shining! What a relief to arrive here, after the difficult and dark winter, struggling to complete the extension and hopingeverything would be ready for my first students.

Above you can see Cristiana, having lunch with me after her morning of classes. Cristiana is a teacher of English at a secondary school in Rome. Her students are aged between 11-14 years. She came for a short and intensive course over Easter to refresh her English. She arrived on Tuesday 22nd March. We had four hours of classes every day from Wednesday morning to Easter Saturday morning and again from Easter Monday to Tuesday 29th March. She returned to Rome on Wednesday 30th March. 

Lunch at Wild Garlic

We had a rest on Easter Sunday and I drove Cristiana to the Cotswolds. She had told me that she would love to visit this area, which is well-known in Italy. We visited the pretty village of Tetbury and after we had a special Easter lunch at Wild Garlic in Nailsworth. We were joined there by Sandra and her partner, friends of mine who live in Nailsworth. This was a great opportunity for Cristiana to practise speaking English. The food was delicious!  

During Cristiana's course, she came with me to a morning of coffee and hot cross buns  on Good Friday. This was at a neighbour's house and was another chance for Cristiana to meet and talk to English people. She also enjoyed tasting a hot cross bun - she knew about this traditional Easter bun but had never tried one before.

Cristiana chatting to Maggie

We also went out to listen to live music, a duo of guitar and singer, called The Black Feathers. They played upstairs in local pub and were very, very good. Beautiful harmonies and wonderful voices. We were also invited me to meet other friends and neighbours of mine, who were all happy to meet Cristiana and talk to her; thank you Giles and Mora and Lindsay and Derek!

Now I am having a short break which gives me an opportunity to continue with the work on my house. This week, the exterior of the new extension and the courtyard were painted. Next steps are to build a deck outside my patio doors into the garden and then a garden shed and finish my courtyard and fill it with plants.

Newly painted courtyard walls

On Sunday 17th April, my next student will arrive. Marcus is a German policeman who lives in Zurich, Switzerland. He will study with me for two weeks. After he leaves, a Catalan man will come for a two week course. Rudi wants to improve his English because he is semi-retired and wants to travel. English has become the global language, as you can see!

After he leaves, I will go to visit Cristiana's students at her school in Rome. This is a great opportunity for her students to speak to a real English person and practise asking and answering questions. And it will be great to see Rome in May, a city I once lived in!

ss Great Britain, Brunel's  steamship

Beautiful Bath Abbey

Building Bristol Home Stay Tuition - In my kitchen, at last! March 2016

My new kitchen, at last!

Look! There it is... my kitchen is ready at last. And I have started to use it, although it still feels a little strange.

But there are still problems and things which are not finished or not correct. This means that I have to find and pay other people to finish and to correct. It is very frustrating and I am quite exhausted, as you can imagine. But this is great progress and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

View from new hallway to front door

My first student of 2016  arrived on Sunday 29th February. I worked very, very hard to prepare for her arrival. I had to clean the carpets with a carpet cleaning machine. I had to move a lot of furniture and unpack all my things. I realised that I had MUCH too much STUFF. My new kitchen does not have as much storage space as my old kitchen.

My student arrived very late, around midnight on Sunday. She is from Barcelona and she is the sister of my first student, who came to study with me eight years ago. She is a child psychologist for the Catalan government and she wants to improve her English so she can travel and communicate with people all over the world.

Anna doing her homework

When we started our classes on Monday morning, we discussed her reasons for learning English. We also talked about the best way for her to learn and planned the course. Her level was quite low, about pre-intermediate, and she wanted to increase her vocabulary. She also needed to refresh her memory about our irregular verbs and to practise asking questions, remembering to use the auxiliary, or not with the verb 'BE'  ('DO you LIKE..'? 'DID you EAT..?', 'ARE you..?', 'WERE you..?').

Anna working in the new classroom

She is working very hard and has improved enormously. Now she is speaking with English sentences, with English word order, rather than translating from Spanish. I call this language 'Spanglish'.

I took her to listen to some great live jazz music. We went to see James Morton and his group playing at The Gallimaufry in Stokes Croft.

James Morton and guests

Breakdancing Jesus in Stokes Croft

On Saturday, we went on a tour together. She is crazy about graffiti or street art. Bristol is famous as the home of 'Banksy', the world's most famous street artist. The tour was very interesting and we were very lucky with the weather.
Here are some examples of the street art we saw:

Banksy's 'Mild, Mild West'

Anna will leave on Saturday 12th March. Then I have a rest for one week. My next student is an English teacher from Rome. She will come for a short but intensive course of eight days, over the Easter holidays. She wants to refresh her English and discover new ways to engage her students with the English language.

If you are interested in a course with me, the next opportunity is the beginning of April or the middle of May onwards.

First day in the classroom

Cooking in my new kitchen

A new year - no new kitchen! Building Bristol Home Stay Tuition

New extension, from neighbour's garden

So here I am, in late January and I am STILL not in  my kitchen. The builder told me that we would be finished by the end of November 2015. I expected that there would be some problems and hoped that I would be finished by the end of December 2015 or at the latest, early January 2016.

There have been some enormous problems, mostly caused by the incompetence and lack of planning or thinking by my builder. For example, he built my kitchen WITHOUT GAS, even though one of his builders rang me in September to check that I had a gas hob in the kitchen,

New kitchen

I don't have any heating in my new kitchen because they failed to connect the power supply to the controls for the underfloor heating and now have to connect it from the boiler upstairs to the control unit in the new kitchen. This means that they have had to run the cable from my boiler in my upstairs bathroom, outside through the courtyard and then back into new kitchen,

Towel radiator illegally converted to electricity

They fitted my fridge but omitted to connect it to the power supply (didn't plug it in first!). They also destroyed the hose for the dishwasher and so I had to have a totally new dishwasher from IKEA.

My new bathroom is supposed to have a towel radiator which is operated from the central heating system. The builder has illegally and incompetently converted the radiator to an electric towel radiator, invalidating my 10 year warranty. This is because he finished the floor in the bathroom and then realised that the radiator should be connected to the central heating system.

One day, in the near future, I can see that my new kitchen and dining room will be a nice room.

But for the moment, I am living and cooking  in my bedroom. It is not very nice and I can't wait for it be finished.

I have a student coming for a course at the beginning of March. So everything must be finished by then!!

New kitchen/dining room with sun

It's Christmas... and it's not finished! Building Bristol Home Stay Tuition

New kitchen with view to garden (with ladders)

Well, it's the last few days before the Christmas holidays. I have to report sadly that the building project is NOT FINISHED yet.

The extension has been rendered (that means that the external plaster has been applied) and there is now a gas supply to my kitchen. The party wall, which is the boundary wall with my neighbour which forms the border to my courtyard, has also been finished and is now rendered. And the floor has been laid in the kitchen.

But there are still outstanding problems with many things. The main issue is a BIG LEAK in my new roof. There is a small gap in the seal of the rubber roof which means that the rain can enter. There is now a big damp patch on the new ceiling in the kitchen. The builders will have to return to fix the many problems which still exist.

Damp patch on the ceiling

Bathroom with grey pain

This week, the decorator painted the kitchen, bathroom and the passage way between the bathroom and the kitchen. Everything white, except for one wall in the kitchen, which is a very pale yellow. The colour in the bathroom is a very pale grey, which matches the light grey in the tiles in the bathroom. It looks great, especially when the sun shines in the new kitchen.

Sunny new kitchen and dining room

Kitchen sink with window

However, there is good news too.  I will have a lodger from the beginning of January 2016. He is a young man who works for Lloyds Bank, in the Harbourside. He is also studying for his accountancy exams. I'm very happy to have him because I need the income. But the problem is that I have to move and rearrange everything!

This is the last blog of the year. Next instalment will be in January 2016. I hope I will be fully installed in my extension by then.

December 2015. Almost there - Building Bristol Home Stay Tuition

Well everyone, this extension project was supposed to be finished by Friday 27th October. It is now  Sunday 13th December and is ALMOST FINISHED, apart from very many small things which I hope they will correct soon.

I have learned a lot of new things during this building project and it has been very stressful during this time.

 

New wooden floor

For example, here is the story of the wooden floor. The flooring arrived on Thursday 26th November. On Saturday 28th November, as they were putting the flooring down, I mentioned that it should be nailed using a technique called 'secret nail'. The builder disagreed with me and told me it wasn't necessary. However, we agreed that he would stop and I would check with the flooring supplier on Monday. On Monday, the flooring company confirmed that it was ABSOLUTELY necessary to nail the floors down. Phew! It was very lucky for me that I had mentioned this issue before he finished the job. The wooden floor in the kitchen was finished on Wednesday 2nd December. 

It looks great.

View of new kitchen with floor

Then I discovered that they have not installed the gas supply correctly. So now I am waiting for a report from a gas engineer.

The decorator will start on Monday 14th December. He will prepare and paint all the windows, doors, ceilings and walls. I want him to finish the kitchen and bathroom before Christmas, so that I can move back into my bedroom (which is my kitchen at the moment). I will rent the room to a lodger which will help me financially. I hope to find someone by January 2016. Then I will continue with the work, finishing the extra room (the room which was my dining room before).

Room to rent for lodger soon

I have had a lot of support and advice from my architect, my friend who is a builder, my old boyfriend who is a chartered surveyor and other friends who have experienced this kind of work. Without their help, there would have been many more problems and disasters. So I thank them all SO MUCH!

Here is a link to some more photos: Almost finished

And some other good news came last week. I have another booking! Anna, a Catalan woman, is coming for two weeks at the beginning of March. She is the sister of one of my first students. She works as a psychiatrist for the Catalan government, helping abused children. We have met on Skype and she is lovely. I'm sure we are going to have a lot of fun together!

March 2016 is now fully booked. So, as you can see, next year is starting to get busy. Please pass the message to your friends who want to improve their English rapidly and have fun at the same time. I am accepting bookings from February 2016. I am really looking forward to teaching my students in my beautiful new kitchen and teaching room!

Two weeks later - Building Bristol Home Stay Tuition

New room with windows, seen from the next door garden

It's now Sunday 15th November and suddenly, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. 

My builder fitted the windows last week and so finally the room is weatherproof. This meant that they could put in the kitchen! Now the room looks like a real room, not just a shell. It's an IKEA kitchen and is white and simple. We have had some problems with missing pieces. My builders tell me I am lucky because we had only a few missing items.

I also have lighting in the new extension, with spotlights in the ceiling over the kitchen area and dining area. It looks really lovely. This week, I will buy the wooden flooring for the kitchen. This is an expensive item. I am beginning to feel excited although I been feeling mostly very anxious and stressed.

Kitchen with view of oven and hob

This week they almost finished tiling the shower (why is it that builders never quite finish things?) and it looks good. They have installed the basin and part of the cabinets for the basin and toilet. When they finish putting the floor tiles in the bathroom, they will install the toilet.

Shower cubicle with tiles

This project is supposed to be finished by Friday 27th November, in two weeks. Probably it will be in  early December.

But it is not completely finished by then. There is a second part to this project. I want to make another room, a bedroom/office, from what used to be my dining room and classroom (the room with the big mirror and piano, for those students and friends who are interested). This part of the project will continue after these builders finish. My architect has designed an interesting wall with a big sliding door, so it can be a flexible room. There will be a little courtyard garden, full of ferns and mirrors, to maximise the light. Perhaps I will put in a little fountain or something like that?

Courtyard at the moment

Please look at this link to see more photos of the building project: 

Light at the end of the tunnel

Then finally, when all is finished and clean, the rooms will have to be decorated. I am getting prices for this part of the job now. That will be the most exciting stage of this project. I think I will see my house returning to normal by mid-January 2015. It will be a new and beautiful home.

At the moment, my first student will come in March 2016. I have some enquiries for February 2016 too. 

I will offer anybody who wants an English course a 20% discount for courses between February and March 2016! Come and profit from this great way to rapidly improve your English and have fun at the same time.