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Back to work blues

After the luxury of being away for a few days it has been back to normal, with the now ever-present fact that I'm back to work next week. I'm trying to stay positive but I am naturally quite apprehensive, as well as just a tad tearful that the domestic bliss of the last few months is about to come to a resounding halt. I keep telling myself that it's the start of a new era and will have loads of exciting positives to look forward to. I'm also reminding myself that my brain will kick back in - eventually! - so not to be too hard on myself in the first few weeks.  It will be fine - everyone will adjust and we'll all continue to do the best we can to spend as much time together as possible.

The girls are oblivious to all of this due to the long awaited arrival of the hobbit pod - their new playhouse. This arrived on Saturday afternoon in large sections, apparently suitable for construction in just 2 hours with the assistance of "2 strong people". Hmmm. Thank goodness for neighbours as we roped in ours and got them to hold up various bits while Glenn tried to get it to all come together properly. After only 3 hours it was all in place, aided somewhat by some ingenious lifting and a fair amount of brute force via a mallet. It looks amazing (pictures to follow as we are in the middle of painting it) and the girls are spending as much time as possible there.  On Monday Glenn was away at a track day and they pleaded to have breakfast in there.  I duly provided a tray of food for them and me, only to be told by Abi "Where are your manners Mummy, take your shoes off in the house!" They are very house proud!

The other major step forward this week is the completion of our ensuite, only 6 weeks after it was all ripped out for what we thought was a relatively quick update.  We should have realised that while the bathroom was predominantly a refit, we have taken the opportunity to redo all of the plumbing in the house and that's no small task. So we have state of the art plumbing, empty pockets and a lovely bathroom.  We now have a week's respite while our plumber goes on holiday, then its on to the remainder of the bathrooms and straight downstairs to pull down walls in preparation for the window replacement.  Just as I go back to work - perfect timing!  I've planned for a short break then before the kitchen work starts but I suspect it will be days rather than weeks. Oh well, at least we are used to it now and we will have our dream house at the end of it!

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