Skip to main content

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!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Snow!

After a beautiful day of sunshine yesterday, today it snowed... but more of that in a minute. Yesterday actually felt like a day of much progress. Despite Covid we managed to arrange a visit to Taunton School to have a look around with the girls and to meet the Headmaster. This was a massive relief as I had got to the point of thinking we would have to accept a place without ever stepping foot inside the school. In the end we had a very comprehensive, if a little deserted, tour of the school and the kids loved it, as did we. There may even be a small chance they might squeeze us in if we are there by the summer term - that is of course if the kids are back into school by then. The other news was that I managed to speak to Mr &Mrs Tucker - the people buying our house - and we tentatively agreed that we will try and complete during the Easter holidays which could have us moving in the third week of April. This does require everyone to have got all of what they need done, and that of ...

Busy, busy, busy

Full English brunch for these two! Life is VERY busy and I don't feel like we have stopped for weeks (or is that months?) It seems like the 'to-do' list is endless and while I know we don't have to do it all at once, I have taken on the unenviable task of trying to get the Muppet to finish all the work he promised / we have paid for and that has been like pushing a mountain of water up a very steep hill. We've got to the point where I think we have got all of what we are likely to get and the rest we'd rather finish ourselves anyway. The electric gates are clearly a work of his imagination based on the gates / the electric cables he spec'd and the cheapo motor mechanism - there is no way they'll work so we have decided to not bother and source proper gates that do the job and look better as well. Knowing that we are almost at a point where we sever the ties feels very liberating. Looking back this last 6 months has been incredibly stressful and just didn...

Decluttering

Girls buying baby clothes - this could get addictive! It's Easter weekend already and we still haven't completed!! However we have made some progress, most importantly with the paperwork which has not been Steve the Builder's forte throughout this process. Stags finally got their act together and got in touch with the planning office and got an update from the Planning Officer. Apparently she is broadly happy with the application, and is prepared to pass it with only a few minor modifications which we are completely comfortable with. The Building Control Officer also came and did all of what he needed to, which means the final certificate should be issued which allows the warranty to also be issued. On our side we finally tracked down the paperwork (or more correctly got the BC Officer to come out again and do a second assessment) for the outstanding BCC on our windows (which went in 6 years ago but due to an admin error were never registered) - nothing is straightforward i...