Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Well, for us it was a perfect Christmas, but for the vast majority of families it was all very subdued. After much promise that Christmas would remain sacrosanct, a new variant of Covid (apparently more virulent and terrorising much of the SE) emerged and the government capitulated and we went from a 5 day reprieve where 3 families could meet together indoors, to 2 families allowed to meet for 1 day. Bah humbug. This was followed by a massive upscale of counties tipping into Tier 4 restrictions, basically a lockdown in all but words, including Hampshire because we border a county already in Tier 4... ridiculous. So we are now back to only being able to leave the house for work, education of exercise, with most secondary school kids expecting to do at least the first week of school from home in the new term.  If you had looked forward this time last year and predicted that we would end the year with the vast majority of the country confined to their houses for all but essential trips ou

OMG what a weekend! We have gone in a few short weeks from debating whether to put our house onto the market, to putting it on and wondering whether we'd get interest, to having viewings where everyone seemed interested, to having an offer for the full asking price on less than 2 weeks! We accepted the offer on Friday from a couple looking to move closer to their family for various reasons. they loved it and made it clear they would make an offer before they left the house so it was a good omen.  Of course this meant that we needed to make a decision on what to do next. The people buying ours would prefer a short exchange and long completion so we have time, and it would fit with school, but of course no-one in this family has that sort of patience!  Glenn and I booked to see 4 houses on Saturday, leaving the girls at home to look after themselves, but more importantly the dogs - Abi sending me regular updates to prove everything was ok!  Having had a long chat on the way down we d

Is it Christmas yet? I feel like there are just not enough hours in the day, but maybe this isn't helped by the fact that the kids are now off school, work is busy and (of yes, small matter) we are trying to keep the house tidy for viewings. Having had a nail biting weekend initially of launching late on the Friday evening and hearing nothing, we then got notice of 3 people wanting to view - 2 on Saturday morning and a further one today (Tuesday). I can safely say that having people come to look at your house on a Saturday morning at 9:30am is too early. Glenn and Izzy had actually left much earlier for a motorbiking course, leaving Abi and I to rush around the house making sure it was clean, while the dogs did their level best to undo out good work. Having turned a corner on the house training over the least couple of weeks and having very few accidents (and certainly no messes in the house), I went upstairs to clean the bathrooms only to hear her barking. I went downstairs to fin

Getting so big! We have officially made it through a Thursday without going into hospital - hooray!! While Abi is still knocking back antibiotics like they are going out of fashion, it does at least feel like we have made progress forward. She has been feeling good all week and made it back to school on Friday after a month of disrupted attendance. She probably could have gone back a day earlier but I didn't want to rush her after all the false starts, and she was still so tired in the morning that I didn't have the heart to dig her out of bed when she could easily do the bulk of her school work at home. She's also been enjoying the peace and comfort of home after so many days stuck in a busy hospital. Either way she had a good day, it's been a good weekend and, apart from a few tunny rumblings which I think are more to do with too much chocolate ice cream than colitis, she is looking a million times better than this time a month ago (when we were just bringing her home