Ups and downs

Sooooo, where to start? Well it's Wednesday (I think - I've rather lost track) and we have been in for 5 nights and I guess you could say on the one hand we have done quite well: the house is looking ship shape, we have pictures on the walls and clothes in the cupboards and we pretty much know where things are now in the kitchen. On the other though we are running off a generator which trips if you switch on the cooker and the hob at the same time (or in fact the cooker and anything at the same time) which is very frustrating and is testing our recipe skills - you can only have a meal from the oven or hob, not both! We have made it very clear that we can't continue like this and we are led to believe that our meter will turn up on Friday - not a moment too soon.

Outside is a different story. We were promised that the workshop and office would be finished before we moved in but as it was they had hardly been started. 5 days on and with constant pressure from us they are taking shape but the windows and doors are still AWOL. I dread to think what the fitters will think tomorrow when they arrive to fit my office furniture into a room still open to the elements. I've already put them off once and I go back to work on Monday so I was loathe to put them off again - it will be what it will be and we are promised that the windows are due so we will have to keep the faith... again. 

In more positive news, we asked (cousin) Matt to come and do the fencing for the paddock and he has been here all week and done a fab job. The paddock is now dog proof which means we can let the dogs out without panicking that they are about to take off into the distance, and the fence going in around the garden looks really smart already, even if only half done. We were originally expecting Stephen to level the garden area and down the slope to the paddock, but we would probably be waiting a month of Sundays so we arranged for someone else to come in and do it and he has made an enormous difference already - tomorrow it will look transformed. It also looks huge - goodness knows how we are going to afford to plant it all!

We are using the week to pick off as many jobs as possible, while also trying to get Stephen to do his bit - it's a hard process keeping him focused but we are making headway, if slowly. Rome wasn't built in a day. More frustratingly we are still waiting on exchange which seems ridiculous when we have been in for a week. The legal process is dragging out, not on ours but on the others in the chain and its resulting in some stupid decisions, including the removal of a wood burner because they couldn't find the building control certificate - how can that be sensible?! I will keep repeating my mantra - "it will be fine!"

This was also the week that the girls started their new school. I'd love to include a picture showing how smart they look in their uniforms, but they won't let me take one so you'll have to take my word for it! Days 1 & 2 have been good, the kids are both saying they've made friends (even if they don't yet know their names) and they are getting their heads around the routines and ways of working. Izzy is lucky enough to be able to go in her PE kit all the time so she's chuffed, and Abi is slowly managing to stop Betty from trying to eat her long skirt as she passes by in the morning - it's all positive. They are certainly full of their day when they get home so it must be ok. 

So we will keep pushing and keep positive - after all, at the end of the day when you have a view like this it can't be all bad.