Skip to main content

Home owners...and it's still raining!

It's official, we are now the (proud) owners of Oakwood barn. I would love to say proud but the last few weeks in particular have ben very hard with the developer being such a muppet, and we are ever more depressed by his inability to both finish the job off / tell us the truth. It has really taken the shine off things and his ever increasing ineptitude is making us wonder whether the whole house is going to fall down around our ears in a years time. If we think positive for a moment, the truly awful weather that we have had all month means at least we know the house doesn't leak, although it has shown us that the guttering has been put up incorrectly. It runs the wrong way so all the water collects at the end that doesn't have the downpipe - you really couldn't make this stuff up! This is just one of the 'small' things we will fox ourselves rather than having him anywhere near it - I can't bear to watch him do anything on the house for fear he will make it worse not better. We celebrated with our neighbours both te purchase of te hose and the imminent demise of Richmond Construction... only those who have lived through it can fully understand the frustration of having to deal with his constant lies...


Stationary but directly next to A&A!
Despite all of the trials and tribulations I know we will love the house when the noise has died down, and this week was another example of why we moved. On Wednesday the weather cleared for a few brief hours (a miracle) and so we spontaneously agreed with Amanda, Alex and the boys to go to the beach for fish and chips. We left about 6 and almost immediately got stuck on the motorway but by some fluke Amanda drew up next to us so we had 25 mins chatting in our respective cars and feeling jealous that they had sweets in their car but we didn't...


The beach was very windy but deserted and beautiful and the kids ran around / took pictures / got muddy (Laurie and Izzy). All this from our doorstep on a school night - fab!

On Saturday I dropped the girls off at school and headed to my first in person yoga class in Taunton. I found a hot-pod yoga studio which while it's not quite what I'm used to, turned out to be a great class and one that I'll happily build into my schedule as one I can do and fits neatly into my diary. I've also found another studio which looks good (and a little closer to familiar yoga style) and I'm booked into my first class there on Wednesday evening. I'm quite enjoying this mini voyage of yoga discovery and it will do me good to try some new classes. 

We've also started swimming on a Sunday morning at the school pool which is lovely. Abi is doing two sessions a week which are pretty full on so it's nice for her to have a slightly more laid back swim, and Izzy is enjoying rebuilding her confidence in the pool after not swimming for ages. The system works very well, and because its all quite regimented there have been very few people in the pool each time we've been which is even better.

I also managed to find somewhere to get my hair cut (finally, I think the last haircut I had was in November!) so that's another tick in the box for getting myself organised. Taunton isn't the centre of the universe (hardly!) but actually I'm enjoying finding my way around and reacquainting myself with what's on offer. I'm also loving the surrounding countryside, with hills, beaches and everything in between it's proving to be very satisfying indeed.

Tea Monster!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bank Holiday sunshine

Off to meet FiFi and Grumps for a walk  (and yes, she is on the seat) Finally after weeks of rain and cold weather, the tide has turned and we have glorious sunshine for the bank holiday weekend and half term - hooray, it's about time.  Also just in time is half term as the kids were definitely ready for a break. They have both done brilliantly settling into the school, making new friends and finding their feet in an unfamiliar environment. Izzy has just had her exam week and felt it went OK given she hadn't covered all of the syllabus, and Abi's exams start as soon as she is back next week. I hope she's done some revision as she left for Devon with Claire, Adam and Mia today and isn't back until Saturday. There is talk of looking at some of her notes but who knows. My view is that a bit of R&R will probably be at least as beneficial if not more so than cramming all week so she should take the time to relax and have some fun - she deserves it. So we packed Abi o...
Post a Comment
Read more