Sunday, 18 October 2020

Paint Party!


We had a bit of a painting party last week, with Matt's parents coming to stay for a few days.  We were all on a mission to get the baby's room and our bedroom painted and ready to go.  The baby's room was really blue, so it took a good few coats of paint to cover, but everyone worked really hard and those two rooms are now finished, apart from getting the plug sockets changed.  Mum and I even bought curtains and a bed spread for the main bedroom today, so that when it comes time to move in, we will be well and truely ready to go!



It was so nice having Matt's parents here - we've barely seen them since coming back from China because of all the restrictions.  Their area has just gone into Tier 2, so no more paint parties for us for a while.

Things in the new house are coming along slowly but surely.  We've had some quotes from electricians to rewire the house and we need to get all the pipework redone, since it's not made of copper and is therefore rusting from the inside out.  That may mean a new bathroom possibly too.  We had the house measured for new carpet/flooring yesterday and the carpet man discovered damp under the floor in the kitchen, but it doesn't sound like it should be too tricky to fix.  Still, it's just one thing after another with this house, aka, 'the moneypit'.  Like we keep telling ourselves, it will be wonderful when it's finished.

I am off to buy the new kitchen on Tuesday next week, which is exciting!



Otherwise, life continues in it's usual/unusual way of modern times, as the days begin to get darker and the cat snuggles get cozier and longer.



For International Teacher's day, Matt was featured on his school's website with this photo of him with all his appreciation letters from his students.



We've been going for walks in the forest, and Matt's been playing football with his Sunday league team.  He got washing duty last week, and I just had to take a photo of all the kits drying on the line.


We also got a new car this week.  Matt picked it up on Friday morning.  It's lovely and quiet and has plenty of space.  It's a kind of burgundy/purple/browny colour, so it's called Merlin the Merlot.


Mum and I needed a boost on Saturday afternoon after I'd spent the morning at the house scraping paint of the downstairs walls, so we went to look at the Christmas decorations at the local garden centre.  They had such lovely pumpkins on display too!  I know it's a bit early to be looking at Christmas things, and much much earlier than we normally go to the garden centre, but I think everyone is wondering if/when we're going to go into lockdown again, so we need to get our Christmas shopping under way now!



 

Sunday, 4 October 2020

Week 23


It's week 23, not of isolating, or coronavirus, or anything horrible for that matter, but of my pregnancy.  My goodness, time is moving along quickly.  We seriously need to get the house finished and I feel like we're making good progress, but not quick enough!

We had the fireplace removed and it looks great.  The upstairs is nearly ready to start painting and we have various electricians, kitchen people and carpet people booked in over the next couple of weeks.


Here's Snowball having an explore outside.  He loves it.  Sooty just sits next to the open door and looks out, but he doesn't venture far.  He did make a run for a bird last week, but was miles away from catching it.  Now he sits with the door pulled a bit more closed, so that he has to go around it and hasn't got a straight line of sight to the bird table!

We had 5 days of isolating last week because Matt got a cough.  He is fine and his Covid test came back negative, but considering he is a teacher and should be a 'priority case', it took ages for the test results to come back.  Thank goodness he is fine and we didn't have to isolate for 2 weeks!  It did mean that I missed a full day of work, as well as the next two afternoons.  My school had an INSET day, which meant that our club was open for a full day.  I had done all the planning for an Archaeology themed day, so was disappointed to miss it.  My colleagues decided not to do the theme, because I was looking forward to it so much!  So now, we'll have an archaeology week during half term instead. Yay!

Otherwise, not too much has been going on.  Life continues in 'the new normal' way!