Cats and Renovations

Things are definitely coming along nicely with the house.  You might not think it from the photos, but we've made a huge amount of progress recently!  We had the plumbers in on Monday, redoing all the pipework in the house and Thursday/Friday we had the electricians, who have done all the ground work and now just need to fit plug sockets and light switches.  The electrics have been a huge job, so it's a relief to have that nearly finished.

We ourselves had quite a productive day at the house yesterday, trying to get as much done in the kitchen as possible before it's delivered on Monday or Tuesday.  The kitchen fitter is in tomorrow to do some plastering to cover up the electricity tracks in the walls.  It's all go go go!  Things seem to have really sped up this week!

We're now officially back in lockdown, but other than not being able to go out for a coffee, life hasn't changed much for Mum, Dad and I.  I'm still at school, and we're still renovating the house and going to B&Q.  Matt's still at work too, but can no longer play football at the weekends, go to the gym or go to the pub, so things have changed the most for him.  I'm fine with the lockdown, but can't really understand why the government didn't close schools down for an extended break over half term.  That made perfect sense to me!  Instead, I ended up working 6 hour days with the half term club, with kids from 5 different schools!  I'm glad it's over, because to be honest I wasn't particularly happy being there with so many children.  I wore my face mask for the entire week, but was the only one who did.  Now it's back to 2 or 3 hours in the afternoons, with the same group of 5 children, so I feel much better.  I'll continue up until the Christmas holidays and then start my maternity leave!  It's creeping up on us so quickly!

 

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!

 

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!

Football, cats, house and scan

Matt is currently playing his second match for his local Sunday league team, the Hordle Spurs.  I went to watch his first match last weekend, which they won 3-2, although Matt did manage to get a yellow card!

Work this week has been fine, although a child with a snotty nose managed to accidentally wack me in the face/mouth on Wednesday and so now I have a horrible cold.  There really is only so much you can do to avoid getting sick at this time of year.

Mum and I went to Haskins Garden centre yesterday to meet Hayley and Maureen, which was absolutely lovely.  They are the first friends I have seen since February!  It's amazing how quickly time goes!

There have been lots of cat cuddles recently, now that the weather is getting a bit chillier, Snowball especially likes to come under the covers for a snuggle in the morning.  Snowy has been sick quite a few times recently, so we're taking him to the vets tomorrow.  Fingers crossed everything will be OK.

We now have new windows in the house, and a lovely new combi boiler.  The kitchen has been pretty much ripped out, either by the boiler installers or Matt, who did a bit of smashing up yesterday.  Progress is being made!

and all is well with our lovely little one, who has its 20 week scan on Monday.  Here it is holding it's foot, while moments before it had been sticking up it's middle finger at us!

 

House Update

A very busy week of meeting plumbers, builders and fireplace removal men to get what feels like hundreds of quotes for our moneypit of a house!  Every new person who comes in says something along the lines of 'blimey, you've got a lot of work to do', then tells me something that's wrong with the house that I hadn't even vaguely considered might be a problem.  Jobs that I thought would be difficult, like removing the fireplace, seem quite straight forward, yet jobs that I thought would be easy peasy, like replacing the toilet, are really complicated.  Oh well, it will get done eventually, and we may as well make a good job of it.  It can only increase the value of the house, so anything we spend is really an investment.

Mum and I have done a bit of hole-filling and some sanding in the baby's room and some of the wood has gone off to the dump.  Upstairs is mostly just a decorating project.  Mum and I went to IKEA on Tuesday to get some ideas, so i've been designing soft furnishings for various rooms all week, which has been fun.

I had two half-day INSETS this week.  I'm back at after school club from tomorrow.  Matt went back for INSETS on Tuesday and then the students came back in on Thursday.  It's been very full on for him.  Long days and so many new names, faces and ways of working.  Still, he's doing well - he was at the pub with some new colleagues on Friday night, and then out with his new football team training and then watching/drinking at another match.  He seems to be making friends easily as usual, which is wonderful.

Today has been more of a chill-out recovery day for him.  Mum and Dad have gone away in the van for a few days and we've spent the afternoon playing with the cats and watching the Formula 1, while Matt slow-roasts some beef to have a roast dinner later.

Here are some photos of our pets noses.  I was going for a nose-in-focus, the rest of the photo out of focus look.  My friend's cat died this week - he was very old - and she posted a photo online of his paw print.  It made me want to document the details of the cats, when usually it is the whole cat in each photo I take.  Their noses are my favourite part of Sooty and Snowball.  Snowball's pink nose, with it's gorgeous line down to his mouth is so cute.  And Sooty; every time I go to give him a kiss on the head, he looks up at me and we bump noses instead.  He always gives me a lovely meow too and I just love it.  So, you're probably thinking that i'm a very strange person by now, but anyway, there we are... cat noses.