I've got a new job.
It's basically the same job as I'm doing now, but with a new company. I'm hoping to start from the end of next month.
What with study leave and holiday I only have 4 days left of my old job.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Helen's Froggies!
We were looking after Helen's animals last week and I couldn't resist taking some photos! They are so small and cute.
Unfortunately when we went over for dinner last night the top of the tank had been breached and it seems that since they've been home their cats have got a taste for frogs!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Ta Da!
We finally have one half of the kitchen worktops finished. We installed the sink on Saturday and apart from some slight issues it all works perfectly. I'm really happy with how it looks. Just need to finish the rest of it now! 
Helen and Alan came over for a picnic in our garden on Sunday. It was nice as we haven't seen them in a while. Ethan had great fun playing with the croquet set. I have to wish them congratulations as Helen had her 12 week scan on Monday and they are expecting their second child at the end of November. They have now gone off to Greece so we are in charge of watering the flowers, and feeding the cats and the rabbit and the Guinea Pig and the froggies!
I am writing this on the train on my new sparkling Asus eee PC. It's a tiny diddy laptop that runs on Linux. It can be installed with windows but it's quicker without and I don't really need it. It runs all windows files and programmes and it works on our windows network at home. It has more RAM than our main PC!!! I watched hustle on it this morning it was very good! It also has a SD card reader so I can put the pictures from my camera on my blog without needing to find the card reader.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Grrrrr! Or some other frustrated noise!
We had a very frustrating weekend. We had the electrician man around to fit the new electric hob on Saturday while I was at my revision course. The hob got fitted ok, but when he was running the new cable he found that the people who did our house before had nailed the floorboard down and stuck the nail through a live plug socket cable. It was very lucky that we did not use that socket as they had also left all the sawdust from hollowing out the beam to run the cable which would have caught fire from the sparks from the wire and caused a fire under our bed! So that is all fixed now and all the other electrics checked and safe!
Sunday we went to fit the sink but the Ikea waste fittings didn't quite fit our existing pipes and Homebase didn't sell a converter (by this point it was also 3:40 so a mad dash to B&Q was out of the question) so we had to file the pipe to fit! Then the flexi pipes that came with the tap didn't have thread on the screw so we couldn't fit that either! They are sending out a replacement part which is good, but we are without a sink for a bit longer. Of course that means that minimal washing up has been done in the bathroom sink for the past 10 days so I am running out of pans! Plus bacause the waste hasn't been fitted we haven't got a washing machine so we're running out of clean clothes too!
Then I got the summer duvet out the attic to find it was all wet because we have a leak in our roof! We have some broken tiles I think because it goes chink when I poke the felt. We had a bloke out last night who said it was a few broken tiles under the flashing round the chimney. The flashing and the top tile also hadn't been fitted quite properly so the flashing is leaking and then the water is running through the broken tiles. The price he gave was a lot more reasonable than we expected but we have a second bloke coming round at the weekend to have a look. The good news is that all the rest of the tiles look to be in good condition and we don't need a new roof!
On the plus side though my revision course was really good.
Sunday we went to fit the sink but the Ikea waste fittings didn't quite fit our existing pipes and Homebase didn't sell a converter (by this point it was also 3:40 so a mad dash to B&Q was out of the question) so we had to file the pipe to fit! Then the flexi pipes that came with the tap didn't have thread on the screw so we couldn't fit that either! They are sending out a replacement part which is good, but we are without a sink for a bit longer. Of course that means that minimal washing up has been done in the bathroom sink for the past 10 days so I am running out of pans! Plus bacause the waste hasn't been fitted we haven't got a washing machine so we're running out of clean clothes too!
Then I got the summer duvet out the attic to find it was all wet because we have a leak in our roof! We have some broken tiles I think because it goes chink when I poke the felt. We had a bloke out last night who said it was a few broken tiles under the flashing round the chimney. The flashing and the top tile also hadn't been fitted quite properly so the flashing is leaking and then the water is running through the broken tiles. The price he gave was a lot more reasonable than we expected but we have a second bloke coming round at the weekend to have a look. The good news is that all the rest of the tiles look to be in good condition and we don't need a new roof!
On the plus side though my revision course was really good.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Congratulations to Gemma and Marc
Ollie's sister Gemma had her 20 week scan yesterday and found out that everything is fine and they are expecting their 4th boy!
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Progress
We have been so very busy this weekend.
Friday night we headed off to Ikea (again!) as I finished work early for the bank holiday weekend. Only to be told that the person who does the custom made worktops had left at half 8! (It was about 9:15 by this time as we had been round Lakeside and had Wagamamas for dinner.) So we called the manager to complain and he agreed that it wasn’t our fault that the staff weren’t available and said that he would take the details and get someone to put it through in the morning and he would do it free of charge. I’m not sure if we will get it free, but at least it’s now ordered as there is currently a 4-6 week waiting time.
Saturday morning I cracked on with the second coat of paint on the kitchen cupboards and then headed upstairs to demolish my wardrobe and install the second hanging rail instead of having drawers. I did have to improvise a bit as it wasn’t really designed for the wardrobes we have but it still works and now my clothes are all put away and hung up instead of being screwed up everywhere. I’ve also had a big clear out and thrown a lot of old stuff away and put some on ebay. Please have a look and buy something here! The new oven was delivered and as it has a plug we could just swap it straight over with the old one.
Sunday morning we were up early as Nan and Granddad popped in on their way to their holidays. They said 10 and arrived at 9:15! Luckily we were up and about but hadn’t actually got round to getting dressed. Then we put the door back on the cupboard and made dad a cake as we were going to a BBQ for his birthday Sunday evening. Ollie had been given cake mix and food colouring from work on Friday so we tested it out. This was the result…
We were going for orange for the icing but I slipped with the pink! I think dad appreciated it, even if mum had already made a chocolate birthday cake and fruit salad and Laura had brought Jelly! We must learn to communicate better…
It was also a good test for my new oven. I must say it is excellent! It’s amazing what a difference having an oven with a working thermostat makes! It also has a timer so I can put it to come on to cook dinner so it is ready for when we get home. We did have to wait for 20 minutes in the queue for the tip to get rid of the old one. I have also arranged for the new hob to be fitted next Saturday.
The BBQ was really good. The first one of the year so far, hopefully many more to come afterwards!
Monday was all hands on deck to get the kitchen ready for the new hob to be fitted. It meant stripping out the old worktop and appliances and getting the new worktop ready. This is what the kitchen looked at the beginning of the day…
And this is what it looked like at 7:30 in the evening!
It was really hard work. And considering we only had a millimetre margin of error on the hole for the hob I think we’ve done really well. We’ve had to bash a hole in the wall to make it straight (it will be tiled so you won’t notice). Unfortunately the sink waste from Ikea was missing all the accessories so we’ve got to go back on Wednesday to exchange it. Plus I’ve had to buy a tap off Ebay as everywhere was sold out of the tap we wanted. So we’re without a sink and a hob for a week, but I’m sure we’ll cope!
Friday night we headed off to Ikea (again!) as I finished work early for the bank holiday weekend. Only to be told that the person who does the custom made worktops had left at half 8! (It was about 9:15 by this time as we had been round Lakeside and had Wagamamas for dinner.) So we called the manager to complain and he agreed that it wasn’t our fault that the staff weren’t available and said that he would take the details and get someone to put it through in the morning and he would do it free of charge. I’m not sure if we will get it free, but at least it’s now ordered as there is currently a 4-6 week waiting time.
Saturday morning I cracked on with the second coat of paint on the kitchen cupboards and then headed upstairs to demolish my wardrobe and install the second hanging rail instead of having drawers. I did have to improvise a bit as it wasn’t really designed for the wardrobes we have but it still works and now my clothes are all put away and hung up instead of being screwed up everywhere. I’ve also had a big clear out and thrown a lot of old stuff away and put some on ebay. Please have a look and buy something here! The new oven was delivered and as it has a plug we could just swap it straight over with the old one.
Sunday morning we were up early as Nan and Granddad popped in on their way to their holidays. They said 10 and arrived at 9:15! Luckily we were up and about but hadn’t actually got round to getting dressed. Then we put the door back on the cupboard and made dad a cake as we were going to a BBQ for his birthday Sunday evening. Ollie had been given cake mix and food colouring from work on Friday so we tested it out. This was the result…
We were going for orange for the icing but I slipped with the pink! I think dad appreciated it, even if mum had already made a chocolate birthday cake and fruit salad and Laura had brought Jelly! We must learn to communicate better…
It was also a good test for my new oven. I must say it is excellent! It’s amazing what a difference having an oven with a working thermostat makes! It also has a timer so I can put it to come on to cook dinner so it is ready for when we get home. We did have to wait for 20 minutes in the queue for the tip to get rid of the old one. I have also arranged for the new hob to be fitted next Saturday.
The BBQ was really good. The first one of the year so far, hopefully many more to come afterwards!
Monday was all hands on deck to get the kitchen ready for the new hob to be fitted. It meant stripping out the old worktop and appliances and getting the new worktop ready. This is what the kitchen looked at the beginning of the day…
And this is what it looked like at 7:30 in the evening!
It was really hard work. And considering we only had a millimetre margin of error on the hole for the hob I think we’ve done really well. We’ve had to bash a hole in the wall to make it straight (it will be tiled so you won’t notice). Unfortunately the sink waste from Ikea was missing all the accessories so we’ve got to go back on Wednesday to exchange it. Plus I’ve had to buy a tap off Ebay as everywhere was sold out of the tap we wanted. So we’re without a sink and a hob for a week, but I’m sure we’ll cope!
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