Kelly's Blog

Garden

2011-10-09T22:02:00.001+01:00

Ever since we moved in we have hated the huge monstrosity between our garden and next door. It blocks out all the light and harbours more than one family of snails.

Before photo

Next door started trimming their side back, so we started trimming our side and before we knew it we were talking to next door about getting rid of it completely.

We started removing some at the end of the garden and next door finished the job off during the week.

It took us 10 trips to the tip the weekend to get rid of all of the debris but the garden looks so much open now. I can't believe how much space we've gained. Next door is going to help us put up some willow screening next weekend (well actually helping Ollie, as I will be at work). Then we just need to get rid of the flowerbed so we can actually have room to sit on the patio.

Hottest October since Record Breakers ended

2011-10-09T21:53:00.000+01:00

We had one last weekend of glorious weather for the summer (or should I say one weekend of glorious weather in the summer). As Nigel was home we had arranged a couple of things with him and Sarah. The first was a night out in Croydon, our first since moving here 18 months ago. Sara and Keira joined us and we had a few drinks in Yates and then moved on to Reflex, the 80s nightclub. I must say, there are some very funny looking people who go out in Croydon on a Friday night! Still a great night was had by all and we danced until the wee hours of the morning. I must say that the evening was only marred by the lack of kebab shops open at 1:30 on a Saturday morning so I had to come home and make us all cheese on toast!

We were booked in to do a wine and wisdom on Saturday night in Faversham. We had planned to go down at lunch time and make the most of the weather in the pub garden. Unfortunately Nigel banned that idea as he said we would be in no fit state to answer the quiz questions. So after a rather yummy pub lunch we went for a 'walk'. This turned out to be a six mile hike across the Kent countryside. It was a bit hot but very enjoyable to be walking in the sunshine.

There was no food provided at the wine and wisdom so we had all organised a piece of dinner. We were the only table to turn up with a full 3 course meal, even if Paul misunderstood when we said we needed spoons for desert and we ended up with 2 spoons between 8 of us!

The questions were aimed at people about 20 years older than us so needless to say we didn't do too well. We became the rowdy table in the corner instead. We didn't come last though, managing to languish mid table. A professional quiz team had managed to sneak past the invigilators and they won the Kentish apple juice, but were very ungracious, leaving as they picked up their prize and throwing their raffle prizes in the bin! How rude! If you don't want it at least throw it away at home!

New Fish

2011-10-09T21:20:00.000+01:00

My tank was ready for fish a couple of weeks before my birthday. Ollie went and got the first ones from our local fish shop while I was at work as he had a day off. He got 3 white Mollys and 2 Ottos.

The Mollys spent the first 2 weeks hiding in the log refusing to come out. They would only stick their noses out to eat whatever food fell their way.

We decided that part of their problem was the fact that they are community fish and they didn't really have a community. As the water levels were holding out ok, we went to get the next batch - 5 cherry barbs.

3 days after we brought them home one of the Mollys gave birth to more than 30 baby fishes. They were so very cute! I've never managed to breed fish before so it was a major shock! So far all of the babies have survived and a week later we had another smaller batch from the other female Molly. The tank is now completely overstocked and we had a third batch of babies last Thursday! Luckily the local fish shop has agreed to take them back - I just need to catch them! We're thinking that we may want to get a fish that will eat the fry if we have any more - the Mollys are supposed to eat their own fry but ours don't seem interested.

Brian is still very interested in the fish. He hasn't quite worked out a plan to get past the 'force field' yet though.

Liz and Nic's birthday party

2011-10-09T20:08:00.000+01:00

Liz and Nic had a 50s themed party for their 30th birthdays. It was fun to see all the outfits and Ethan looked so cute dressed up just like his daddy!

I'm especially pleased with this last photo having played with the manual settings on the camera enough to take a half decent photo in really low light levels!

Birthday Party

2011-10-09T19:48:00.000+01:00

It was my 30th Birthday in September and I had a bit of a party to celebrate. We hired a hall at the community centre by Mum and Dads. Lynn and Ian brought their speakers so I could play my own music and mum and I spent 2 days baking cakes and other goodies.

Gemma helped make a mountain of sandwiches that was far too many to be honest.

We all had a great evening dancing away. Sebastian, Harvey, Dylan, Zach and Ryan had fun playing with the balloons. Finley enjoyed his first ever party and slow dance with Granddad. We had a great time teaching Ethan and Niamh the moves to YMCA and Grease.

Finished Lounge

2011-08-21T21:19:00.000+01:00

We finally got round to putting the new blinds up in the lounge. Unfortunately when we opened the box with the big rail we were missing all of the component parts. Luckily I called on Monday morning and the new bits were delivered Tuesday with no argument about the fact that it had been 4 months since they were delivered.

It looks so much nicer with clean blinds rather than the old manky ones.

I also have my new fish tank all set up and ready. Ollie got it for me for my birthday. It's growing fish friendly bacteria at the moment, but it will definitely be ready for some fish before my birthday.

What's wrong with these people?

2011-08-09T10:30:00.000+01:00

Watching the news last night with all the rioting in Croydon along with the awful fires was bad enough. We had also been following twitter to keep up with all the scaremongering, attempting to incite people as well as updates on where had been hit (there is only so much the BBC and Sky News helicopters can cover)

Our area kept being mentioned, but as they had suspended all transport in and out the area it seemed unlikely to materialise. Unfortunately we were wrong and at just gone 3am this morning the thugs managed to set fire to the co-op in our parade of shops. (There was also reports of the Lidl being hit but that looked fine). The chicken place had their shutters ripped off and the glass panel in the door kicked out. The good news is that this seems to be the extent of the damage - our local independent stores seem to be ok. Martin's the newsagents is alright which is good as they only just replaced the whole of the front of their shop after a ram raid at the beginning of the year.

When Ollie headed off to work just after 5:30 this morning he came face to face with 6 fire engines including one from Northolt some 27 miles away. All the trams were suspended (the track and overhead lines caught fire at Reeves corner where the furniture shop burnt down in the town centre anyway so I doubt they would have been running a normal service anyway)

There were a LOT of angry people out when I had a wonder down for some fresh air and to see if I had any hope of getting a gift voucher for Sebastian's birthday tomorrow (I am off sick with Gastritus, never have I been so glad to be sick so I didn't have to worry about fighting my way into work). These angry people included a lot of angry young people who don't want to be associated with the trouble makers and a worrying large quantity of people with very scary looking dogs! I'm worried that if it kicks off tonight there will be an angry mob waiting to 'sort 'em aauut' as I overheard one particularly scary looking bunch claim. I can't say that I blame them and yes, we should stand up to these people but I can only see this making the police's job even harder and leading to more casualties, more problems for A&E and less access for the fire brigade when the fires are started.

Anyway, here are the ugly scenes - the flats above ARE residential and they are occupied. I sincerely hope that everyone made it out ok.

Camping with the Keebles

2011-08-08T17:39:00.000+01:00

The weekend before last saw us packing up our camping gear and heading off to sunny Folkestone for a weekend away with Gemma, Marc, the boys at the site where Ian and Carole have a static caravan. We had added several pieces to our camping gear to make us more self sufficient including a camping stove, kettle, table and funky new moon chairs.

The weekend didn't get off to the best start as I was almost taken out on the M20 by a foreign lorry and unfortunately the postcode for the campsite doesn't actually take you to the location of the campsite when you plug it into your satnav. After a couple of phone calls to Gemma and several wrong turnings I finally arrived! Ollie caught the high speed train after work and me and Gemma picked him up from the station after a trip to Sainsburys for essentials. (Chocolate buttons and cake!)

The site was lovely. Nothing like I was expecting. When Ollie told me that the campsite was halfway up a cliff I was really worried. We've done camping by the sea with no protection from the wind and it wasn't fun! But this was completely different. The site was broken up into tiny areas on loads of different levels, all protected by trees and shrubs and felt very private. The views were amazing.

Friday night we pitched our tent and had a very nice BBQ. Unfortunately the guys pitched just above us also had a very nice BBQ and a few bevvies and were making noise until gone 3am! Then the boys got up at just after 5 so all in all very little sleep was had.

We were still determined to make the most of the day though and packed up our picnic and headed off to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway. I hadn't been since I was small and there were lots that I hadn't seen.

We went in the model railway at New Romney and then hopped on the train to Dungeness.

We thoroughly upset some miserable old bid by getting in a carriage with her and she huffed about it all the way to Dungeness before trying to get out before the train had stopped, managing to shut her head in the door as she did so!

We stayed on the train back to New Romney to eat our picnic in the play park.

It was then back on the train towards Hythe. We decided that we didn't want to spend the extra 40 minutes on the train for 20 minutes watching the turntable so got off at Dymchurch leaving Ian, Carole and Zach on the train. We spent a fun 45 minutes putting 2ps in the machines in the amusement arcade. Harvey managed to win the phone charm I had been working on.

Then it was off to the beach. We hadn't got any beach gear so we sat and had a drink and a snack and the boys went off with Marc and Ollie to play long jump across the breakwater. I had to have a go as well but managed to loose my sunnies on my first jump and stamped on them while trying to avoid them. Luckily the sand was soft and they just sunk, no damage done.

Donkeys on the beach

Once we had meet Ian, Carole and Zach it was time to hop back on the train and go home for our fish and chips for tea. We walked off our fish and chip supper by a climb to the top of the cliff. It was quite hard going as it is quite steep in places, but the views from the top were amazing.

It's a long way up!

While we were out some Eastern Europeans had moved into the pitch next door and we were a bit worried about all the coolers full of beer and the giant fire pit. However, there was nothing to worry about as they went to bed quite early and as the owners of the site had a quiet word in the ear of the noisy lads it was a very peaceful night all round.

Sunday we had decided to go and get some exercise, so after we had packed up our pitch we headed off to the tennis courts. Marc and I won the first set and the second set was called a draw after we were tied on games and the last game kept going from advantage to deuce and back again. Ollie, Gem and I left the others to go for a round of golf while we headed to Sainsburys for more picnic supplies.

Baby Finley

2011-08-05T19:12:00.000+01:00

Baby Finley was born at 8pm on Friday 15th July after a long labour. Weighing in at 7lbs 3 he's a little cutie. His feet don't even reach the end of his baby grow bless him.

We had to wait a week before we could visit as Paul was visiting from Ireland and had the car but it was well worth the wait.

He seemed to like cuddles with his auntie Kelly (he cried a bit when I had to hand him back to Grandma so I could drink my tea)

Laura assures me that he loves the elephant that I made for him. The elephant will have to wait for a name as I've said that Finley has to name it when he is big enough. Plus they have to keep it well away from Bailey dog in case he thinks it belongs to him!

Ice Cream on the Common

2011-08-03T21:55:00.000+01:00

Ian kindly arranged tickets for the Ben and Jerry's Sundae on the Common festival at Clapham Common.

Luckily it coincided with Nigel's leave from the ship and was a great opportunity for us all to get together and celebrate his recent engagement to Sarah. Congratulations guys!

We got there just as the doors opened at 12, but decided not we wouldn't risk the festival food and headed to the pub for lunch instead. I think we might have been better off with the festival food as Sarah had paella a bit later on as she didn't fancy the pub food and it looked much better than the overpriced sandwiches we had in the pub.

We helped ourselves to free ice cream when we went in for our desert as the queues weren't too long. They had lots of ice cream tents with different flavours so one of the first jobs was to scout out which flavours were in what locations!

We then sat down on Nigel's picnic rug to listen to the music. We weren't too sure about the African music at the start or even Steve Craddock. But Ash and Ocean Colour Scene were excellent and we even saw James Buckley (Jay from the Inbetweeners) play with Steve Craddock and OCS.

Nigel had a nap and as nobody had a sharpie handy for a fake 'tash and we made him a Madonna bra out of ice cream wrappers!

The queues for ice cream got longer and longer and we had to queue for over half an hour for the cookie dough ice cream! I did manage to get 7 while I was there though (1 for everybody, not 7 just for me!) by telling the ice cream server that I had left the kids outside the tent!!!

The day was rounded off nicely by a trip to gourmet burger which I must say was one of the best we've had.

Shed!

2011-06-08T17:42:00.000+01:00

We got a shed when it was on offer from Sainsbury's just before Easter. We painted it to preserve the wood and it's been sitting in bits in the garden ever since.

Ollie started dismantling the old shed at 9 in the morning while I started sorting out all of the screws. As expected we were missing some screws so I was dispatched to the hardware store on my way to the dentist.

By the time I was home half an hour later Ollie had already dismantled most of the old shed and after helping him dispatch the rest of it we set about levelling the base. This was harder than we had anticipated as the base for the existing sheds were in no way level. Several bricks and paving slabs later we had a level(ish) surface to lay the base onto.

Many many hours of assembling later (almost 300 screws, plus nails and tacks) and only the minimum of breaks for lunch and dinner we finally put the final piece on at 9 in the evening. We still need to put the catches on the doors, but we were far too achy today and besides it keeps raining! We have been outside to check the waterproofness of the roof and it seems to be sound, sturdy and it's huge inside! I'm very pleased with the end result.

The only remaining problem is that we now have many many pieces of old shed in a pile in the garden that need to be disposed of!

Camping

2011-06-08T17:14:00.000+01:00

We came home from Ireland Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning we were back out on the road down to the New Forest for a few days camping with Helen, Alan and the piggies. We had left the organising to Alan so all we had was the postcode of the campsite! We timed our departure just right and met up with the Sharmans at Fleet services for a KFC lunch.

Alan ignored the Sat-Nav on the way down which turned out to be a good thing as his route kept us to the motorways and main roads instead of the small country roads through the New Forest. The campsite turned out to be an old airfield and was the largest that we had been to. Unlike all our previous campsites there were no fixed pitches and we hadn't been allocated an area so had to choose all by ourselves! After looking at the map we picked an area we thought looked ok and headed over. On stopping Helen was a bit worried about the distance from the toilet block so we said we would drive round to the other side to see if there was a suitable pitch somewhere closer. However, on the way there Alan saw a good spot and headed straight for it, just about as far away from the toilet block as you could possibly get!

Wednesday was a trip out to Paulton's Park to visit the newly opened Peppa Pig world. It was quite expensive for what it was and being half term was absolutely packed with really long queues.

We went for a ride on the train

After spending a while at the Peppa land we had some overpriced lunch (No one had remembered to pack a picnic) and headed over to the grown up rides. Ethan loved the grown up rides and couldn't get enough the little thrill seeker!

Ollie won the race down the bumpy slide

Niamh was feeling a little left out though so while we queued for the rollercoaster, Helen took her back to Peppa. After a couple of rides on the huge slide it was time to head back to the tent via Sainsbury's for 3 types of steak for our BBQ!

Thursday it was our turn to pick the entertainment and as Ollie had never been to Portsmouth to see the boats we headed off to the historic dockyard. This time we had remembered our picnic so we had cheese sandwiches on the boat ride around the harbour. We saw lots of ships, old and new including 2 boats containing shipments of bananas. We had just missed the US aircraft carrier that had been docked just outside the harbour the weekend before. We looked around the HMS Victory and then had ice creams before playing for a bit in Action Stations which is the educational area before heading back to our tents.

Dinner was a well deserved take away from the local Indian take away which Ollie and Alan went while we took the kids to the play park.

Ireland

2011-06-08T16:34:00.000+01:00

It was Anna's birthday on bank holiday Sunday so we headed over to Ireland to celebrate with her.

We had booked flights early in the morning from Stansted so we treated ourselves to a hotel at the airport the night before.

Friday afternoon we had a walk around the town fighting periods of rain, drizzle and wind. We dropped Anna's birthday cake off to the bakers who were going to ice it and had a nice cup of tea and a cake while we were there!

Saturday we headed into Dublin to the Guinness factory. I had been very disappointed that the last time we visited Ireland I didn't get my pint of the black stuff so was determined to make amends this time. It was quite busy with a few stag do's but was very educational and we got a have a pint in the sky bar with a great view over Dublin.

We had wanted to visit Kilmainham Gaol (where they filmed the prison scene in the Italian Job) but they were only doing toured visits, the queue was long, the next tour was a long wait and it was expensive. So we went to meet Paul and Anna in the modern art museum across the road. We must admit that it wasn't really our things and after a wonder around we settled for a cup of tea and a cake and sat outside to take advantage of a period of sunshine and break in rain.

Dinner was a great meal in a traditional pub on the way home and we were there just in time for the second half of the champions league final.

Sunday was Anna's birthday and after a breakfast of egg and bacon we spent the morning lazing around before getting ready for the birthday lunch. This was at a very nice hotel about 20 minutes away and we were joined by Anna's son Simon and her daughter Karla, Karla's boyfriend, Paul and Anna's neighbour Mary Theresa and Anna's sister Ilene. After lunch we headed home for cake and champagne and then spent the rest of the day reading our books and trying to digest all the food we had eaten!

Kitchen alterations

2011-03-27T21:40:00.001+01:00

A few weeks ago I bought a new spice rack and jars because I had too many extra spices in the cupboard. A simple addition to the kitchen, I thought. I had even picked out the space that I thought it could go and measured it to check that it fitted.

Ollie, however had other grand plans which involved moving cupboards and trimming tiles so the spice rack has stayed in the box until the grand plans could be put into action. That was this weekend. The plans were slightly scaled down when I suggested that we could probably just lose a cupboard and distribute the items into the other cupboards and then we wouldn't have to move the large cabinet or the tiles. We could then also fit in some shelves for my cookbooks and dispensers for the cling-film and foil. So off to Ikea we went to get shelf units and dispensers.

Yesterday we put up the speakers in the kitchen. It's really nifty as I can now listen to music in the kitchen while Ollie is watching TV or playing games in the lounge. We also put up the dispensers for the cling-film and the foil. Unfortunately I did not realise that they came in different lengths and the ones we have are too long for the dispensers!!! Ollie sawed a couple of centimetres off the roll of foil, but that didn't work with the cling-film.

Today we put up the shelf units for the cookbook, I am really pleased with these and now I don't have to keep carting books up and down the stairs whenever I cook.

Unfortunately, when we got the new spice rack out the box we realised that they had changed the design. Unlike my existing one which can be screwed to the wall or attach hooks for use with the rail, the new one can only be used with the rail. Ok, no problem we thought, we have the hooks and the rail from when we bought the first one.

I went up in the attic to get the hooks and the rail, but you can't get 2 spice racks on the small rail that I have and the gap we have isn't quite big enough for our 2 rails side by side. So when we go back to Ikea we'll have to get the medium sized rail to put the racks on. In the meantime I've gone from 1 spice rack to no spice rack (the books went in the gap where the original one was)

I made something useful!

2011-03-27T20:50:00.000+01:00

After finding my sewing machine in the attic the first job was to make a new peg bag. We've had an old peg bag that nan made for years but the hook fell off and it wasn't worth attempting to dismantle it and replace the hanger so I made a new one from the pattern in one of the sewing books I had got.

I did have a minor issue with the pattern in that I didn't check to see if I had a hanger the same as they used in the book so we had to make a minor adjustment to a plastic hanger I did have!

I am pleased with the result. The fabric is all from Ikea. Here it is in use with pegs in it!

Lounge update

2011-02-05T21:29:00.000Z

The lounge is coming along nicely, we had the skirting, doors and lights finished before we went to Disney. I varnished the lounge door last Saturday.

As the pebble dash walls were still not dry when we came home from Disney we decided to put the radiator back on to get some heat in the room. Unfortunately this left the system with not enough pressure for the boiler to work at all. No heating, no hot water. Friday morning I was on the phone to the plumber to try and find out how we top up the system. Friday evening we finally worked it out when Ollie found another booklet in our boiler papers on the filling loop. We still had the plumber come out today to give the boiler it's annual service and to check we hadn't done any damage.

Today I did the first coat of paint on the ceiling and the first coat of gloss on the woodwork.

Disneyland Day in the Park

2011-02-05T21:00:00.000Z

After the disappointment over our dinner the night before, the park had a lot to make up for to make our trip worthwhile!

Luckily our breakfast was included so we didn't have to shell out for that put the day off to a good start. We made our way over to the park. The day before had been clear and sunny and although cold it was fairly pleasant for January. As we stepped outside we noticed it was remarkably colder although Ollie was confident that it would warm up later and kept to only one layer of coat.

Entry into the park using our extra hours went smoothly enough and although there isn't much open before 10, it didn't really matter as we had anticipated this and we didn't get into the park until 9:30. We hadn't really done much research on rides, so we picked the first one we saw that was open. This happened to be the Buzz Lightyear fight against emperor Zorg. You had to sit in a space ship with a laser gun and shoot the baddies. You then got a score at the end. It was brilliant! Ollie scored more than me of course, but I had loads of fun.

Ride 2 was Space Mountain 2, this is a roller coaster in the dark and starts by propelling you up a slope (as an imitation of blasting you into space). This was probably the 2nd best ride of the whole day, and probably the only ride of a decent length. We came off not being able to walk in a straight line and with eyes streaming from the biting wind.

After this we went on the Star Wars simulator. This was completely lost on me, not being a Star Wars fan. I didn't like being thrown around in the hot tiny box and came off feeling extremely queasy.

Next was over to Frontierland and the haunted house (probably scary if you are 3!) before Big Thunder Mountain. By now it was so cold it had started snowing and the huge lake around the mountain had frozen apart from a tiny bit in the middle. Ollie came off Thunder Mountain with icicles on his face where his eyes had been running in the wind and frozen!

After Frontierland it was off to Adventureland and the Indiana Jones ride. This just looked like a duplicate of the Thunder mountain ride but in a mine cart instead of a train. How wrong could we be? We were stood in the queue and had to do a double take when one of the rickety looking carts did a 360 with a twist! It was excellent; the 360 was done at just the right speed but it was over far too fast. This wasn't such a problem for us as we weren't having to queue for more than 5-10 minutes (and that was only really the time it was taking to walk through the place where you would have to queue if there was one). I would have been really annoyed to queue for hours for a ride this short, even if it was quite good.

By this time we were very cold and quite hungry, so we decided to try and beat the rush by having an early lunch. Ollie had spotted a pizza place that he quite liked the look of and I must say this was probably the best value for money meal that we had all trip. We got a large 4 cheese pizza each, a large salad, a drink and a magnum for €12 a person. Ok, it was still about the price you would pay at Pizza Hut for less food, but it was hot, fresh and tasty.

Feeling nicely full and warm we headed back to Adventureland for Pirates!

It was quite difficult to imagine that you were in the Caribbean with the impressive icicle display at the beach though.

I love the Pirates films (nothing to do with Johnny Depp at all! I have always been 'into' pirates, infact at one point I wanted to grow up to be one!) I loved seeing the different elements of the films in the rides. Ollie, however was mystified to understand how they managed to create 4 films from a theme park ride and was none the wiser after the ride either! My day was made when we came out of the ride and I was chatted up by Jack Sparrow!!! (Even if it is an awful picture of me!)

Next was off to Fantasyland (or pink land as Ollie called it). We gave the maze a miss as it was quite busy and I had done it before but Ollie was very excited to go on his first ever tea cup ride!

It was then over to the main event of the day. The "It's a small world" ride. When I went before, this was pretty much the only ride out the rain and for some reason Laura loved it. We must have been on it about 20 times in 2 days. We had warned Ollie that we were still singing the stupid song 20 years later, but I made him go on anyway! We had fun guessing the countries and Ollie wondered how in this day and age they were able to use such stereotypes. I wondered why the French people weren't wearing blue and white stripy T-shirts and holding onions and garlic!

That pretty much finished the Disneyland Park, so we headed over to the Disney Studios Park. This was all new since the last time I visited, but looking at the brochure there wasn't much that we liked the look of.

We wondered round for a bit and queued for the longest time (about 30 minutes) for the Crush's Coaster ride. This was the best ride of the whole day. You sat on a turtle shell with 2 seats facing forwards and 2 facing backwards. The seats then rotated as you went round the rollercoaster in the dark. You got so disorientated as you didn't know where you were going so didn't know whether you were going to be going forwards or backwards!

After this, we were so cold, tired and had spent 6 hours outside in the cold so we decided to call it a day and head back to our room via Starbucks for a nice hot cup of tea.

The ducks weren't too impressed with the cold either.

We were quite disappointed by the lack of Disney characters in the park; apart from Jack, the only other one we saw was Belle. (I have no idea who the kid is, but there was a huge queue for photos)

I decided to brave the cold again to head back for the parade as I remember this being very good the last time. I was very disappointed. There were only 5 floats and it lasted all of 5 minutes. I got some good pictures though, including one of Goofy for Alan!

I went back to warm up (again) before getting ready for dinner. We had booked a table in the restaurant in our hotel, but we decided to have a drink in the bar (with the log fire) and a game of pool first. I even won a game of air hockey!

Dinner was an all you can eat buffet, and even though it was expensive (we were getting used to it by now), it was very nice and I got to try veal for the first time.

Disneyland Hotel

2011-02-04T20:50:00.000Z

Our hotel room was quite nice, we upgraded to the top hotel offered by the Sun deal. This was also the closest to the Park and Disney hotel which we appreciated in the sub-zero temperatures!

Our hotel was decked out to be a Canadian lodge type with lots of wood, flagstones and a bar with the hugest log fire I have ever seen (also appreciated in the sub-zero temperatures)

Our room was a Bambi room, with character border, light shades and a big Bambi print on the wall. The duvet cover even had Mickey Mouse ears!

Disneyland Paris Day 1

2011-02-01T21:55:00.000Z

We saved the tokens from the Sun before Christmas and on Sunday we set off for a 3 day mini break to Disneyland Paris. It worked out a great deal saving well over 50% on the cheapest price I could find online for the same holiday. It did include a ferry crossing but Saturday afternoon we worked out how much it was going to cost us in petrol, toll charges, extra breakdown cover, a mapbook, wear and tear on the car etc etc and out of interest had a look to see how much Eurostar would be. Well, it worked out round the same price and as neither of us had any clue whether petrol was cheaper in France we decided to treat ourselves to the train. I have never been on Eurostar (or even on the train through the tunnel in the car) in the 15 years since it opened.

Me on the Eurostar train somewhere in France

I must say I am quite impressed with how easy it was. We got the tickets online Saturday evening. Sunday morning we got a City Thameslink train all the way from East Croydon to St Pancreas, printed our tickets from the automatic ticket machine, had breakfast and got on the train. All very stress free and simple! 2 and three quarter hours later we arrived at Disneyland!

Ollie has never been to Disney before and I went some many years ago to Paris just after it opened. From memory it was a good trip, apart from the torrential rain and lack of rides due to the newly opened status. My over-riding memory is of many many trips round the 'It's a Small World' ride as it was Laura's favourite.

Sunday afternoon we had a free afternoon to wonder around the Disney village and check out the hotel and amenities. The hotel and room was very nice, certainly one of the bigger rooms I have stayed in. I wish I could say something as positive about the pool though! It was billed as a sort of mini Center-Parcs type pool. Well it didn't even come close. The water was freezing, there were no bubbles in the bubble pool (trades description surely?) and the changing rooms were tiny, dirty and even though there was no-where private to change men kept wandering through at regular intervals. I think we stayed all of 3 minutes!

We did have a couple of games of pool (at €4 a game!) which was more fun, but was then rather spoiled by the Spurs game!

We had booked the steak restaurant for dinner without really taking too much notice of the menu. We turned up at the appointed time, waited a good few minutes to be seated and then almost fainted at the prices. The cheapest meal on the menu was €30, for just one main course. I pay that much for a steak at Smithfield market (except I don't because I have a 50% off card) and then only on extremely special occasions. I can guarantee the food will be excellent there and isn't full of brats running round screaming. We walked out, I refused to pay that much. Ok we thought, we must have picked the 'premium' restaurant. We'll try back at the hotel. No, they didn't have a table for 2 hours but their prices were slightly more reasonable at €25 for the set meal.

After wondering back around the village we ended up in the Rainforest cafe eating a main and a desert for €20. The food wasn't bad. I had chilli and Ollie had steak and chips. It was ok, but definitely not worth the money. Plus being a rainforest there were thunderstorms at regular intervals which made conversation rather tricky! It was cheaper to buy a bottle of wine than to pay for soft drinks, so that put us in a slightly better mood, but by bed time we certainly were not 'feeling the magic'

Plastering

2011-01-27T21:11:00.000Z

This is how it looks now the first layers of plaster have been completed. The ceiling is plastered in these pictures and the three walls as well. The pebble dash wall has about 4 layers of plaster with 2 more to go!

We are actually now at the point where the plaster has been finished (in fact the ceiling is almost dry) and the doors and skirting will be finished tomorrow (I added a few more jobs to the chippies list and forgot to tell him so he turned up without an oppo!) I can't take pictures as we haven't got lights yet (tomorrow or Saturday). Unfortunately we also had a call from DFS saying our sofa is ready and they can't store it. 4 weeks early! So we're getting it tomorrow.

Starting the lounge

2011-01-16T20:35:00.000Z

Over new year we took advantage of the sales and the last of the lower rate VAT to order a new sofa. We have been using the ones left by the previous owners of our house since we moved in February and they are a bit manky and really uncomfortable.

Only trouble is that we need to decorate the lounge before the new sofa arrives in four weeks time.

Stage one was to rip the wonky ceiling down (and find out why it was wonky). The guys came in to do this on Friday. The good news was that the ceiling was not wonky because there was anything wrong with the roof. The ceiling was wonky because they had stretched garden canes across some of the beams to hold the insulation up, the insulation goes across some other beams and electrical cables across some more. They had also managed to screw a screw right through one of the cables to the lights which probably explained why they kept cutting out.

The next job was to channel a route through the floor for the speaker cables for the rear speakers and to get the cable into the kitchen for the speakers in the kitchen. This has created mountains of dust.

Bathroom Day 16

2010-12-10T21:05:00.000Z

We are so nearly almost there with the bathroom! Just the ceiling to go once I've organised the plasterer. On Wednesday the electrician came back and attached the electric to the underfloor heating and the electric element for the towel rail. He also put in the new spot lights and a very cool extractor fan.

On Wednesday after work we scoured Croydon DIY stores for a new shower screen to replace the damaged one that we had delivered. We finally found one in B&Q which isn't quite as good as our original one but it works which is the main thing! Means I could finally have a shower. Baths are nice and all very well but a good shower is hard to beat. Plus of course it's much quicker and more convenient. Our shower is fantastic. It's like standing under a waterfall.

Light Pull

We also have a sink with storage cupboard and we managed to get a matching medicine cabinet in B&Q as the one we had originally bought no longer fit in the gap between the window and the wall due to having to put up plasterboard. The gap at the end of the bath has been filled with plastic and everything sealed and made water-tight.

I'm really pleased with the end result. It's so much warmer in there and much less oppressive without those hideous peach tiles.

Ta Da!

Bathroom Day 12

2010-12-06T21:39:00.000Z

Not much has happened in the bathroom today. We are still waiting for a sink unit and a bath screen. I am so angry about the sink unit. When I originally phoned up to say they had delivered the wrong one the guy at the bathroom shop said that the supplier could either deliver it in their usual run the following week or put it on a 'carrier' (I think this means send by courier). He said he would not recommend the carrier option as the tpye of unit we have chosen in easy to break and was likely to get damaged.

So we decided to wait. Last Thursday the manufacturer drove all the way from the midlands somewhere to deliver to Croydon, but none of the staff had turned up to the bathroom shop so they were unable to deliver it. So what does the manufacturer do? Put all the undelivered items on 'carriers' to be delivered tomorrow. I could have had that option 2 weeks ago!!!

I am hoping that the bathroom shop man can find me a shower screen that he can get to us asap, or we may be sending the plumber to Homebase!

Anyway, today we have grout on the floor and a loo roll holder!

Following instructions

2010-12-04T14:03:00.000Z

Mum will agree that I've never really been able to follow instructions. I will mostly follow the spirit of the instructions but most of the time I will just do my own thing.

This morning was no exception. The 'instructions' (well really the response to my question "How can I help") from Ollie were "Can you please take all the snow off the car and put it the other side of the skip?" In my head this translated to Kelly can you use the snow on the car to make a giant snowman in the front garden!

Ollie was most amused that the facial recognition on my camera recognised the snowman's face rather than mine. Of course he is a Spurs supporter snowman. I have never made a snowman all by myself this big ever! And this was just using the snow from the car. I know he won't last very long because the snow is starting to melt today and it will probably be gone tomorrow but I had a great morning!

We did really well, we have cleared the drive, the path and the road in front of the house and may be able to go out tomorrow. It just depends on how icy it gets over night. Ollie also cleared the ice from all the gutters round the extension as next doors gutter has given way under the weight of the ice and is hanging precariously from their house!

We did witness some really stupid behaviour while we were outside, from downright dangerous driving down the road (far too many revs in too low a gear) to the lady over the road shovelling snow from where her car tyres will run to the gap between the wheels (she now has a 2 foot pile of snow where the middle of her car will drive, how she ever thinks she going to drive out I have no idea).

Bathroom Day 11

2010-12-03T21:27:00.000Z

The plumber yet again braved the elements (this time the same amount of snow plus ice) to get to us today. We now have a fully functioning shower, fully tiled floor, paneled bath and new central heating controls (Not really part of the spec for the bathroom but we are fed up with our stupid controls that you can't have varying temperatures during the day and it doesn't know when it's a weekend and we want heating all day.

We did have a few more set backs in that he couldn't get to the supplier to get grout for the floor tiles so we've got to wait for that and our shower screen is completely busted. I bought it off the Internet and when it arrived by courier the plastic at the bottom had bent. The company sent out a new one but what I had failed to notice was the hinge on the screen was also completely bent. It's obviously been dropped at some point. So we could have had a fully functioning shower, but now I have to source another screen instead. The plumber had said that in any other weather he would have just gone and got us one but trips to suppliers mean hours away from the job.

One solution is possibly getting one from the bathroom place and getting them to deliver it with the replacement sink unit. However, no-one is answering their phones. I guess that they have decided it's not worth opening in this weather.

Bathroom Day 10 and yet more snow

2010-12-02T18:24:00.000Z

Our plumber is insane. But I guess you don't really have any choice when you are self employed and it's 3 weeks till Christmas. He braved the 15 inches of snow that we have this morning and arrived at 8:30. I don't think he quite appreciated how bad our estate was as he said that we had it worse than anywhere else and he was fine driving over until he turned off the main road onto our estate.

He did really well bless him, he managed to swap the loo over and tile most of the floor. As the snow was still coming down hard all morning he called it a day then and spent an hour digging his van out of a snow drift so he could make his way home (I also think he was getting some grief from the misses as his phone kept going all morning!)

He says that he's had loads of offers of work from people with broken boilers and was considering getting a 4x4 so he could get to them in the snow. British gas now have a waiting time of a week for their 'same day' repair service which is a bit of a joke. How can you expect people to be without heat or hot water in this wather for a week!

Anyway, here are the piccies of the bathroom so far and more snow!

Snow delays play

2010-12-01T22:18:00.001Z

There was no action in the bathroom today due to the copious amounts of snow. I can't ever remember seeing this much snow ever!

The plumber wasn't able to battle through the snow, so there is no bathroom update today. All of the busses have been cancelled around here so they haven't bothered gritting any of the roads either. You have to put up with snow pictures instead!

Amount of snow on top of the car

Depth of snow on the drive

Bathroom Day 8

2010-11-30T21:24:00.000Z

Not a lot has happened in the bathroom on day 8. The plumber made his way through the inch or so of snow that we had this morning to make it to our house and got all of the rest of the grouting done.

Then at 9:30 he left to go get a piece of plumbing material for the new toilet. It took him 2 hours to get through the gridlocked traffic to the plumbing shop and then spent an hour getting half way back here when his wife phoned to say that she had taken the kids to the park and locked herself out. So by the time he had rescued them from the sub-zero temperatures and got back here it was 3:30 and as he needed 2 hours for the grout on the floor tiles to dry to install the new toilet decided to call it a day.

We had a bit of a mission getting home. 2 trains were broken down outside purley blocking both tracks so trains were backed up trying to get into East Croydon and there was another broken down train at Edenbridge meaning going to Hayes and getting the bus was also impossible. I managed to squeeze onto a West Croydon train after about 45 minutes of waiting at London Bridge. Ollie gave up with London Bridge as it was too busy and decided to tube it to Elephant and Castle and then get a train to Mitcham where he could pick up the tram.

My journey took a total of 3 hours and Ollie's 3 and a half. We got home to find that there is over 9 inches of snow here. We've measured it with a ruler so it's no exaggeration. I can't remember ever seeing snow that deep! Talking to the lady next door this is common for this area and they always get lots when it snows. I think we may be spending tomorrow working from home.

Bathroom Day 7

2010-11-29T20:52:00.000Z

It's really starting to come together now. All the tiling is finished and the grouting has been done on the tiles that were done last week.

The radiator is also in and works! It gets quite hot too.

I'm sure that's not the cosiest place to sleep

2010-11-28T17:03:00.000Z

Look what's asleep on the roof of our shed! We get a lot of urban foxes around here. This is one of the less scrany ones. We have one really skinny mangy one that prowls the back garden, one huge one (easily as big as a golden retriever!) that skulks around the front and this one that tends to hang about.

It's been really bitterly cold here today. We've got the heating on above 20 degrees (unheard of) and we're huddled under many layers of clothes and my feet are still like ice blocks!

Bathroom Day 6

2010-11-26T16:51:00.000Z

A lot has happened in the bathroom today. We went off to Bluewater to do some Christmas shopping. When we got back we had a fitted bath and all the walls are almost fully tiled.

We now have a fully functioning bath although we have to wait until tomorrow before we can use it so that the silicon has a chance to dry properly.

I love the bath filler. It's great not having any taps on the bath to get all limescally.

Bathroom Day 5

2010-11-25T18:00:00.000Z

Day 5 in the bathroom has been very productive. We now have one fully tiled wall and one wall partly tiled. I love the tiles and think they are well worth the money!

We even have perfect curves to match our stupid ceiling!

We are still waiting on the replacement bath and we may or may not have a working bath/shower over the weekend.

Just Magnolia Challenge - White plus one

2010-11-25T11:43:00.001Z

I thought I would have a go at the Just Magnolia challenge this week. The challenge was to use just white and one other colour on your card with a magnolia stamp as your main focal point. I haven't used my Magnolia's much for this batch of Christmas cards so I thought I'd dust off my favourite and give it a whirl.

I had been dying to use this purple wrapping paper on a card and I cut the Gerberas (I know not really a Christmassy type flower, but I thought they went quite nicely!) and the nestie shapes with my cricut. I'm really getting the hang of the thing now and I'm not sure how I ever managed without it!

Bathroom Day 4

2010-11-24T20:15:00.000Z

Day 4 in the bathroom didn't really end very well. Everything was going ok, we now have 4 fully plasterboarded and sealed walls. The shower is fully plumbed and the arm is fitted to the wall. We were hoping that we would have a fully functional bath by the time the plumber had to go to the dentist, but just before lunch he managed to damage the bottom of the bath screwing the legs on! To be fair to him (he says it's the first bath in 100 he's done it!) the bath company provided the screws which were too long. So he disappeared to find a new bath and hopefully will come back tomorrow with a new one to fit!

We went to see Harry Potter this afternoon, it was ok they managed to stay as true to the book as they could. I always prefer books to films so it was never going to be as good for me. Plus this was my least favourite of the HP books. We did manage to successfully predict where the break would be for the split of the 2 films. Even though we went to a quiet showing there were still 2 people at the back who insisted on talking the whole way through. That really annoys me, so I said to Ollie that we'll stick to Blu ray which is cheaper and no-one talks!

Bathroom Day 3

2010-11-23T17:27:00.000Z

Day three in the bathroom has seen most of the walls covered in plasterboard, all the pipework for the bath and shower controls has been done and the rest of the plasterboard cut for the last wall.

I also tidied up the understairs cupboard, I've sorted all the DIY stuff into individual crates according to activity and made it so you can actually get to the back to find stuff!

Blogger is playing up with pictures, so I've just got the 2 today.

Tomorrow we are hoping that the bath will be in and even maybe plumbed so we can have a bath! Today we went swimming and had a shower at the local leisure centre. The plumber has to knock off early tomorrow to go to the dentist so we have booked to see HP!

Some cards with my cricut

2010-11-22T17:31:00.000Z

I have been having a bit of a play today while the tradesmen were doing their thing.

Apart from everything getting covered in dust I got 2 cards finished.

Bathroom Day 2

2010-11-22T17:19:00.000Z

Well at the end of day 2 there isn't a lot left in our little bathroom and we have some good things and some bad things.

I'm not sure how much of a relaxing week off this is going to be with tradesmen turning up at 8 every day!

We still have a loo with a bucket flush system with water out of a temporary tap!

We have holes in the ceiling for the new lights and new sockets for the power for all our funky gadgets.

The good news was that the floor was nearly as bad as we feared and wasn't rotten. It doesn't need to be replaced and as long as it dries out tonight with the help of a heater then we can just board over the top for the tiles.

Bad news was that most of the plaster came off the wall with the remaining tiles and the plasterer is on holiday! We are going to have fancy waterproof plasterboard which should provide a nice surface for the tiles.

We also had all the rest of the bathroom stuff delivered and all seems ok apart the vanity unit for the sink is the wall unit rather than the floor unit. I've left that up to the fitter and the bathroom shop to sort out a resolution for that problem!

Bathroom Day 1

2010-11-21T20:46:00.000Z

To try and save a little bit of money on the bathroom installation we were going to take the tiles off ourselves. They did not want to come quietly! This was after we had already had arguments with the doors that we were cutting up to put in the skip. We discovered that the glass in the old front door was definately not safety glass!

We are going to need a plasterer!

Before Photos

2010-11-21T20:36:00.000Z

The bathroom is being ripped out this week. These are the before photos...

The shower doesn't work, the hot tab on the sink leaks into the electrical consumer unit in the kitchen, the floor is damp where the bath hasn't ever been sealed properly which is causing black mould to grow by the back door and today I managed to break the flush for the loo!

60th Birthday party

2010-11-21T20:26:00.000Z

Last weekend was Ollie's dad's 60th Birthday party at Hempstead house in Sittingbourne.

We were in charge of balloons and place cards and I think Paul was quite impressed with them. The children were very impressed with the balloons inside balloons!

The food was really good as was the wine and a good time was had by all.

Card making class and fireworks

2010-11-07T16:33:00.000Z

It was mum's birthday on Friday so we booked ourselves into Jenny's Christmas card making with a twist class at Pickleberry Papercrafts for all day Saturday. I must say it was a fab class and we learned loads of new techniques.

After that we went back to mums for the traditional dinner and fireworks. We always have vegetable soup, sausages in rolls and jacket potatoes for dinner. Then Ollie does the firework display. Each year he has managed to make it bigger and better with more and more impressive fireworks. This year was no exception and while we were in Sittingbourne last weekend we stopped off at our firework shop to stock up.

I must say that this year was the best display yet, even the Sainsbury's fireworks were impressive (apart from the dud one that didn't go off) and our rockets were amazing, the boom supersonic and the explosion filling the whole sky.

Scrapbook page

2010-11-07T15:55:00.000Z

Last weekend I spent some time in my craft room before we went over to Helen and Alan's for poker and curry. And I managed to finish a double page layout!

These are from our camping trips from last year and this year. Last year we went over August bank holiday and the trip was pretty much a disaster from start to finish. This year we had a much nicer campsite and we managed to get the best pitches in a quiet corner by the woodland. It was quite wet and rained an awful lot but a good time was had overall and we even managed to have a BBQ and eat our dinner outside before it started raining.

Some more cards and a rant

2010-10-17T21:42:00.000+01:00

I've been doing more cards this afternoon and as I've finished my presentation for my research project and Ollie has gone to the cinema I thought I'd post the ones where the glue has dried...

That's not a rougue gold star, it's actually a holographic one that's caught the light differently!

I'm now sitting here extremely annoyed as I know I have stuff missing from my craft cupboard that I am sure I had before we moved. Well before I swapped my stuff from the B&Q tool chest to the papermania tote to be precise. Number one item missing is my coluzzle mat. I know I had it just before I started packing up for the house move. I've not got my Cuttlebug yet (and will then have to save for dies) and Mum gave me all her coluzzle templates when she got her Cricut. Cutting them with a regular craft mat is not really giving the same result and it's driving me mad!Also MIA is my brand new unopened packet of wet and dry foam. I suspect they are in cahoots together as I used to keep them in the same place.

On the plus side I've found I have 2 circle coluzzle templates and 2 square ones, so I have backup if I loose either of those!

In other news, we've finally chosen all of our bathroom bits and bobs and have booked the plumber and the electrician. The order to the bathroom shop has been made and I'm in the process of ordering the bits off ebay that I found cheaper. I'm still not quite understanding dual fuel towel rail elements and need to speak to the plumber and electrician before I take the plunge and buy those.

Chance to Win

2010-10-11T20:57:00.000+01:00

some fantastic blog candy. Click here for the chance to win

Christmas Cards

2010-10-11T20:46:00.000+01:00

I have started my Christmas cards with my new goodies from Ally Pally and the inspiration that we got. I have lots more in progress that I've started the toppers for.

And some birthday cards from my fab new Iris folding book

A baker I am not

2010-09-19T20:04:00.000+01:00

For my birthday I got a food processor and a book on making novelty cakes. I also got a giant cupcake silicon mold. Eager to try them out I spent this afternoon in the kitchen. I have also volunteered to make something for the Macmillan charity coffee morning on Friday so I needed to practice.

The actual sponge didn't turn out too badly - but co-op didn't have any ready made icing and didn't have any liquid glucose either. So I did the best I could with what I had but the icing was a bit too crumbly and just kept getting stuck to my work surface. Plus I hadn't cut the sponge quite flat on the bottom so the top half kept sliding off the bottom where the jam had got runny.

Anyway, here is Doris the dragon...

And my giant cupcake, which I don't think I trimmed quite enough so it looks more like a toadstool.

Oxford

2010-09-08T20:41:00.000+01:00

Mum and Dad had today off work and I had said they were welcome to visit us to celebrate my birthday. My initial thoughts were just to go out for lunch, but Mum suggested that we went out somewhere for the day.

After much debate, rejected ideas from either side we finally agreed to go to Oxford. After sitting in M25 traffic we got to Oxford at about 11 only to find the first park and ride was full so we had to go around the ring round to the next one.

We had time to climb the stairs up the church tower before lunch so Dad, Ollie and I set off while mum wondered around the church (She doesn't do towers, heights or stairs!) The view from the top was very good and Ollie pointed out all of the main sights and you could catch a glance into his college's quad.

Brasenose college

We had already decided on Pizza Hut buffet for lunch so headed there after a brief look in the University shop where I was very tempted by a college hoodie, but thought it a bit cheeky as I went to the University of London!

After lunch we spent a good couple of hours looking round the natural history museum. Mum had never been to a natural history museum before, preferring to frequent the Science Museum whenever we headed into London. I did learn that Tuna are about 50 times bigger than I had previously thought. I now understand how the people who fish for the tins that I buy that say "caught one by one by pole and line in the Maldives" actually earn any profit! (I had thought several fish make one tin rather than 1 fish making lots of tins!)

I also didn't realise that Tortoises spine bones are attached to their shells. We also saw some Samurai swords which were very cool!

Then it was time for the main attraction, G & D ice cream! They make it on the premises and it's the best ice cream I've ever had (and that includes Italian ice cream in Italy!). They also do hot chocolate fudge sauce and it really is divine. I did get laughed at for ordering tea with my ice cream but I thought it was quite a good combination!

After a quick look around the shops it was time to head back to the car to sit in M25 traffic again on the way home.

Radcliffe Camera

My finished craft cupboard

2010-09-08T20:26:00.000+01:00

Ollie put all the shelves up yesterday morning and I spent all afternoon emptying the boxes of stash and sorting all my bits and pieces out into boxes.

Empty Shelves waiting for stash

Many hours later...

Top shelf for magazines completed cards and albums

Embellishments in Ikea tupperware

Really funky IKEA clear storage

Fibres, brads, beads and space for the ribbon box

Adhesives

Hanging bag full of plastic bags!

Still to sort

A clear desk to work on!

I am really pleased with the finished result. All of my stash is now accessible and I know where it is. I still need to sort out the bits and pieces that are stored in my door hanger (Ollie wants to secure it to the door rather than use the over door hangers) and I may exchange a few bits that are in my Tote at the moment.

I spent last night (with mum's help) making a ribbon box (photos to follow). I was much berated by my family for not drawing a grid for the holes or making smaller holes for the smaller ribbon! Still I finished it, all the ribbons fit and it does a job!

Chicken Soup for the soul Recipe 10

2010-09-06T22:25:00.000+01:00

I've done some scrapping!

I was inspired by chicken soup for the soul's recipe 10 and thought that I'd dig some stash out of the boxes. I don't think it turned out too badly considering the fact that I could only get to stash at the top of the box and in my Tote!

chicken soup recipe 10

My shelves are hopefully going up tomorrow so I can spend the rest of the week taking stash out the boxes and onto the shelves where I can use it!

Before photos

2010-09-06T18:43:00.000+01:00

I now have shelves, brackets and hinges for my scrap cupboard. All I need is for them to be screwed to the wall.

This is the cupboard before the transformation...

We are removing the existing shelves at the top and the bottom to make more room. So all of this can fit inside!

Just a couple of boxes of stash

Oh and another box and a Tote

But I have got a few funky storage options including some Tupperware and these funky storage boxes from IKEA.

I've been trawling UKS and blog sites for ingenious and inexpensive storage ideas and have a good idea for a shoebox ribbon case. I can't wait to start unpacking the stash!

Progress on the hall

2010-09-02T18:00:00.000+01:00

After we had taken all of the awful wallpaper off the walls we had a kaleidoscope of paint colours that had been there at some point in the last 70 years. We had pink, light green and dark green. I still thought that was an improvement on the wallpaper though!

Unfortunately it also meant that the walls needed re plastering. That meant that I had to score the walls ready for the plasterer. This was done using several runs of craft knife blades, 2 aching arms and several weekends of hard work. It's worth it though as the final finish is much better. We've also replaced all the doors, the orange carpet, the light switches and plug sockets, the radiator and the banister.

After plastering and base coat of paint

Old front door

Old banisters

New Front door

New Radiator

New banisters and carpet

New doors

We still need to replace the 3 way light switch by the front door but the hole in the wall needs expanding, box in the gas meter, varnish the front door and the door to the dining room and also put up the stair rail.

Our new house

2010-09-02T17:44:00.001+01:00

I need to start by showing the photos of the house before we started. Look away if you are of a sensitive disposition that can't deal with pink and orange in the same room!

We'll start with the outside. That's not too bad. There's not a lot you can do to the outside that clashes!

We then move inside, the lounge is ok, apart from the swirly artex on the ceiling and the manky blue carpet tiles. The windows are the whole of 2 and a bit sides of the room and it's lovelly and bright. Especially with all the blinds up and the patio doors open, it feels like you are sitting right in the garden. The previous owners left the red sofa and chair set which will do us until we can get around to decorating. Besides, the cats find them quite cosy!

Moving into the kitchen, it's not the best designed kitchen ever. There's a cupboard in the corner which doesn't open because the other cupboard is in the way. I have a feeling that a new kitchen is several bonuses down the road though!

The dining room and the hall shared the same manky orange carpet and wallpaper combo when we moved in, teamed with red curtains and pink paintwork it's hideous! It made the hall really dark and so that's the first room we've started on.

Close up of the really nice flocked wallpaper

Wallpaper curtain combo - nice!


It doesn't look too bad in the photo, but believe me the woodwork really is a dusky pink!

Moving upstairs, the bathroom with more peachy orange, this time on the tiles (Bathroom is number 2 on the list for replacement!)

And yes it was that filthy when we moved in too

Our room is yes another example of the hideous taste of the people who were here before. I'm pretty certian they must have been colourblind! Our ceiling is yellow. Yes yellow. Not yellow as in was white and has got a bit stained over time by cigarette smoke and general dirt but actually painted sunny yellow! Complete with 80s throwback fitted cupboards. The cupboards lasted a week before they were ripped out. Not by choice, but because Brian had managed to find a tiny hole at the top to jump down and got himself stuck behind them. There was no other option but to rip them all out (plus half the wall as they were superglued with silicon) while a very frighted (and stupid) cat cowered in a corner.

Close up of the wallpaper to match the yellow ceiling

The other bedrooms are thankfully neutral with fairly decent laminate flooring. The Arsenal stickers in what will be the guest room stayed approximately 10 minutes after us getting the keys!

So that's our new house. Lots and lots of work to do. We've already started the hallway so I've some photos of that to go in the next post.

Blog revived!

2010-09-02T17:12:00.000+01:00

Ok, I know it's been well over a year since I last blogged and to be honest a lot has happened!

We moved house, so there's going to be a whole lot of DIY posts to make. Plus I've passed the last of my accountancy exams so I'm free from studying to spend more time scrapping and general crafting. I'm also trying to work out how to blog from my phone so hopefully I will be able to keep up to date a bit better!

I do have to write a dissertation for my accountancy degree, but that's going ok and it's got to be done by November. I'm really looking forward to actually having a Christmas this year and not worrying about exams!

More scrapping

2009-07-20T21:17:00.002+01:00

I have been busy doing lots of scrapping, so I thought I'd load the photos.

This is sketch 2 from the Pickleberry papercrafts blog that we got when we went for our crop.

This is a scraplift from a page that was on the wall of the shop at Pickleberry Papercrafts.

I've been scrapping!

2009-07-11T13:56:00.002+01:00

This morning mum and I went to Kate's new craft shop and workshop. We did a class that Kate had prepared and Jane talked us through it.

We both had a fantastic time and will definately be going back soon!

I had also done a Layout at mum's last week

My Garden

2009-07-02T16:28:00.006+01:00

Well things have certainly been growing in my garden while we were on holiday. Mostly weeds but my plants have also got much bigger.

I now have fushias...

In 2 colours...
Roses...
In 2 colours...

Some daisy bush thing that seems to have taken over more than it's fair share of space!

Some things that I can never remember the name of...

And some bellis flowers which have tiny tiny daisy flowers...

My patio veg are doing very well. I have tiny cucumbers and the start of some chilis.

As for my vegetable patch, well when Grandad saw it yesterday he said that the weeds have won and to give it up and try again next year. Well me, always wanting to prove people wrong I went out and got rid of the majority of the weeds and planted my corn and my leeks.

Ok, so I don't think the cauliflower is going to amount to much - it had been much loved and munched by an extended family of snails. This family of snails have now been relocated to the other side of the fence. and my cauliflowers protected by pellets.

But my swedes are growing well - this one is the 2nd biggest so far. I'm loving the fact that even though I planted all the seeds at the same time, they are growing at different rates so I don't have to have all of them in the same stew!

The beetroot is also coming along nicely.

But I am most impressed with my courgettes.

My cabbages have survived the snails and the caterpillers so far.

Oh No! How embarrassing!

2009-06-19T22:08:00.005+01:00

Last night was my work's summer party. We had an old school style sports day with lots of fun activities such as an egg and spoon race, a bean bag on the head race, a skipping race and welly wanging!

But the race I was most looking forward to all day, the one I had been bragging that I was best at? The space hopper race! (I'm the one on the orange hopper)

But oh no! As I took my very first bounce, I felt my trousers rip! I had to carry on, it was a relay and I knew if I stopped every one would turn to look. So I carried on and then ran very fast to my friend! Luckily my friend had a spare skirt.

Everyone laughed at me a lot and have not let me forget it today at work! The pictures even made their way onto the intranet!

Sunday in Barcelona

2009-06-19T22:05:00.002+01:00

There's not too much to say about the Sunday. We had a very late breakfast, again superb. Then we spent all morning by the pool.

We had a bit of a disasterous trip to McDonalds. The lady only spoke Catalan, so was struggling with our English and Verity's Spanish. We ended up minus a big mac and 2 drinks but with an extra chips!

Our plane was also delayed coming home so it was very late when we all got home.

Barcelooonaaaaaaaaaa Part 2

2009-06-19T20:50:00.010+01:00

Unfortunately although we had pre-booked our tour bus tickets and the bus ran right past our hotel door, we couldn't use our pre-booking ticket from the hotel, we had to go all the way into the centre of town before we could get on the bus.

So we all jumped in 2 taxis and headed off to the centre of town. Claire had to queue for a while and on seeing the queue for the bus, we walked to the next bus stop resisting the urge to visit H & M and Zara!

After a short bus ride we stopped at La Sagrada Familia. It was hugely impressive, even though it won't be finished for another 20 years. Considering they have been building for over 100 years already - I'm not sure we can complain about the delays to Wembley!

It was amazing, but we declined the 45 min wait to go to the top of the building and instead we wondered around the cathedral and the giftshop.

After another short bus ride we stopped at the gaudi park. It was a bit crowded but was nice admiring the view and the architecture.

Then it was back on the bus and off to the Nou Camp. We did find it amusing that all the guys stayed on the bus and the group of 7 girls got off! We ate our sandwiches on the grass and had a wonder around the huge shop.

Kath and I had a huge strop when we found out that the tours were all cancelled due to a stupid U2 concert. We did have some fun with a flag - but that is a secret so I can't say anything about that here.

Back on the bus to do the rest of the tour, where we sat on the top of the open air bus in the sunshine. It was 35 degrees at 4pm when we passed the harbour.

We got off the bus outside the hotel and had a compulsory stop in Primark before we headed back to the pool.

It was then time to get ready and head off for our night out. Claire had prepared a list of restaurants and I had looked on their website and chosen one that seemed to have a wide range in the menu and didn't seem too bad price wise. Unfortunately, it was not that great. The menu offered was a lot more limited and to be honest a bit boring. Laura and I went for burger and cheese expecting (at €10) to at least get a few chips as well. We were wrong. We got a very rare burger on a riveta with a lot of blue cheese sauce (Which had made the rivita thing soggy!) Louise and Verity had pasta but only got 4 bits of pasta for their €10. The other 3 had enough paella to feed the entire population of Barcelona! So unfair!

After some more drinks, a snack and some glowing flashy rings, the girls headed off to a nightclub. By this point (it was 2.30am) my feet hurt so much I could barely walk let alone dance - so I dropped them off in a taxi and went back to the hotel.

Barcelooonaaaaaaaaaa!

2009-06-15T20:50:00.003+01:00

This weekend saw me and 6 girlies head off into the sunset to Barcelona for Laura's first hen party. I met Kath and Claire at London Bridge and we caught our train ok to Gatwick. We met Laura, Verity, Alice and Louise in Wetherspoons where they were polishing off a pink cocktail! After brief introductions and the handing out of T-Shirts we headed off to security.

Everyone was waved through apart from me because my pre-printed boarding pass didn't have a barcode. Everyone else had to go through and I was sent off to a very long Easyjet queue. As I was waiting in the queue I happened to glance at the defective boarding card only to realise Loz had mixed them up and given me the return trip! After a phone call and some begging of a security guard I was back at security meeting my boarding card!

We just had time for a bottle of champagne to calm our nerves before getting on the plane!

I had looked at the best way to get from the airport to the hotel on the web and they recommended the train as a quick and easy way of getting there. They lied. It was a 10 minute walk to the train station (mainly because we walked in the wrong direction because there were no signposts) and then another 15 minute walk in between the train station and the metro. Luckily the metro was airconditioned as we were getting a bit hot and bothered at this point. It was only a 2 minute walk from the metro to our hotel but we had managed to exit the wrong way and ended up with a rather brisk trot through a rather scary looking council estate!

After all this we definately needed the glass of wine in the hotel bar!

The hotel definately made up for the treck, there were huge twin rooms, complimentary robes and slippers, a free minibar and 2 pools.

Saturday we were up early for a dip in the pool on the 23rd floor with a fantastic view of the sea. Then it was off to breakfast. None of us had ever seen as big a breakfast before! They had everything you could possibly imagine, including roasted vegetables, pizza and tomatoes stuffed with tuna! Of course there was also the traditional eggs and bacon as well as fruit, cereal, muffins, pastries, bread, toast, cheese, ham, cured meat, salami and sausages! Having filled up our tummies and our purses with snacks for later we headed back to our rooms to get ready to go out for the day.

Garden Update

2009-05-09T20:07:00.005+01:00

I planted a few more plants in the garden.

Our runway

2009-05-06T21:57:00.002+01:00

I'm not sure we're going to get many planes trying to land in our garden as our landing lights are a bit feeble!

Dad's Birthday

2009-05-05T20:47:00.010+01:00

On Sunday we were invited to mum's for a BBQ as it was dad's birthday. The weather held up mostly and we were able to eat outside. We did have a bit of trouble lighting the candle on the cupcake so dad had to pretend to blow it out for the photo. Funny there is no mention of blowing out candles in the Swine 'flu guide!

A fun morning out with Ethan

2009-05-02T20:09:00.009+01:00

This morning we had the pleasure of taking Ethan out for a couple of hours. We went to the Strand at Gillingham and we played on the swings...

We pulled funny faces..

We went down the slide...

We played in the sandpit and I managed to come home with sand in my pocket! We made sandcastles.

We had huge ice creams, that we got all on our faces, but not on our T-shirt!

We counted the boats and saw what colours they were...

We went on the train...

All in all a great time was had by all three of us.

We were going to stop in at the petting zoo in Bobbing and then go for some lunch but a very tired boy fell asleep in the car and so we called Helen and Alan to come and collect him when we got home. He was such a good boy he was a pleasure to play with.

So far so good

2009-03-31T08:59:00.002+01:00

My cat defences seem to be working ok, there has not been any digging in the vegetable patch.

However, last night a snail ate 5 of my broccoli seedlings. The guilty party was hurled half way down the garden in my anger. Ollie said this was a little harsh but I don't think so!

Ollie is now convinced that I don't actually want to grow any vegetables, I just wanted something new that I can complain about!

Garden part 3

2009-03-29T21:44:00.008+01:00

Although the weather hasn't been as nice this week meaning we were unable to get out and finish the rest of the fence and the decking, spring seems to have fully arrived. My tulips are blooming and my japanese maple has lots of leaf buds. Although my daffodils don't seem to want to flower yet.

My vegetables are coming along nicely in the greenhouse and some of the seeds that I planted last week are beggining to grow.

The ant-cat measures last week failed miserably! They had even managed to dig underneath the plastic tunnel. So this week I have increased the defences with some heavy duty netting, lots of tent pegs and some twine. I'm still not sure how I'm going to weed, or harvest my crop yet, but at least they should get a chance to actually grow now!

The other half of the vegetable patch has also been dug ready for the plants out of the greenhouse and I do have some more netting for then too!

Garden part 2

2009-03-29T21:07:00.007+01:00

Last weekend we were so busy! We've almost finished the fences apart from the part around the decking that Ollie scrubbed and cleaned. It looks really nice and clean now and ready to be painted.

We also bought and sprayed the edging for the flowerbed. We also fitted it on Sunday just before mum, dad, nan and grandad came for tea and cakes.

I had to buy a new greenhouse for all the seeds I needed to plant to put in the flowerbed.

My vegetables are doing nicely and I've got little plants growing in all my vegetable trays.

I spent ages digging half of my vegetable patch, sieving and raking up all the stones, weeds and stinging nettle roots. I did find lots of very juicy worms as well! I then planted carrots, cauliflower, spring onion, spinach, beetroot, swede, courgette and sweetcorn. I then put up some anti-cat devices (cds, cans and things that jinge)

My Garden

2009-03-15T16:48:00.009Z

Fences

A couple of weeks ago we decided to finally paint the fences. I don't think that they've ever been done before and they were looking a bit grey.

We had decided on a Ronseal colour but Homebase and Focus didn't have any. Focus did have one of their own brands in a similar colour on buy-one-get-one-free. So we got 2 tins and set to work. It took us all day to paint 10 panels with one coat (they need 2 coats) and we were exhausted afterwards. We also used one whole tin. (We have about 40 odd fence panels) So last weekend I was back off to Focus to get some more tins while they were still on offer, but they had been discontinued! I did discover that they did the sprayable version also on BOGOF.

2 Sunday mornings later and we've done both coats on the top half of the garden and one coat on the rest of the garden apart from by the decking as we need to do that first. It's so much easier and quicker with the spray! It looks really good already.

Green Fingers?

My seeds are doing ok, and I planted out my petunias in the flowerbed after putting down anti-weed matting. I will have some woodchip down once the rest of the flowerbed is planted and we've just ordered the edging for the flowerbed.

My vegetable seeds are also growing very well. I have broccoli, cabbage and lettuce poking their heads up in the greenhouse and my chilli plants just about starting to grow in the spare room.

I also have some nice spring bulbs flowering.

Midweek Football

2009-03-06T21:10:00.007Z

On Wednesday we were lucky enough to be invited to spend the evening at White Heart Lane in an executive box to watch Spurs v Middlesborough all expenses paid!

The comany that are providing software for my company have a box in the West stand just by the half way line right behind the dugouts.

We had drinks and sheherds pie before the match which was very yummy. The view of the match from the box was amazing. The only downside was that we were behind a window so the atmosphere was a little muted. We still joined in with some of the chanting, except the one which goes you're support is ******* **** (My Finance Director was there and the bonuses haven't been signed off yet!!!!)

Plus we won 4-0 so all in all it was a pretty good evening!

I spent a little too long in the shop meaning we had to run for our train at Victoria but I finally got my stripy scarf!

The pictures aren't very good, as all I had was my phone camera and the floodlights were reflecting on our window.

Christening Photos

2009-02-21T17:51:00.005Z

Just a few shots from Zach's Christening a few weeks ago.

Christmas Pictures

2009-02-21T17:46:00.002Z

Jenny emailed me the other day with some Christmas photos.

Ollie, me and Zach

Ollie has veto'd the ones with him dressed as King Herod so I can't put them on here.

The one of Marc as a wise man, and Sebastian and Gemma as a shepherds are ok though!

Garden

2009-02-21T17:24:00.006Z

Today we finally decided to try and do something about our garden.

Knowing absolutely nothing about gardening, we enlisted the help of Nan, Grandad and Mum. Unfortunately mum had hurt her hand falling down the stairs yesterday and got a bit frustrated that she couldn't help. We are very grateful for the help and guidance anyway.

The plans that we had drawn up were quickly disposed of as we couldn't have a flower bed next to the fence as we don't have base boards on that side. After some discussion on the shape of the flower bed the other side we decided on straight and set about digging.

It's been a long and arduous day and as our instrutors went home at lunchtime we had to finish by ourselves. It looks much better already and we have some other new plans for the rest of the garden.

Now we are both collapsed on the sofa with Abby after having soaked in warm baths for ages!

Kitchen update

2009-02-21T17:10:00.006Z

We've finally finished painting the kitchen cupboards - they look really good now with all the doors back on.

Just the tiling and the skirting to paint now.

Exam Passes

2009-02-21T16:57:00.002Z

I got the results for the exams I took in December. I passed both getting 87% for Tax and 71% for the financial reporting paper.

So I was quite chuffed about that as it means that I'm exactly half way there with 7 exams to go. It's also inspired me to take 3 exams in June so I will be very busy studying for the next few months.

We're all going on a summer holiday!

2009-02-08T13:25:00.002Z

On Friday night Ollie was looking on the Internet to see if the England team had been announced when he happened to mention that the tickets for the under 21 game in Spain were only £20. So I asked how much the tickets were for the under 21 Euro finals were because its during our summer holiday from work.

As they were only cheap we've booked up to see England v Germany, Serbia v Sweeden, we have tickets to both Semi-finals so we can choose which one we want to see and tickets to the final. So our summer holiday is going to be 9 days in Sweden! It's somewhere we've both wanted to go and we'll have lots of time in between the football to explore and hopefully the weather will be nice enough to go to the beach. We're also going to have a trip to Copenhagen as it's a short hop across a bridge.

I'm really excited about it and although we have flights and the football tickets I'm now hunting through the internet for some accomodation and car hire.

Patrick's Birthday

2009-02-08T13:07:00.002Z

Last night we went out in London for Patrick's birthday with a few of Ollie's Uni mates.

We had a bit of tube trouble with no central line meaning it took an hour to get from Victoria to High Street kensington. We had a quick drink in the bar where most of them have been watching the rugby all afternoon. Then we went over to the restaurant - Sticky Fingers.

It's owned by Bill Wyman and there's definately a reason why it's called Sticky Fingers. I had chicken wings smothered in BBQ sauce to start and Ollie had a half a rack of ribs. Luckily they provided handy wipes!

For main we had burgers, mine with sour cream, salsa, guacamole, bacon and cheese and Ollie had a sticky stack burger with everything you could imagine!!!!

Finally we finished off with a chocolate milkshake for me and sticky toffee pudding for Ollie. I think that I may have put the 3 1/2 pounds back on that I lost last week in one night!

We fell into bed at gone midnight only to be disturbed a few minutes later by the ginger cat from down the road which had snuck into our spare room!

Snowed in

2009-02-02T20:23:00.004Z

Well we weren't exactly snowed in but there were no trains running past Gillingham.

However, by the wonders of modern technology we were both able to dial in from home and do a full day's work.

Bowling

2009-01-31T16:53:00.003Z

Last Friday we had a long weekend off work for Ollie's birthday and on Friday afternoon we went bowling with Helen, Alan, Ethan and Niamh. Although Niamh was asleep the whole time and didn't actually bowl!

We all scored strikes, including Ethan and there were some fairly respectable scores. Ethan really enjoyed himself

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OL!

2009-01-25T10:41:00.001Z

Here's a big happy birthday to my fantastic husband.

Hope you have a good birthday babe. Love you xxx

A very grumpy Kelly

2009-01-21T08:48:00.002Z

I'm very grumpy today.

Last night, not only did I have to work late but someone stole my hat, gloves and scarf off the train! I wouldn't mind but I had knitted the hat and gloves myself and had only finished the hat on Saturday.

It may have been partly my fault as I left them on the upper shelf and then we moved seats slightly down the train and when we went to get off they were gone!

So I'll have to start the knitting all over again and put up with being cold. I might have a full set by the time it's summer!!!

Happy Birthday Nanna

2009-01-08T08:50:00.001Z

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Nanna

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to Nanny
Happy Birthday to you

Hope you have a great day and I'll speak to you later.

Hello Niamh

2008-12-20T09:35:00.004Z

And yes, that is my soft focus filter!

Congratulations to the Sharman's

2008-12-04T21:47:00.004Z

Helen finally gave birth at 5:45 this morning to baby Niamh Eleanor Sharman who weighed 8lbs 1. Mother and baby are doing very well and I'll get some photos as soon as I meet her.

She was only a week overdue this time and I know Helen especially will be pleased to finally have her here.

I took Ethan to his swimming lesson yesterday as Helen wasn't able to in her over pregnant state and she didn't want him to miss out. We both has loads of fun in the water and ended up both very very worn out!

It's CHRISTMAS!!!

2008-12-04T21:43:00.003Z

Christmas has come to our house. We thought as we were off work and needed to put some stuff in the attic we would put the decorations up early this year.

New Light

2008-11-26T20:54:00.000Z

When we went to do our Christmas shopping last week we popped into Ikea as we needed a new light for the living room.

The old one didn't really go and the halogen bulbs didn't last very long and were very expensive. So we have replaced it with this which takes energy saving bulbs.

2008-11-23T20:50:00.000Z

I started knitting Billy a jumper in January. I finished it a couple of weeks ago. There are a few errors in it and the sleeves are far too long, but he is happy with it, especially as it has now turned cold and is snowing this morning.

Although now he does want a blue jumper to go with his trousers! And a woolly hat!

Granddad's birthday

2008-10-27T14:58:00.000Z

We invited everyone over for dinner for Granddad's birthday.

I was just mopping the floor when Laura and Wayne turned up in a panic because they thought they were late but they were in fact an hour early because they had forgotten to turn the clocks back!

I think everyone enjoyed their roast lamb and birthday cake.

Halloween Party

2008-10-21T11:01:00.003+01:00

Every year Carole and Ian have a fancy dress party for Halloween. Each year our costumes have mainly consisted of whatever we could find in the bargain bin in Sainsbury's. But as this year was Ian's 60^th we thought we'd better make a bit more of an effort.

I was a fallen fairy and Ollie was death / Uncle Fester. The extra effort by Ollie of having his head shaved and being smothered in white face paint was worth it as he won best costume. Ollie, Marc, Gem and me also won the wrap a team mate in toilet paper game and our team won the balloon under the chin game too.

The pinata proved to be a bit tricky this year, we had one that you bash instead of the one that you pull the strings until it falls apart. It took about 10 minutes of heavy bashing with a Halloween axe before it caitulated. Although once it had there were enough sweeties in it to last until next Halloween, even with 4 kiddies eating them!

We let off some fireworks and had some sparklers once we had all found some gloves to wear.

Meet Zak

2008-09-28T20:18:00.006+01:00

Congratulations to Gemma, Marc, Sebastian, Harvey and Dylan to the new addition of their family.

Gemma gave birth last week to Zak, we went to visit them in the hospital.

Holiday - Thursday

2008-09-28T19:38:00.006+01:00

Thursday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed really early and went to play tennis.

It was a close fought game, with me coming back from 3 games to nil to win the game 7 games to 5! Ollie did manage to loose a tennis ball in the first 10 minutes by hitting it over the top of the fence and past the kiddies play area! He blamed his racquet saying it was too violent and he was hardly hitting the ball hard!

After that we had booked the Fan Descender. This was basically where you stepped off a platform 9 metres high attached to a rope and a mini fan attached to the other end of the rope to stop you breaking your leg when you fall.

After a quick lunch we were back at the activity center for climbing. They had a very high wall which was a lot tougher than either of us thought it was going to be.

After all that we definitely deserved to have a pancake in the pancake house. Ollie had a traditional one with lemon and ice cream and I had a chocolate pancake with chocolate ice cream and a flake!

Thursday night we had booked a table in the gastro pub. The food was wonderful, but the service was absolutely shocking. The waitress had no excuse as she's been there for more than 6 months, but she brought us the wrong colour wine after we had waited for ages!

Holiday - pictures

2008-09-28T19:20:00.009+01:00

Wednesday afternoon I went out to take some photos of the forest.

Holiday - Wednesday

2008-09-15T21:20:00.004+01:00

It was not so rainy on the Wednesday of our holiday. We did the Zip line first thing in the morning. For this we were all harnessed up and then we had to climb high up in the trees and walk across a tightrope and a rope bridge. Then you are tied to the zip line and have to walk off the platform. I didn't think it was as high as I expected it to be, but it was still lots of fun.

We did archery in the afternoon. I wasn't brilliant, but I managed to get most of my arrows in the target and even 1 in the yellow!

Holiday Tuesday - My Birthday

2008-09-14T20:26:00.004+01:00

Tuesday was my birthday. I got loads of cards and Ollie got me a Spurs shirt, Cruel Intentions on Blu Ray and the book of Treasure Island.

We had a squirrel that came to visit us every day and drank the water off our patio furniture. He also jumped up and down on our roof all night above our bed and kept us awake.

In the Morning I went horse riding. Although I got the laziest horse ever, I really enjoyed myself.

Unfortunately my belly dancing class was cancelled. But we did have the Seriel Mud treatment in the afternoon after lunch at the pancake house. We were a bit sceptical about the savory pancakes but my new potato, spring onion, garlic and mayo pancake was very yummy, if a bit filling. Ollie also enjoyed his bacon and cheese with maple syrup.

The mud treatment was quite good. You got your own private steam room with bowls of mud in - one type for your body and another type for your face. You have to put the mud on, wait 10 minutes, turn the steam on and then wait another 15 minutes before washing it off. Ollie and I did use some of our spare mud to have a mud fight! I don't think we quite lasted the whole 15 minutes in the steam as it was very hot. But it did make our skin nice and soft.

That evening we went to the quiz. We didn't do very well, we only got 19 out of 30.

Holiday! Monday

2008-09-14T20:03:00.002+01:00

We left here about 9 o'clock on Monday morning heading off to Nottingham Center Parcs.

After one stop on the way there we arrived about 12.30. We picked up our bikes and headed over to our hut. It was ok; quite cosy.

Monday afternoon was spent in the spa. It's like a Turkish bath place, sauna and spas with a pool. Very relaxing after a long drive. We then went to the Swimming Pool. It was exactly the same as it was when I went last time!

We had a take away curry from the Center Parcs take-away shop.

New floor

2008-08-25T21:00:00.009+01:00

Today we fitted the new floor.

First we had to take the old washing machine to the tip and stop off at Helen's to pick up the laminate fitting kit that Alan was lending us.

Whoever said laying laminate is easy obviously has never tried to do our kitchen! Nothing is straight, EVERY single piece had to be cut to size and we had a pattern that had to be lined up! Still including underlay we had it done in 5 hours.

We also put up smart hangers for our tea towels, but I had to sew the ribbon on them to make them easier to hang.

In answer to mum's question, we have finished the painting and the tiles aren't going up that high. The rails were put up for the extra storage so we can put stuff away and have more room!

Some Scrapping

2008-08-24T21:29:00.002+01:00

I did some scrapping today!

I had to do it in the lounge as I can hardly get into the spare room for all the DIY stuff! It's probably the last chance I'll get in a while what with the kitchen and the fact that I start my college course next Saturday for my next lot of ACCA exams.

It's a scraplift from a sketch I made from Anso's blog.

More work in the kitchen

2008-08-23T19:44:00.005+01:00

This afternoon we put my hanging racks up in the kitchen.

We are hoping to get some clear jars from Ikea that match to put the spices in so they look a bit smarter.
I love having the knives so accessible.

We also got these smart dispensers for the washing up liquid and hand wash from Homebase.

Ps - family - we washed up!

Oh no broken!

2008-08-23T19:29:00.002+01:00

Last week we got a free Playstation 3 with Ollie's phone contract. The idea was that it will replace our DVD player as we have the X-Box for gaming. "Fantastic we will be able to watch Blu Rays in HD", I thought. Turns out it's not so simple. Firstly the HDMI socket in the TV is directly underneath the bracket holding it to the wall. So we will have to hack the bracket to plug it in.

We had also thought that if we were faffing with electrics we may as well take the plunge and get Sky HD as they have a half price offer on. However, our TV only has 1 HDMI port. So Ollie sent me off to Richer Sounds to see what cables they recommend and also what boxes that allow you to plug 2 things into 1 box.

The man in Richer was quite blunt - for the money we would spend on all this, we would be better off buying a new TV with 2 HDMI ports.

Well, we thought, if we are buying a new TV we might as well upgrade to Full HD. This was starting to sound expensive! We have some stuff we were going to put on Ebay and were going to have it as a very Christmas present to each other.

Then Ollie uttered the immortal words "Let's wait to buy the TV and stuff until we've raised all the money because if we don't and we buy a TV this week, the washing machine will break next week"

Low and behold, this morning the washing machine broke!!!! So we had to buy a new one today from Sainsbury's electricals. The good news is that it's smaller than the old one so it won't stick out into the kitchen as much and it's silver and the same make as the oven so it will match a lot better.

Our kitchen

2008-08-19T21:55:00.006+01:00

This is what the kitchen looked like at the beginning of the weekend. As you can see I have painted the walls so they are the same colour as the dining room.

We moved the fridge along and built another unit so that we could extend the work top. It took some sawing and screwing screws is quite difficult when both the electric screwdriver and the drill needed charging and the hammer drill was far too powerful.

We then had to cut the worktop to size both longways and widthways. That's a lot of cutting! Plus an unbelieveable amount of sawdust. There were more screws to hold it to the units and then I had to glue the end to the bit by the fridge.

Ta da! I now have an extra 66cm of worktop which makes a huge amount of difference. We are having Helen and Alan over for dinner on Friday to test it out!

Ikea do wicker baskets that will fit perfectly (we know - we got some for Gemma last time we went and she didn't collect them until after we had tested them out in our kitchen!)

A big HELLO to my grandad

2008-08-19T21:53:00.002+01:00

I've had a request to say a big hello to my grandad who reads my blog so he knows what I'm up to as I don't visit him often enough.

I just wanted to say that I love him very much, and he's welcome to pop in for a cup of tea whenever he likes. Ollie was expecting him last weekend and he never came because he thought we were busy. I am never too busy for my grandad!