Progress

We have been so very busy this weekend.

Friday night we headed off to Ikea (again!) as I finished work early for the bank holiday weekend. Only to be told that the person who does the custom made worktops had left at half 8! (It was about 9:15 by this time as we had been round Lakeside and had Wagamamas for dinner.) So we called the manager to complain and he agreed that it wasn’t our fault that the staff weren’t available and said that he would take the details and get someone to put it through in the morning and he would do it free of charge. I’m not sure if we will get it free, but at least it’s now ordered as there is currently a 4-6 week waiting time.

Saturday morning I cracked on with the second coat of paint on the kitchen cupboards and then headed upstairs to demolish my wardrobe and install the second hanging rail instead of having drawers. I did have to improvise a bit as it wasn’t really designed for the wardrobes we have but it still works and now my clothes are all put away and hung up instead of being screwed up everywhere. I’ve also had a big clear out and thrown a lot of old stuff away and put some on ebay. Please have a look and buy something here! The new oven was delivered and as it has a plug we could just swap it straight over with the old one.

Sunday morning we were up early as Nan and Granddad popped in on their way to their holidays. They said 10 and arrived at 9:15! Luckily we were up and about but hadn’t actually got round to getting dressed. Then we put the door back on the cupboard and made dad a cake as we were going to a BBQ for his birthday Sunday evening. Ollie had been given cake mix and food colouring from work on Friday so we tested it out. This was the result…

We were going for orange for the icing but I slipped with the pink! I think dad appreciated it, even if mum had already made a chocolate birthday cake and fruit salad and Laura had brought Jelly! We must learn to communicate better…

It was also a good test for my new oven. I must say it is excellent! It’s amazing what a difference having an oven with a working thermostat makes! It also has a timer so I can put it to come on to cook dinner so it is ready for when we get home. We did have to wait for 20 minutes in the queue for the tip to get rid of the old one. I have also arranged for the new hob to be fitted next Saturday.

The BBQ was really good. The first one of the year so far, hopefully many more to come afterwards!

Monday was all hands on deck to get the kitchen ready for the new hob to be fitted. It meant stripping out the old worktop and appliances and getting the new worktop ready. This is what the kitchen looked at the beginning of the day…

And this is what it looked like at 7:30 in the evening!

It was really hard work. And considering we only had a millimetre margin of error on the hole for the hob I think we’ve done really well. We’ve had to bash a hole in the wall to make it straight (it will be tiled so you won’t notice). Unfortunately the sink waste from Ikea was missing all the accessories so we’ve got to go back on Wednesday to exchange it. Plus I’ve had to buy a tap off Ebay as everywhere was sold out of the tap we wanted. So we’re without a sink and a hob for a week, but I’m sure we’ll cope!

GTA Widow!

GTA IV was released yesterday. Ollie had some work to do in store before heading off to London so he took the opportunity to purchase his copy while he was there. He was not the first person to buy one at 5 past 7 either!

I’m not quite a GTA widow yet. Last night was obviously the second leg of the Champions League Semi-Final between Man U and Barcelona. So we watched that and then put the game on. I must admit, from the little I have seen it does look very good; much better than the last one. And as you get 5 gamer credits just for watching all the credits I may even have a go!

Before Photos

Last Saturday we were in Ikea at 6:15am for their big birthday sale to get the bits we needed for our new kitchen. Minus the taps because they were out of stock and one of our worktops as that has to be custom ordered and the queue was already 3 hours long.

So we have started sanding and painting the existing units already but I thought I'd post some before photos.
Last night we were over at Helen and Alan's for Alan's birthday celebrations. We played Mario cart on the Wii, which I was useless at. We also played shffleboard and Darts which I thought were quite good.

Today we had Ol and Gemma over for lunch who are Ollie's friends from Uni. It was really nice to catch up over a rather large roast dinner!

Tagged

Mum has tagged me in an attempt to make me post! I have loads of updates to do and I took a load of photos and then lost the camera so I couldn't put them up here. Ollie has now found the camera and I will get round to putting some photos up, but in the meantime these are my answers...

1. If a movie was being made of your life who would you like to be cast to play yourself? And why?
Obviously someone pretty, and funny, and intelligent! Kiera Nightly springs to mind – but only because she’s had practice at dressing up as a pirate. I did that a lot when I was a kid!

2. You are spending a whole month on a desert island for charity and you have to choose your favourite celebrity to spend the first two weeks with & your least favourite celebrity to spend the second two weeks with, who would they be & why?
Johnny Depp for the first two weeks although Ollie will probably veto that so I guess I would chose Vince Vaughn because I think he is really funny too. My worst celebrity would be Bjork. I can’t stand her.

3. What are your three favourite crafting products?
My craft knife. I love cutting my own titles, so that is really important to me. I’m liking my embossing paste and also the Sparkly dust stuff that we got at Ally Pally
4. If you could invent something to do anything what do you think it would be?
If I knew the answer to that I would already be a millionaire and would have someone else write your blog for me. It might get updated a bit more often then!

5. What are the last three books that you read?
At the moment I’m re-reading the 6 wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser, before that I read The Boleyn Inheritance and The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory. I’m liking my historical books at the moment!

6. Qvc or create and craft?
The only time I watch either is when there really is nothing on telly, we’ve done the flick through the music channels and then it’s onto the shopping channels to laugh at all the tat they are trying to sell!

7. Docrafts or Dovecraft or DCWV?
No idea.

8. What is your claim to fame?
I don’t really have one. Mum mentioned that Dad used to be Shaun Williamson’s boss and I got to talk to him when I saw him at the cricket once.

Ok, I tag Julie, who I have randomly picked off UK Scrappers!

A busy busy bank holiday break

What a busy weekend.

Our major project for this weekend was to paint all the woodwork in the lounge and the dining room. Friday we primed, Saturday we undercoated and Sunday we did the first coat of gloss. Now it looks so good - like it's almost finished! We need to do another coat of gloss next weekend and I'll post some photos then. Then all we will have left to do is put the paintings and the mirror up and paint the radiators and the lounge will be done. We still need to sort the cupboard door out in the dining room and paint the woodwork up the stairs and on the landing.

I also planted out some more vege seeds and Ollie mowed the lawn on Friday before it spent the rest of the weekend snowing! It didn't lay but it was very cold and wet. The cats had dug up the courgettes that I had planted the previous Sunday so I wasn't very pleased about that!

Other than that we went to Prezzo for dinner on Friday night with Ollie's dad, Anna, Gemma and Marc. It was a very nice meal although it will be sad that we won't get to see Ol's dad as much now as he has moved to Ireland.

Saturday we went to Helen and Alan's for a poker night. I lost, which was a shame, but it was a good night, even if we didn't get home until the early hours.

Sunday we went out to the Bear in Faversham with Nigel, Sara, Paul, Hannah, Ian, Tom, Ashleigh, and their friend Harvey. It was quieter than we had expected in there and we had the whole front bar to ourselves for most of the time. We left when they moved onto the Sun, although we did bump into Peter Ehman and Sam in there!

Yesterday we went out to Grove Ferry with Mum, Dad, Laura, Wayne, Nan and Granddad for lunch. Laura and Wayne are thinking of hiring it for their wedding reception. It was a nice place and will be lovelly on the river front in July (if it's not like last year!!!) but we will have to hire a room I think as it took us ages to get there and home again.

We have 6 over for dinner tonight so I made lasagne last night so I wouldn't have to rush today. I'm hoping to be let home early today as lots of people haven't made it in because of the train problems in Essex.

Ideal Home show

Saturday we went to the Ideal Home Show. We got our tickets in advance as they were offering £3 discount and a free show guide which also entitled you to a free goodie bag. Thinking we would beat the crowds queuing to get tickets we got there just after 10am. There was NO queue to buy tickets and the queue for the pre-paid ticket entry went around the block! Still it didn’t take us too long to get in and we headed straight off to the kitchen department to see if they had any foodie free samples! The first exhibition that caught our eye was a guy with a health grill – endorsed by the British Heart Foundation. Basically the bottom round the edge fills with water and then there is a curved hot plate over the top and you put the whole thing on your hob. The water keeps the food moist and you can put other flavourings in if you wish. Then all the fat runs out and into the water around the edge. The samples were really nice and the first 50 people also got one to put in the oven for roasts free. The bottom of this bit can also be used as a lid to convert the hob one into a steamer. So we took the plunge and bought one. I’ve used it a couple of times already and I think it’s brilliant. My lamb chops have never been so moist and tender. I also did a ‘healthy’ fry up and there was no greasy food smell at all. The water seems to absorb all the smells as well.

The only other thing we got were replacements for our paint rollers. We have the ones that you put paint inside and we think that they are fab – the only problem was that we got another make at the Kent home show last year and the foam outside was more like fleece fabric, which doesn’t wash as easily and has bobbled really badly. As we are planning on doing the outside of the house with them we think this will pretty much finish them off. Plus we got the edge roller as well.

Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday was mine and Ollie's first wedding anniversary. I can't believe that it has been a whole year already! I'm also very very glad that the weather on our special day was nothing like it was yesterday! I got soaked getting to work and my boot leaked! I had just dried out and warmed up when it was time to go home.

We went to The Olive Tree in Rainham on Saturday. It was fantastic. In reminiscence of our honeymoon we had bruschetta to start (Ollie's with mushrooms and mine with tomatoes) and Calzone for main course. It was the best calzone we've had in England, but it still wasn't as good as a true Roman one. It was a bit strange as it was actually served with a tomato sauce by the side and it had bolognaise inside! Still it was very yummy. The service was good on the whole and Ollie's chocolate brownie was lovelly.

Mum and Nan and Grandad also popped in on Saturday to drop off a card, some flowers and my gooseberry bushes. We also went to see the new gym which has opened up down the road. Even though it is very nice and new and does offer a better range of classes that I could actually go to, there's nothing that makes the extra money every month worth it and we figure that seeing as most people they were showing around were talking about transferring from Swallows then it may be a bit quieter to stick where we are!

Gemma popped over on Sunday to drop off a card and some more flowers. She had the exciting news that she is expecting her fourth baby! She had her 12 week scan last week and all is fine. We have arranged to go out with Ollie's dad and Anna at Easter as they will be moving to Ireland permanently on Easter Sunday.

So with all the excitement we didn't actually get any DIY done and I doubt that we will get much done this weekend as we are going to the Ideal Home Show on Saturday and it's Marc's birthday so I expect we will be popping to Whitstable on Sunday.

A potentially bad day turns out ok!

Wednesday I had my third exam in the morning - which I passed! I was very relieved as it was a really boring module that I hadn't really got into. Then in the afternoon I had the dentist. After waiting in the waiting room for 45 minutes, I spent 2 minutes with the dentist for him to say yes all looks fine - floss more!

Sunday I had cooked roast dinner for all the family for mother's day. It was really nice and the pork turned out much better than expected.

Other than that there is not a lot to report. Ollie and I went to Beefeater on Wednesday evening to celebrate my exam pass, and we decided to give our local Beefeater one last chance to impress us as the last few times the food hasn't been great. We waited 10 minutes before we were even seen at the little podium thing. Then the waitress forgot to put our side dish through and we didn't get it until we had nearly finished our mains. Our chips weren't cooked - they were hard in the middle! Plus our side of garlic bread was literally one thin slice of brown bread that had been soaked in garlic for about 24 hours and then had about an inch of cheese on the top which hadn't melted properly where it was so thick. The onion rings and the mushrooms were burnt! So we were so annoyed at this point that I never even got my chocolate brownie sundae that was the sole reason that we went! So I'm now off to the feedback website and we certainly won't be back to that one!

Update

Last week we had Virgin Broadband installed which is fab! It’s super super fast. The only problem being is that our wireless modem isn’t compatible so we have had to buy a new one. At the moment that means we can only get the internet via the laptop plugged into the wall. Don’t you just love advanced technology!

Paul came over on Saturday to give our fruit trees a good pruning. They hadn’t been done in years and really needed some seeing to. The whole area looks so much better now. There’s so much more light down the bottom of the garden – and that’s without any leaves! It took him pretty much all day to do and then he and Ollie did about 4 or 5 trips to the tip to get rid of all the debris.

Laura and Wayne got back from India on Sunday with her shiny engagement ring. There’s a picture on mum’s blog. It looks gorgeous.

We’ve done a fair bit of DIY in the last couple of weeks. The trim round the laminate is finished in the dining room and half done in the lounge. We finally got half of the skirting and decorative moulding round the fireplace last week as well. It’s almost ready for the painting! Not a job I’m looking forward to I must admit as there’s so much of it to do!

Our paintings came. I’m really pleased with them. The 2 for the dining room are in their frames (which also need painting) and after much struggling and some trimming I managed to take the mirror out of the frame to put the last picture in instead (we couldn’t find a regular picture frame the right size!) We’ve also found some more that we like for the bedroom and spare room upstairs.

I’ll try and get some photos uploaded at some point.

Hot water - finally!

The boiler repair man came back on Saturday morning with several more bits to repair what could possibly be broken. Carrying on his theme of we'll replace the cheaper parts first to keep repair costs down he replaced the diaphram on the diverter valve and fitted the new filling loop as we didn't have one and low and behold hot water! So we now have functioning hot water and heating that comes on with the timer. Bliss!

We also managed to get all the trim for the laminate fitted in the dining room and some in the lounge. Our pictures are also out for delivery today (obviously no one is going to be there!) So the DIY is coming along nicely.

Mum and dad came over for dinner last night. It was really nice, but I managed to burn my hand on a hot pan and it's quite sore today.

Ollie collected his new glasses from Maidstone so we decided to go to Sainsbury's in Maidstone. What a complete tip! It was the most awful Sainsbury's we've shopped in. Half of the stuff we wanted we couldn't get.

No hot water!

I wrote this yesterday, but forgot to upload it! Doh!

On Saturday our boiler decided to pack up! It’s not paying attention when you turn on the hot tap so it won’t heat up any water. Luckily the central heating is fine as it has been bitterly cold. So we picked an advert for a boiler repair man out of yellow pages and arranged an appointment for yesterday morning. 9am the appointment was for and as Grandad has a bad bout of man ‘flu it was down to dad to sit in and wait for us. After several phone calls, some he’ll be there very soon and we’re really sorry about the delay, they finally called at 4:30 to say that they won’t be coming.

We were so angry! Poor dad had sat there all day without the heating on in case it messed up what they were going to do.

I’ve called a different company and they are going to come out tonight when we get in from work – she seemed like a very nice lady and I’m hoping that it’s something simple that they can fix without anyone else needing to sit in tomorrow!

It's behind you!

Last night we went to the Playhouse Panto with mum, dad, nan and grandad. I thought it was excellent, although I did agree with Ollie that the story line was a little week. Seeing as it was Sleeping Beauty she was only asleep for 2 minutes.

Dr Lee and the evil henchmen were back this year and although last years performance was excellent they do make the show.

It had everything you could possibly want from a panto; it's behind you, oh no it isn't, DJ Otzi, a Take That song, I would roll a thousand miles, always look on the bright side of life as well as many awful jokes! I must say it was also the first pregnant Sleeping Beauty I have ever seen!

Busy busy weekend

Ollie had Friday off and had the grand job of taking the cats to the vet for their booster jabs. This is not an easy operation as they are now too big (fat) to fit both in the carrier at once so one has to be bribed and into coming out of hiding into the carrier and taken off to the vet, and then when that one comes home it's the other one's turn! Ollie said that they were so noisy in the car and the vets!

We went to Ikea after work. Ollie had already been round lakeside by the time I got there and he had bought me a Jamie Oliver mug that says Foxy Lady on it! So we are now sad and have his and hers mugs now!

We got a new light for the stairs and the dining room as well as picture frames for the prints that I have ordered. Plus we got mirrors for the stairs to brighten them up a bit.

Having looked at the footstall that matches the sofa we decided it was too big. But we then came home and decided that we could put all the DVDs in the cd cases we have and store those with the game controllers in the storage in the footstall and put it where the DVD bookcase is.

So we will be off back to Ikea sometime in the near future I expect!

We insulated the attic on Saturday. We have already noticed the difference, not having needed the heating on all the time now it is mild. My legs really ached though with all the crouching and kneeling on the rafters.

Sunday we got the dining room ready for Ollie to paint it this week. I also cleaned and tidied the whole house. I also went to my local weight watchers meeting! I'm 10 pounds over my goal weight now so thought I'd better do something about it before it got out of hand. Ollie is also on it too to help me out and to loose some of the weight he has put on as well.

So it's going ok so far. I'm trying out the core plan. (No count to me!) Seems to be alright. I'm missing my bread though.

Finally some scrapping!

I've completed the second page of my wedding album!

I thought that while I was off sick but feeling a bit less sorry for myself I would do some scrapping. I'm a bit rusty so this is just a lift from a DC class, but it's good to get back into the swing of things.

The paper is Dream Sweet - Romantique Whimsical by Amy Teets.

I hand cut the title - it's Angelina.

Norovirus

Yes it's struck! I was sent home on Wednesday as I was being sick and I'm still off today.

It's the worse possible week for me to be off work. We are so busy I feel really guilty. And I was supposed to be working tomorrow as well so we could get our reports to the US in time. Still I think my boss has been taken over by a pod person as he is being really sympathetic. Most unusual!

I'm feeling much better today, I just feel hugely drained. Like I've been involved in a 24 hour endurance marathon of Wii boxing! Everything aches.

Of course we didn't get a new sofa until yesterday so I did have to spend a day and a half laying under a duvet on the rug in the front room. Ollie put the sofa together last night when he got home. I've never seen a flat pack sofa before but it's certainly a better way of doing things. You basically get a wooden frame covered in squishy stuff but you have to screw the back to the bottom, then put the arms and the legs on.

It needs breaking in a bit to make it more squishy but it's lovely and soft. We're also getting red velvet cushions which will match the curtains when Sainsbury's decide to get some in stock!

Brian seems to like it anyway!

Nothing to sit on!

I thought the Golden Compass was ok. (I haven't read the book yet) Ollie thought it was rubbish (he has read the book). This seems to be a common theme.

Our new sofa is being delivered on Thursday so we put the old one on ebay in the hope that we would make a few pounds and get rid of it in the process. Well we got £125 for it which was more than I thought. And they came to collect it last night! So we are sofa-less for 3 days!

Oh well it will be worth it when the new one arrives.

Not much else has been happening really. It's Nanna's birthday today so if I get out of this mad house that I call work then we may go down for a visit.

The End of Christmas

The Christmas decorations came down today.

I watched Ethan this morning while Ollie was out with Alan and we put all the Christmas decorations back in the box. He's such a good little boy bless him. I've never seen anyone have so much fun with a string of gold beads!

I didn't have any trouble from him all morning, he put things in the boxes and didn't take too many things out! Plus he helped me hoover up afterwards. We did watch 2 hours of Spongebob while we were doing it which I'm sure is enough to drive anyone mad but it was the only half decent thing I could find on any of the children's TV channels on a Saturday morning. Even winnie the pooh has gone 3d and Christopher Robin is now a girl!!!!!

This afternoon we put the first coat of coloured paint on the stairs with the aim of doing the second coat tomorrow.

We are off to the cinema later to see the Golden Compass so we'll see if it's any good.

Happy New Years!

New Years was spent at Helen’s. Ethan got a drum kit for Christmas, he is so cute. He was much better than he has been (he had really bad ‘flu) but had decided New Years Eve that he wasn’t going to eat again all day. We played a game of Cranium and the girls only narrowly avoided victory because we couldn’t answer the factual questions! Then it was bowling on the Wii and Singstar on the PS2. We left just after midnight as I had yet another headache.

Other than that we have spent the New Year break looking for a new sofa and we finally decided and ordered one from Ikea which is being delivered next Thursday. So we spent the rest of the weekend trying to find some cushions to match without real success. But we did find a new toaster that will match our kettle from Sainsbury’s although it then took 35 minutes to get out of the car park.

We did also manage to get the towel rack up in the bathroom for my towels so they don't have to live in the dining room and the white base coat done up the stairs ready for me to paint it this weekend.

Boxing day

Boxing day we had a bit of a lay in (8 o’clock!) and played Xbox for a bit before heading over to Nan’s, again via Gemma’s to collect our un-drunk wine and Ollie’s Grandma and Grandpa’s to give them a framed wedding photo that we had forgotten the day before. After another huge Christmas dinner we played a stupidly hard game of Trivial Pursuit but Ollie was feeling very sick so I had to take him home abut 4. He didn’t really feel better until he woke up to go to work the next day!

It's Christmas!!!!!

A distinct lack of blog updating has been happening over Christmas – oops!

Christmas was super busy. Ollie worked from the Wednesday through to Christmas Eve so I was stuck at home on my own for 3 days. I did manage to get the cheesecake made for Christmas day after a panic as the batteries in the scales had run out!

Christmas day was an early start at 5 to 6. Ollie and I opened our presents before getting ready and heading over to Laura and Wayne’s. We did have a detour via Gemma’s to drop off the cheesecakes which had almost ended up in my lap on numerous occasions during the journey! We called in to make sure mum and dad were ready but made the mistake of not geeing up Nan and Grandad who arrived at Laura’s almost an hour after we did!

We opened all our presents, I got loads of stuff that I wanted. Then it was off to Ollie’s Grandma and Grandpa’s for another cuppa and to say Merry Christmas before heading back to Gemma’s. More present opening, and peeling about 3 million sprouts.

Dinner was lovely and we all ate far too much. Ollie was feeling tired so I was allowed to drink and he was designated driver. Then at 5 o’clock we headed off to feed mum’s cat and then on to Carole’s (Gemma’s mum-in-law).

There the kids opened about 50 million presents each and Jenny and I spent ages playing with the Fifi garden and putting all the stickers on. It was loads of fun! Then I spent ages with Zoe playing with the fuzzy felt.

We left at about half 8 as I had a headache and Ollie was still very tired. So it was back home to play on the Xbox 360 for a bit and then bed time.