5th wedding of the year...

This weekend was Pat and Fliss’ wedding. They got married in a tiny village in Wales. We left it far too late to get cheap train tickets or a hotel anywhere within 20 miles of the wedding. We had already decided to go straight after work on Friday my idea was to stay somewhere half way between London and Birmingham but Ollie found a hotel in Walsall so booked that for Friday hoping to find somewhere close to the wedding for the Saturday. Well we still hadn’t got anywhere last Tuesday so thought that we had better just book another night in Walsall as it was only an hours drive away from the wedding.

We set off from Newbury Park where Ollie had parked the car at about 5:15 Friday night. A great time to set off especially on the Friday that most of the kids have broken up for the summer holidays! We arrived at the hotel at 9:30 after doing a Granddad Ted and driving around the roundabout at Junction 10 of the M6 as the multimap directions didn’t give us an exit! It had rained torrentially during all the bits that I drove (last time I drove on the M6 it rained really hard too!)

Saturday was of course Harry Potter release day so I had forewarned Ollie that we would need to find a Sainsbury’s. Not to worry of course because like EVERY SINGLE other time we have ever stayed in a hotel in England we were less than half a mile away from a Sainsbury’s!

We had to be at the wedding at 2pm so left just after 12 with plenty of time to travel the 60 miles or so. Armed with my Multimap directions we headed towards Shrewsbury. After we had passed the town, Multimap advised us to head down a B road. Shortly after we reached a crossroads. ‘Road ahead closed flood’ said the way we wanted to go. Oh we said as I scanned the map for an alternative route, “turn left”. No that was closed too, as was right. We passed a lady who was desperately trying to get home but the whole area was flooded. We decided to chance the original route – it surely couldn’t be that bad? Well we started to get worried as we were followed by an AA van – not a good sign. Then we saw the dip in the road and the cars driving through a huge puddle that was quite a distance across with water coming above their headlights. The AA van was for some teenagers in a Vauxhall Nova which had conked out after coming through. We decided to turn around. Directing Ollie to go back to the other side of Shrewsbury and down the A roads we took a 30 mile detour with only 45 minutes to go before the wedding. All was well, there were only a few deepish puddles to contend with until we hit the last village before the hotel. The river had burst its banks, houses were flooded and all the locals were congregated outside the pub on the bridge. We turned the corner and there’s another river running across the road! We’re so close! Only a mile to go! We’ll have to brave it. It’s only coming up to the top of the number plates. We made it through and got to the hotel to run inside just as they reached the bit that says “if anyone knows of any lawful impediment…” so we sat down very quickly!

The wedding itself was great. The food was fantastic, we had a whole chicken breast with salad to start followed by roast beef with trimmings and sticky toffee pudding. The speeches were great, and Ollie and I even got a special mention and a thank you for all the ideas that they pinched from our wedding! We heard Ollie’s song request – Build me up Buttercup by the Foundations but left before my choice – I am the one and only, Rick Astley! It had been raining all afternoon and we were worried about deep puddles in the dark.

So all in all a very good but tiring weekend. I just wish I had got some flood pictures but I was too busy trying to get us to the wedding on time and without getting too wet!

...And a funeral

Sadly one of our rabbits, Harry, died last week. Ollie dug a hole while I was at work on Saturday and we had a bunny funeral when I got home. We have no idea why he died, he was fine in the evening and then the next morning he was dead.

Fuzz, our remaining bunny, seems very sad and lonely and hasn’t wanted to come out of his hutch to play all weekend.

Yesterday we went to Ollie’s dad’s for a BBQ. His girlfriend, Anna, doesn’t like BBQs so was having one to give it a go. I helped with the cooking, and did the chicken, lamb kebabs and a few of the new potato kebabs (I’d never had potato kebabs before, but they were ok). I left the sausages and burgers to Ollie’s dad. They had cheated by part cooking the chicken legs (by boiling them?!?!) so they only really needed charring. So I’ve cooked it and dished Ollie’s out first so he can try it to test if it’s cooked! They were all fine and the lamb kebabs were really nice. Yet Anna still managed to complain that her chicken was pink (it wasn’t pink it was the colour of a chicken leg) and that her lamb kebab wasn’t cooked properly. Well it was cooked, the lamb wasn’t even pink; apparently her problem was that the courgette and onion were hard. Well it will be I said, because they take longer to cook than the lamb. So I don’t think that we’ve converted her into a BBQ lover. But I had an ok time, drinking sangria and sitting in the sun talking to Gemma.

4th Wedding of the year...

On Saturday Ollie and I went to a wedding in Alton, Hampshire. It was the wedding of a couple friends of his from University. We had originally planned to drive there and back in the day but were persuaded by another friend to stay over at a hotel.

The wedding was great. The bride looked stunning and her dress was gorgeous. The meal was fantastic, we had pate wrapped in bacon with fancy bread, duck and then strawberries and cream (Ollie had sticky toffee pud). Plus there was plenty of wine and champagne.

There was a ceilidh band, so me and Ollie were up wearing ourselves out barn dancing! It’s really hard work. Plus there was a huge firework display.

Sunday

Travelling back into Kent we had to phone mum up to find out which roads would be closed because of the Tour de France. We did see a load of ‘lost’ cyclists about on Sunday – or they could have been idiots inspired by the race to dig out their old Lycra! I want to know when Kent became part of France!

Sunday afternoon after a lot of texts changing the plans we went to mum’s for a BBQ. It was very nice but we were sooo very tired after the day before that we left before desert to go home to bed!

20/20 cricket (well 5/5 anyway)

Everyone at work was feeling a little delicate today. Yesterday was the annual company trip out to the cricket at the Oval. Armed with £50 each of company money we made the trip across town.

I started off on Scrumpy and we had a burger and curly fries which wasn't cooked in the middle (we are all blaming feeling rough on the burger!) And while it was still raining we stood around under umbrellas and had a few more to drink.

We finally got some play and they decided to just have 5 overs per side which was a really good slog, with Sussex only beating Surrey by a narrow margin of about 5 runs.

After the cricket finished we all piled across to the pub for "a quick one for the road" at 9:30 I asked one of the guys to walk me to the station. Ok he said and suggested to the others that they took me to Victoria and then continued their drinking at Liverpool St. Oh no another guy says, you won't make the 10 o'clock train, you can get the next one can't you? We'll make sure you get it. So off we trundle finally at 20 past 10. When we got to the tube station I wasn't paying attention and follwed the guys onto a tube. Unfortunately it was going in the wrong bloomin direction. I hopped off at the next station and noone followed, bye they said, good luck with your train. I missed it by 30 seconds. I was not a happy bunny and sent one scathing text to my boss about how I hated him and I would never forgive him for making me miss my train!!!!!

I finally got home at 1:30 so am feeling very tired today. Needless to say Ollie wasn't too happy with me either as I had omitted to tell him that we were going to the pub after and he was worried when he didn't hear from me.

Facebook

I have now joined the dark side, not only do I have a blog I am now an active member of Facebook!

I never thought it could be so much fun. I have also been in contact with 2 girls that I went to primary school with!

I may get round to uploading some photos on there at some point.

Another busy weekend – Why all the rain?

Another very busy weekend for us. Friday I was so tired, it had been a long old week and I was ready for the weekend to start. I wanted to go to the gym but didn’t have the energy. Then Ollie suggested we go to Bluewater! Of course I have energy for Bluewater and it involves lots of walking so that’s good for me.

I got a new outfit for next weekend, as I can no longer fit into my posh frock. Diet’s going ok this week though as my Jeans are no longer straining at the seams! Then we went home via Sainsbury’ (for microwave popcorn) and to watch Die Hard which we had sky plussed.

Saturday we went swimming and I put yet another coat of paint on the bathroom. We were going to do the rest of the floor tiles but we need to use the tile cutter outside and it hasn’t stopped raining!

Saturday night we were off out to the pub for Ian’s birthday. Expecting it to be packed and smoky the night before the smoking ban we were apprehensive. However, when we got there the pub was pretty much empty. Then Ian turned up with his sister Helen and she told us that the pub had a cockroach infestation which would explain the lack of people! Didn’t put us off though and we enjoyed a nice quiet evening.

Sunday morning was a trip to Sainsbury’s for the weekly shop and yet another coat of paint around the edges of the bathroom. I also finished a paper LO that I started last week of Ollie’s graduation. I’m still not back in the swing of things but it’s ok.

Sunday night we took the Wii around to Helen’s for dinner. Dinner was wonderful (Roast beef and then lemon cheesecake and lemon meringue pie for desert) and playing on the Wii is great fun after a few glasses of wine and with mates! Which reminds me we haven’t had a Singstar night since we moved in and Nigel’s back soon…

Summer?

Wednesday was pay day! I am in desperate need of summer clothes so I took myself off to Oxford St for a little late night shopping. First stop the huge new Primark (classy girl as I am!) Where for once I didn’t get beaten up (too much) and actually managed to find some clothes on hangers and shelves and not on the floor!

I got 5 pairs of trousers and some socks and queued for ages as usual to pay. When I got to the door to leave I found that the heavens had decided to open and it was raining in a torrential kind of way. Now I had just that afternoon got a new company umbrella, but they only had the big golfing umbrellas that I had decided was too big to lug across town. Primark sold very nice pink spotty ones for £3 but by that point I was fed up with the queue so decided to make a dash for Dorothy Perkins, 3 shops or so down the road. By the time I got there me and my silly paper Primark bag was so wet it completely disintegrated leaving my new clothes in a soggy heap on the floor! I was not impressed and had to keep shopping to find something to buy to get a sensible plastic one to put all my bits in.

What’s going on? It’s raining, blowing a gale and freezing again today and it’s July on Sunday! I’m blaming global warming and am reducing my carbon footprint accordingly (I refused to have a carrier bag in Sainsbury’s this morning.)

New Office

First day in our new offices. We are now in the middle of Fenchurch St. The offices are really snazzy! We were half expecting to walk into something half finished but everything is here, the pcs are working and by 11 we had printers. We still don’t have fax machines, I have no idea where the photocopier is and the scanners haven’t been plugged in.

Everything is so smart. It’s all in our new colours with darkish wood desks and dark red glass. (looks better than it sounds!) The loos are huge! The cubicles are about the size of my bathroom at home! They are about 3 miles away though the office is so huge!

We have a real funky kitchen – like something out of big brother with a toaster – oh yes! And boiling water on tap – no more waiting for the kettle.

Plus (and how sad are we) we can get the phones to play the 24 CTU ring tone. That was the first thing everyone did this morning! I wonder how long it will be before that gets annoying.

Digi layout

Ollie's gone to a stag do today. So the painting of the bathroom still needs to be done and I've been playing about with my photos I want to send off to be printed.

Mum's for tea (it's lonely cooking for 1) for pizzas with their best friends. So I got home at 10:30 and decided I'd have another go at a digi LO. I'm more impressed with this than the first attempt. It's done on a template with some more of the stuff mum has given me to play with.

The big move

Our company moves offices this weekend. Today we are all in Jeans and T Shirts and packing up our desks. I can’t wait until Monday, the new offices will be very nice and new and my walk from the station will be less than half the time! Plus it is a nicer area.

The office now looks like a very big bomb has exploded and I have discovered that I will fit in 2 types of packing crate. I was in one when my wonderful colleges shut the lid and stacked another one on top so I couldn’t get out!

We have removal men in to pack up the filing cabinets and stuff and they are all big, fat, sweaty and breathe really heavily. When they are standing behind you breathing all heavily it’s like being involved in a dodgy phone call! Not nice.

Company away day

Yesterday was our school trip away day team building wotsit for work. I was dreading it, be in London for 10 to 8 (meaning I had to get up at ridiculous o’clock) and then a 2 hour coach journey. Now I get really travel sick in coaches. It’s only coaches and only when I go around corners! So I dosed myself up with travel sickness tablets and put the silly wristbands on and gave in and sat at the back of the bus with our rabble and the finance director! I don’t know what worked but something did as I didn’t feel sick at all. I did have the Mickey ripped out of me because of my wristbands and the fact that I had chosen to wear my festival hat.

We got stuck in road works but eventually got to Woburn Safari park. We were a bit late and the coach driver had another job so we must have had the quickest trip around the safari park known to man. We were over taking all the cars and nearly took out a buffalo, lion and a zebra! We did get to see Shane the lion having sex – twice! And a five legged zebra that only really have 4 legs if you know what I mean!

We had breakfast and were then herded into the most boring conference for an hour and a half. I did fall asleep at one point – Bobbie had to hiss at me to wake up! Not so that I wouldn’t get in trouble but because she didn’t feel it was fair that I got to go to sleep and she didn’t! My tablets did say may cause drowsiness and I’m blaming it on that.

After a very nice BBQ lunch we were given very complicated challenges to do. I was unfortunately in a team with our manager who is not a team player at all. Needless to say we came last but by that time another bloke and I had got so fed up that we didn’t go to the ‘awards’ ceremony and had a go on the swan shaped pedalos instead.

We have had a laugh at my managers antics in the office today. Apparently he thinks that I am very cleaver but I scare him!

Weekend

Saturday was a trip to see Muse at the new Wembley stadium. Although the arch was impressive there isn’t that much else to add character. I had decided against taking the camera as concerts and cameras don’t exactly mix but the arch against the sky would have been a good photo and taking on your phone really isn’t the same! Muse were fantastic. Unfortunately in order to catch the train home we had to leave before they came back on for the encore and missed 4 songs – one of which was one of my favourites.












Sunday we were off to mum and dad’s for a BBQ for father’s day. Yes dad had to cook but we did bring some food with us this time! Laura and I had not coordinated our father’s day presents which is unusual for us and I had got dad a father’s day edition toblerone and a posh bottle of Scotch. Laura had just got him a regular toblerone! Not to be outdone she tried to give him the bottle of Scotch she had given him for his birthday – unbeknown to her he had already drunk it so she actually gave him an empty bottle!!!!!

Bathroom update

Back to work this week. Why is it always so hard to get back into the swing of things when you have been off for a week?

The bathroom’s not finished. We have a working bath and toilet and almost a fully tiled floor. We could have had the floor finished and the basin in but we went to Wembley to see muse on Saturday and to mums on Sunday. The walls need another coat of paint which is tomorrow’s job.

Pirates

Oh and forgot to say that we finally got to the cinema last night. Well it is our holiday after all! There are loads of good films coming up so we decided to go back to our cinema passes. We didn't look to see what time the films were, we just went with all our bits to set up our pass accounts and then thought we'd see what was on. Well our passes only took a few minutes, and there was a pirates of the carribean 3 on in 10 minutes. Ollie was doubtful as he thought it would be busy but the lady assured him it was very quiet for an Orange Wednesday so we went for it. There was only about 10 of us in there.

I thought pirates was great. Much better than 2 but of course not as good as 1. Ollie hated the ending, but I quite liked it. I've thought about it and I've come to the conclusion that 1 and 3 are best because they don't really have much plot. 2 tried to have too much plot and it distracted from the pirates and Johnny Depp.

Birds, Tiles, Toilets, Paint and a new bath!

I am sooo tired. We have been working so very hard so far this week. I have muscles that ache that I didn't even know existed.

After the last post I was suddenly woken at 4am. Lying there wondering what woke me up I can hear the birds outside making a terrible racket. As I wake up I think, hold on - one of those chirps is coming from inside the house. Shaking Ollie awake (who was dead to the world still) I say "the cat's got a bird" By the time we put our glasses on and get downstairs, the poor thing is pretty much dead on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Brian (the cat) gave it up quite readily. It's his very first catch and I do hope he doesn't make a habit of it. We were quite surprised though. This cat spends 22 hours a day asleep on the bed and is about 3 sandwiches short of a picnic!

Well what's been happening on the bathroom? Loads really. We now have most of the tiles on the floor. It is impossible to cut tiles in a curve! There's just 3 or 4 that need fiddly bits cutting and 2 by the side of the bath that we need to put the bath in first to see how big they need to be. There's 3 coats of paint on the wall, and it still needs another coat.

After having 2 days of no toilet or a toilet that you can't sit on in case it moves and have to flush with a bucket we now have a toilet which flushes, and Ollie is putting a loo seat on at half time in the football as I type. It's amazing how many things you can do around needing the loo. Such as we need to go to B & Q, we'll wait until we need a wee as there's one there! We'll have lunch in Sainsbury's and we can do a wee while we're there!

We've spent all day fiddling about with the bath and have had yet another trip to B & Q to get our new radiator towel wotsit. Hopefully tomorrow we will have hot water back again and a bath that you can put water in and water can come out of!!!!!

Photos...

Bathroom Update

Yesterday's job was to take the tiles off the floor. However, Ollie hit one with the chisel and we decided that we would just tile over the old ones (it says we can in the B & Q DIY book so that's ok!)

So today we were going to remove the bottom of the shower tray, tile the floor and then go to the cinema while the tiles dried and then come home and fit the new loo. However, we got a bit carried away with the shower and ended up taking the whole thing out and all the tiles off the wall. Taking the shower tray up we discovered that there isn't actually any floor under it! But we did find a load of pipes from when we presume they used to be a bath. They have used 3 cans worth of foam which I did have to remove. I swear our whole house is held together with foam!

Now we haven't found our mains stop cock by this point and had spent all yesterday making holes in the back of the kitchen cupboards trying to find it. So a trip to B & Q this afternoon found us bying breeze blocks to fill in the hole in the floor and a gadget to stop the water from the street.

We got home and figured that we can use the existing pipes instead of running new ones from where the sink used to be. So there is a pipe at the bottom which we think runs to where the shower is which has an isolation valve. So we turn it and a load of water comes out the wall! Strange we think, but close it again.We then turn the water off at the mains to remove the shower. We need the pipe from the shower to be a lot lower, so Ollie cuts it down a bit in the wall and then cuts the bit at the bottom. We need to test the valve so turn the water back on. Water spurts out the pipe in the wall that we think we have just cut off from the mains. Off the water goes again!

Turns out there are 2 pipes in the wall and after spending 2 hours making holes in the wall to find out where the pipe goes we find that it goes back into the kitchen. So we hop off to Homebase to get a stop for the end and to feed the cats at Helen's so we can have a drink with dinner (we have earned it by this point!) When we got back there's a knock on the door from next door to say that they don't have any water! Turns out that the thing we turned off in the street is their water too! Luckily the stop end worked and we now have water again.

I've just finished the plastering (apart from the shower area which looks like a bombs gone off and has more holes than an aero!

So tomorrow is plastering, the cinema and a new loo.

Here are some photos of our progress (taken by Ollie)

No hot water

Today we only have a few jobs to do. Removing the existing tiles on the floor in the bathroom and removing the old sink. We thought we'd start after lunch as we needed to go food shopping.

Ollie went to wash his spoon after breakfast and discovered that our combi heater does not like being without water in the central heating and now will not create any hot water. Although this is not too big a problem as we have an electric shower and can boil a kettle for the washing up. It does mean that we do have to re-plumb the new towel rail and fix the central heating before I will be able to use my new bath and shower as the new one is just on a mixer tap! We had planned to leave fixing heating until November but never mind!

Trip to Sainsbury's was also great. We forgot our bags for life so had to be environmentally unfriendly by using new plastic bags. I forgot to get a refund on the parking ticket and we spent a small fortune. We did have to stock up on cider and wine though. With this bathroom fitting lark I think we are going to need it! We also needed cat food, and when we got home to put it away Ollie worked out we now have 14 different flavours ranging across fish, poulty and other meat and 3 flavours of biscuits. Not that we spoil them at all.

Start as you mean to go on...

Yesterday was the official start of our week off and therefore the beginning of the bathroom renovation. First on the list of things to do was to find the kitchen under the mountain of washing up so we could actually find our way to the bathroom! (Ours is an old terrace house with the bathroom downstairs off the kitchen.)

Next was the monster trip to B & Q. We took mum along as dad was asleep having worked a night shift. She was in charge of the list and I must say is worse at holding the list than me! ( I always miss things so we have to go back and forth a million times!) Although Ollie didn't grumble at her nearly as much as he would if it had been me!!!

After spending a small fortune it was back home for fish and chips and to assess the situation and do a game plan. First off was draining the central heating so we could remove the radiator which will be replaced by a nicely plumbed in heated towel rail wotsit. No real dramas with this although it must be the most boring job in the world with us sitting in the bathroom taking turns on my Nintendo DS and occasionally emptying the bucket. (took 2 of us as you need 1 to put finger over draining hole and 1 to empty said bucket)

We also took all the raw plugs and screws out the walls. Unfortunately they used really long screws for the radiator bracket that went back to the brease blocks. These were stronger than the surrounding plaster which I think was made with 90% sand. This just crumples if you look at it so we ended up with some wopping holes in the wall! I do enjoy plastering...

Anyway, I also got the window sill plastered which has been without tiles for 10 months!!! I'm quite impressed with how flat and smooth it is to.

More wedding photos

Last night we had a trip round my best mates to see her wedding photos. They have only got the proofs from the official photographer and have to choose 40. They had a professional so not only did it cost them a fortune, but they don’t get the originals on a disc along with the copyright. However the photos are really good. There’s a great one of their little boy along with his Godparents (me my hubby, and two of Helen’s other friends) He’s even looking at the camera and smiling!

They are off on their second honeymoon tomorrow. They had a weekend away in Venice last weekend just the two of them and then they are going to a cottage in Newquay for a week. So we get to feed their 2 cats, Frodo and Holly, bunny George and guinea pig Mable. Not that it’s any trouble and we are off work next week to fit our bathroom so may sneakily be using theirs.

Business Dinner

Last night I went out for my first proper “business dinner”. We have clients over from Bermuda and they took all the people who work on the Syndicate out to dinner. We went to Chez Gerard which is some posh French place (obviously). I had goats cheese salad to start and steak to follow. The salad was really nice and so was the steak. Although it was still too well done to be called ‘rare’ and the chips were those little hard ones. I’m more a soggy chip shop chip girl than a French fries lover. Having nothing remotely chocolaty on the desert menu I just had an espresso. Which only managed to keep me awake until Chatham when I feel asleep and didn’t wake up until just before my stop. I finally got home at 20 past midnight – way too late for a school night and still have to be polite to the guests who are still here today when all I want to do is snooze at my desk until home time!

Here's some more photos that I've taken...