A day in my life

Tagged by Faith to write about a typical day in my life!

A day in the life of Woozle

Every day, except Sunday, starts at 7am. The alarm is just going off and my arm flailing around to turn off the incessant noise when J comes in, flinging the curtains open and depositing a cup of tea by my side. His side of the bed is almost cold as he is a 6 o’clocker (or thereabouts – I’m still in a deep coma and never hear him get up) and he is chirpy and chatty as he changes from his chicken letting out and dog walking clobber to something a bit more respectable. By the time I have drunk my tea the fog has lifted from my brain and I have made plans for the day, which will, no doubt, be cast to the wind as soon as I get downstairs.

Before the extension, my morning shower consisted off a mad dash downstairs, through the cold lobby and into the freezing domain off the downstairs shower room. It was a relief to stand under the warm water but then it took a marathon of will power to get out into the cold, wrap my towel around me and leg it back up to dry and dress in the warmth. Now, our gorgeous new ensuite (which is ensuite to our new bedroom, which we haven’t yet moved into…….) sports a gorgeous Victorian style shower with the biggest drench head and I don’t want to get out for other reasons………

Dressed, windows flung open and bed turned back to air, I scoop up one of my carefully sorted piles of washing (why does that black sock manage to creep into my best white bedlinen pile?) and plod downstairs, dodging the dogs who want to say good morning before I’ve emptied my arms of washing. Once they’ve had their chins scratched and I’ve spoken to each in turn, the girls throw themselves back down on their bed and Alfie lies down with a big sigh in front of the Rayburn.

During our building works, all our tradesmen usually pull up about 8am and we have to co-ordinate vehicles on the drive to make sure mine doesn’t get blocked in at the back in case I need to pop out to Travis Perkins or the plumber’s merchant. I learnt very early on that it doesn’t do to annoy the tradesmen by asking them to move 3 vans when they are a) up a ladder, b) soldering copper pipe or c) on the roof.

Now my day is dictated by endless brews of tea and dashes to the village shop as, horror of horrors, the supply of custard creams and chocolate bourbons is reduced to a few crumbs. I dream of the time when my “old” life comes back and instead of painstakingly keeping spreadsheets of accounts, I can pore over seed catalogues with a mug of tea for one (or maybe two if J is around, instead of six builders). Will I ever get back to the time when I can lay the fire for the evening, flick a quick duster round and run the Dyson over the carpet (those darned white dogs of ours!), shimmy the bathroom, tidy the kitchen and then have the rest of the day to potter in the garden? Or have mum and dad over for lunch? Or take the dogs for a really long walk without being scared I’ll come back home to a doorway being put somewhere “creative” because I wasn’t there at the time?

Lunchtime is a brief reprieve as our workmen retreat to their vans with flasks, packed lunches and radios, and I can reclaim my home for half an hour. I never really thought of the impact having men just walking in and out all the time would have on our life. Your home is meant to be your private world but all that goes out the window when you embark on this kind of project. My “normal” life would see me sat at the kitchen table, lunch before me and the binoculars at my elbow to watch the activity from the bird box in the perry pear tree; now I skulk away in the farthest room to the work – the lounge.

As we are moving along this project, my days have changed a bit to include the excitement of getting paint on the walls. Last week we got window cills and what a transformation – everywhere looks cleaner, instead of plaster rough edges and fluffy bits of insulation sticking out of the cavity under the windows. I’ve got to wax the windows yet, but I’ll get round to it soon. Somehow or other, I’ve got to find time to prepare dinner as well as wielding a brush now that we are eating back at home. For the last few months, we have been eating at mum and dad’s, but when the kitchen was finished it was such a treat to be able to stay in and cook. The novelty is only just starting to wear off as the enormous task of decorating raises its head as we enter the home run. Painting/eating/painting……… decisions, decisions.

By the time our men have gone (4pm) calm descends and we greedily wander round looking at what’s been achieved and can be crossed off the “to do” list. I love a list. I can’t live without them, actually. Lists for shopping, lists for chores, lists of garden plants/pruning times/vegetable crop rotations, lists of birthdays and phone calls………. endless lists pinned or stuck to all available surfaces at the moment. Confession time. I know it seems early to some, but this is the time I like to have a glass of wine. Chilled white wine in hand, I can wander from room to room seeing what’s been done (or not!) and then go back to the kitchen, make another list and then get on with cooking, accompanied by the occasional sip of wine. My second glass is with dinner and then that’s it. Back to the tea! My town mouse friend is always horrified if she rings at around 5pm and I’m drinking. She tells me that it’s WAY too early, but I have to remind her that I’m not like her and that when I start it doesn’t mean that I then drink all night. I’m done with alcohol by 8pm – she drinks until she goes to bed so daren’t start until 8pm!

I keep an eye on the light levels so that I can go and put the hens away. We have one, Willis, (we hatched 3 of our own and called them Freeman, Hardy and Willis. Needless to say, Freeman and Hardy were re-homed as we would have had 3 cockerels!) who always comes back out of the hen house if you go out too early. She is the greediest of our girls and is always on the look out for titbits, even at bedtime, so I try to go out during those last dusk moments when I know she will have hopped on the perch to roost, instead of sticking her head out of the pop hole watching for me to come out as her signal to come charging to the gate. It is a game to her but I want to get on with the dinner!

I love it when J sits with me at the kitchen table, chatting, or helps with chopping and peeling. It’s a good time of day for us to talk properly and I miss it if he is working away. I usually send him off to check his emails and make phone calls while I clear up after dinner and then I’ll wander through to the lounge and sit in front of the fire with a mug of tea. Very rarely is the TV on in our house – J is a news hound and I love a good thriller or period drama, but soaps are definitely out. However, Grand Designs and those kind of programmes have sneaked in a bit as we have been absorbed in all things house renovation – you’d think we’d want to get away from it but it is an obsession at the moment. I think we get a perverse pleasure when we see other couples overcoming the same problems we have and it certainly makes us feel better when they admit to going over budget. It’s not just us then! Lately, this is the time that I do my ironing as there is no way I can do it during the day, but even this is a novelty at the moment as the washing machine has only been plumbed in 3 weeks!

I usually go off and run a bath then come down to make the last cuppa which I will take up to bed whilst J watches the news. This is my book time and I heap the pillows up and read until he comes up to bed too. I hear him let the dogs out for their last wee, call the cat in, put the milk bottles out and lock up and it is my cue to finish the chapter before he comes up.

We like to sleep with the window open and I love it when the lights go out and all is dark and silent, except for the occasional hooting of an owl or the sound of a disturbed animal in the hedges, and you’re warm and snuggly beneath the covers. I love it even more if I can get off to sleep before J breaks the silence and starts snoring……….

For Mum

It’s been a while since I have blogged and I have much to catch up on. Trying to remember things to tell you has caused me to sit and reflect on the last few months and how all this started.

I didn’t enter the CL competition but started to blog around the time it was “all happening” in February 2007. Writing an online diary was therapeutic and opened up a whole new world I never knew existed. And I “met” you; became involved in your lives through the good times and some bad times, and even though I have been an infrequent player lately, the warmth of the site ensures I can dip in and out when I can. It’s like coming home to family after long absences and it is this that I am going to share with you – my family.

As many of you know, it was my 40th birthday in November. I thought I was going out with my nearest and dearest for a low-key family meal at the Three Choirs Vineyard restaurant, near my home. But, oh no! My wonderful, fabulous and sometimes exasperating family had plotted and sneaked around behind my back to arrange the MOST wonderful get-together of all my closest family, friends and former work colleagues. They raided my address book and pinched my mobile phone to get telephone numbers – nothing was sacred. The extent of their deception in other circumstances would have horrified me but I forgave them instantly, after I recovered from the shock, that is!

Jimmy was run ragged on nervous exhaustion and, with hindsight, his behaviour had been a little odd. But, as he’d been preparing to work Lincoln Christmas Market and Worcester Christmas Fair, I’d been used to him coming and going and making umpteen phone calls to fellow traders, to check on pitch locations and such-like.

My poor mum, on the other hand, nearly had a nervous breakdown. As we have been eating and showering at mum’s during our extension works, she’d been trying to co-ordinate everyone whilst I was in the shower. I never suspected a thing when she ushered me up the stairs for first shower, nor did I think it strange when they all went quiet when I came down the stairs again for my forgotten towel. They pulled it off with the flair of fully trained MI5 intelligence officers, but it was my mum who pulled it all together.

Mum works at a local B&B the-grovehouse and it is also here that we keep Diamond (a lovely horse I had on loan for a while from a friend but she has taken him back on full time now) and became friendly with the house’s owners, Ellen and Michael. They have a barn there for weddings and parties and they gave my family the free run of it for my party. But this wasn’t all. As we had been eating at mum’s every night, there was no way that any food could be prepared without me seeing it. The fridge was out of bounds too, which was a bit tricky as I am chief tea maker, and there was nowhere to hide the wine either!

This was the bit I found hardest to get my head around when I found out the extent of the military operation of my birthday celebrations. Our wonderful neighbours in the village not only also kept the secret, but provided all the hot food. They made curries and casseroles, in addition to bringing cold platters and the desserts. The farmer’s wife, over the road from us, even made my birthday cake. It was truly the most wonderful surprise of my life.

They managed to get me inside (still unsuspecting, I might add!) under the pretext of picking mum up from work as she’d been “helping at a wedding” before we went on to my birthday meal at the Three Choirs. Now, what I haven’t told you is that as lovely as Grove House is, it has antiquated wiring and it is always having power cuts at inappropriate moments. So when we pulled up, mum came out in a flap and asked if I could help her as the wedding reception was in full flow and the power had gone. Being an old hand at stepping into the breach, I huffed a bit and moaned and got out the car to help with candles and matches while we sorted the trip out. But of course, I walked into darkness that suddenly became light and was surrounded by a sea of my best-loved people in the whole world.

Yes, I did cry. My pregnant best friend had traveled up from London with her partner and 3 year old son; my uncle and cousins had come up from Bath; my brother and heavily pregnant sister-in-law had come from Birmingham; some other friends had come from Kent; my former boss (she was my true mentor at work) and her husband were there; our whole village……. Oh, I could go on. Shock registered on my face as I looked at each grouping of people and I saw friends that I hadn’t seen for nearly 12 months in some cases. The evening passed in a whirl but is filed away in my precious memories box. I’m not usually one for surprise parties, but this was amazing. To be surrounded by my nearest and dearest for my 40th was actually all I could have wanted, and they pulled out all the stops for me that night.

And my mum worked hard all night – bringing out the food from the kitchen, taking dirty plates away and washing up. She did not stop until the last wine glass was washed and put back in the box, except in her toast to me when I blew out my candle (just the one, otherwise it would have melted the cake!!). She spoke of our special relationship; the times when she was bringing me up as a single parent with my widowed Nan helping, but the fun us three girls had as our own unit; her remarriage and our growing into a bigger family and the way our relationship has grown, as I have, over the years. She made me blush, cry and laugh in succession as she told everyone how I was a model baby who hardly cried; a toddler who found an almost empty wine bottle at my uncle’s house and swigged the last bit down and carried it to her saying “Nice!”; her grief when she found out I had Scleroderma and how our roles are beginning to reverse as we each get older.

So, to my mum, today is YOUR birthday and I would like to say that although we are now friends in a different way, I am still your little girl and you are a wonderful Mum who has put your family first throughout your life. I will cherish the memories of my childhood and can still close my eyes and catapult myself back to the little blue chair you had welded into your truck’s cab for me, so that I could come to work with you when you were making ends meet as a lorry driver. I can still hear you singing nursery rhymes with me, until you were hoarse, on those long journeys and remember sharing a packed lunch that Nan had made for us. Those were our special times – the three of us against the world, and I consider myself the luckiest of children to have shared it all with you. XX

We're getting there!

It is a beautiful sunny day. J is up the scaffolding painting our new window frames, we have first fix electrics and plumbing completed, the roof is on and the floorboards are due to arrive on Monday. It is happening. But not quite quickly enough now, for my liking! We won’t be done for Christmas, but all our workmen have promised to try and get the kitchen in so that we can at least make a turkey sandwich from the doggy-bag mum and dad will, no doubt, provide.

We sit at night and look, not at our lovely open fire, but at our lovely new slipper bath instead (another eBay bargain!). We can see the TV (just) not that we watch it much anyway. We can also see cardboard boxes of extractor fans, light switches (antique dolly switches also stockpiled from eBay), taps and heat/smoke detectors (all part of building regs!). We can make tea. And toast. Oh! And we can warm soup on top of the log burner in the dining room – it is our only form of heating in the whole cottage and lit 24hrs a day.

I’ve finally killed the Dyson – it battled bravely trying to suck up dust and debris, but keeled over with a groan on Thursday. I’m posting on Freecycle for another one – it’s doomed before it gets here!

And next week I am 40! How on earth did THAT happen? I’ve an awful feeling that my birthday will coincide with the day the builders “do” the knock-through for the new staircase and I will have scuttled back to mum and dad’s out of the way. I’ve only been home a couple of weeks and my bag is already lurking in the corner, waiting to be re-packed!

Has it been worth it? Mmmmm. There’s a question! Truthfully? Yes. Absolutely. Are we broke? Totally. But our dream is taking shape and in the New Year, we will have such fun putting the icing on the cake of this wonderful job our builders are doing for us.

I can’t see out of the landing window as well but still manage to catch glimpses of our Jays, long-tailed tits and glorious bejeweled frosty mornings. We have had to relocate the bird feeders and this has caused a bit of a furore and the blue tits perch on the scaffolding and look in to tell us when they are running low! The wrens also use the scaffolding to peer in at us and the dunnocks tap at their reflections in the glass (although how they can see anything through the brick dust is beyond me).

I miss dabbling into all your lives but, to be honest, at the moment am too scared to even click on one of your blogs or visit the common room in fear of being side-tracked. I do think of you all the time and can’t wait for this all to be over so life can get back to normal. It is taking a marathon of self control to keep off the site, but I just wanted to say hello (yet again), please don’t forget me and I SOOOOO want to come back. And soon.

And next year, I hope the Welsh/Marches lot will come to me for a visit and see the end result in the flesh……………. In the meantime, if there’s a trip to Ludlow on the cards – I do still have Christmas shopping to do, girls!!xx

Two bloggers' days and the roof starts to go on!

I started off with good intentions……… I really did. We would live in the house as the builders ripped it apart and then proceeded to put it back together, even better than before. (Note the “I’s” and “we’s”). And then the caravan came.

And now I am at my mum and dad’s. Wimp? You betcha. They are only around 15 minutes away so I can shower, eat and sleep in comfort and then return fully charged to spend the day “on site”. Note this phrase – “on site”. No longer, “at home”. I found myself saying to mum the other day that we’d be “home” for dinner at 6pm. Dad looked at me aghast over his glasses, eyebrows raised so far that they were almost on the back of his head and said “er…….. home?” total panic on his face. I grinned sheepishly.

So the bloggers’ day at Elizabeth’s was a wonderful reprieve. I was able to wear clean jeans and put some mascara on, jump into my car and spend a day in delightful company, eat lovely food and gaze at views to die for. Heaven. Jimmy, meanwhile, is in his element shinning up and down the scaffolding and camping in the house like a boy-scout. There is a definite divide in what “I can” and “we can” cope with at the moment!!

But Thursday morning took my breath away as I drove “to site” before heading off to Elizabeth’s. The sun was low and watery, with the promise of a beautiful day to come. The early morning mist floated above the ground and gently rolled up the hills so that the trees just poked out at the very tops and they looked like they were floating in cotton wool. I startled a buzzard as I drove along the lane and he flew from the farm gate up and away, silhouetted against the misty sunshine.

It was 7.30am and already I was smiling. I love days like this when nature makes Herself so…….. I guess “in your face” is the expression that leaps to mind. Everywhere I looked was gentle, rural beauty and the wildlife was there, especially if you knew where to look: rabbits jumping into verges; pheasants running along in front of the car, jumping neither left nor right, but just doing that funny run straight ahead; buzzards and kestrels out hunting for breakfast; squirrels foraging and all supported by a chorus of birdsong. Thursday was definitely one of those days that remind me how wonderful it is to be alive and to rise up above the problems we can all face in our daily lives and that, sometimes, can make us fail to see the beauty all around. Corny to say my heart felt full to bursting? I hope not.

Then, before I knew it, the sun was going down and I was heading back. This time, the night came quickly and on the last leg of the journey, my eyes felt gritty with tiredness. The day was playing over in my head and I smiled at the familiar ease we already seem to have found in one another’s company. An amazing community we have formed here on these purple pages.

It was only just after 8pm when I got back to mum’s and I ran a bath, made tea and was in bed with my book before 9pm. I battled with dry, heavy eyes and gave up trying to finish my book. My call to wish J goodnight wasn’t as long as usual and soon I was away with the fairies.

Friday was spent coordinating deliveries, paying bills and negotiating deals. It was a day attached to the phone, making builder tea and gazing at pages of Kingspan, coach bolts, battens, galvanized nails and breathable roofing membranes. By 4pm we had part of the roof trusses in place and we were skipping around like kids.

Saturday was a day for skiving off the build. No bricklayers this weekend as they have only got the 3 gable ends to finish and they have to wait for the roof to be in situ. So, with nothing to organize, choose, order or buy I leapt at the chance of meeting up with Bodran again (yep, twice in a week!).

We met at the Hop Pocket – a local craft centre with tea room and garden section selling cottage garden plants (we each bought a cranberry plant and have high hopes of home made cranberry sauce!). Nell went off to look around while we drank coffee and talked……… again. I know we have all been attracted to this site and this means we have things in common, but actually meeting up with fellow bloggers never fails to remind me just how much we really do have in common. Especially for those of us that were (dare I say it?) on t’other side before. That living in the country element and the whole lifestyle thing, ties us together and means we never run out of things to talk about.

I didn’t want to gate crash or hog Bodran’s day with Nell, so we parted company after a while but knew we’d probably bump into each other a bit later on in Ledbury. And, of course, we did. Phil Rickman, our local author, was signing his latest book (The Fabric of Sin) in the bookshop by the market house and I had my copy ready and waiting for his signature, in the back of the car. When I walked in, Bodran was already there and it was really nice, if a bit surreal, to see her smiling face 102 miles (she told me) from her home and twice in one day!

We clutched our signed copies and were chuffed to receive a free calendar too, with pictures of locations from the books. When I left, I thought of all the questions I had wanted to ask him about the locations which, of course, had flown out of my head. Next time……. He told us he has just started the 10th book……..

And now, I am back at home (yes, it IS home really – I’ve got the fire lit today and am snuggled on the sofa) waiting for our carpenter to come and measure up properly for the windows and the new staircase. The roof should be finished in 2 weeks at the latest and first fix electrics and plumbing will start straight after that. The quotes are coming in from the plasterers and we can now see the shape of things to come.

The budget has taken a hammering and the pounds are sliding out of our build account at a rate of knots. But right here and right now we don’t care because we can now see our vision starting to become reality. And we love it.

Getting above ground

Our poor little cottage is sulking. We are living in chaos, rubble and dust. All of our possessions have been boxed up and stacked in every available square inch of space. Making tea demands the skills of a contortionist as we lean over boxes and crates and we are permanently breathless from running up the stairs to fill kettles and wash mugs in a bowl in the bath.

The dogs have been remarkable. Three pairs of brown reproachful eyes follow us around as their bed has been moved and food/water bowls are carefully placed away from dust and bits of brick and mortar. They have soon adapted to the comings and goings of tradesmen and apart from a cursory sniff now, they largely ignore proceedings. Tilly, the cat, is far nosier and inspects everything with her tail high in the air and left her foot prints in the concrete outside the kitchen door.

We got up on Monday morning to 6 inches of water on the kitchen floor as our make-shift tarpaulin roof was no match for the heavy wind and rain. The water had seeped under the door into the dining room and we squelched as we stepped from the stairs.

I am writing this, huddled on the sofa. There are inches of dust everywhere, the carpets are ruined and now I am ready to cry. I gaze around, completely unable to see beyond the here and now. I gave up vacuuming and dusting every two days, at the weekend. It was a pointless waste of energy and I was becoming more and more disillusioned as the dust settled before I had turned my back.

The initial excitement and flurry of activity now seems a lifetime ago as the cold, stark reality of the can of worms we have unearthed stares at us full in the face.
“Never again!” and “Are you moving out?”
Oh how we laughed as our friends shared their past experiences – confident that we were made of sterner stuff and that it would be a breeze. Our laugh faltered slightly, only once, when our plumber asked where the caravan was going.

But things are looking brighter. We now have said caravan: a tiny, old touring caravan from a neighbour who has taken pity on us. This is why we are doing it. Apart from being totally and utterly in love with our home, this wonderful community that we live in is pulling ranks to support us in our hour of need. We have offers of cooking on M’s Aga (we go to mum’s, though, but lovely offer anyway), doing our washing at next door’s house (ditto mum), parking our cars on another’s drive, storing all our building materials on the farm yard opposite – the list goes on. We couldn’t think of living anywhere else and so we battle on with the disruption, trying to focus on the end result.

Yesterday afternoon, the rain returned and halted our joist work. We swept rain water out through the kitchen door into our longed-for “new hall”. The blue tarpaulin flapped above our heads and our wonderful chimney man was up a ladder trying to work out where to re-route the Rayburn flue pipe. After several cups of tea (no sugar, Milla and Jane!) the final verdict was we CAN’T move it. It joins the upstairs chimney and enters the wall at the lowest possible place. The flue can be boxed in and will just fit under our iron bed, but the joists will have to be spaced around it to meet fire regulations and insulated to protect the new floor boards. Technical facts and figures whiz back and forth between him and the builders, as I slink off to do some internet research to find out how hot the flue pipe gets.

And so, here I am, nursing my laptop. Another crisis sorted. But as sure as God made little apples, there’ll be another one on the way until the day finally arrives when Mr Building Inspector signs the build off and we open a bottle of champagne. I hope we don’t lose the box of glasses in the meantime……..

Homework

Headmistress, I did debate pretending that I'd missed the deadline for handing it in, but I have managed it in between making tea and taking delivery of another skip!

WOOZLE1967

W is for warmth. I love the permeating warmth from the Rayburn. It gently wraps its arms around you and draws you in, enticing you to lean against its shiny chrome bar. The steam gently swirls from the spout of the kettle and crumpets sizzle on the hot plates. The heart and soul of our home.

O is for outside. Living in the countryside, being able to gaze from the window at undulating fields and listen to the uninterrupted sounds of nature. Whatever the weather, there is something beautiful and ever changing as the landscape moves through the seasons, bringing new delights to marvel at. From the first glimpses of Spring poking through the dark soil; the sound of birdsong; lengthening days with the promise of things to come: next is the full-on greenness and colour of Summer; casting off our heavy winter clothes and feeling the sun kissing our skin; the sound of buzzards calling in the thermals above the garden; the scents of cottage garden flowers; dining al fresco well into the lighter evenings: and then my favourite time of year – Autumn. Autumn sneaks up on you but then who can mind that when it brings presents of reds and golds to adorn our trees, followed by the crunching and swooshing of tramping through fallen leaves; the smell of log smoke curling up from the chimney and early morning mists. Then last, but not least, Winter – spiders’ webs glimmering in the frost or early morning dew, looking like they have been decorated with tiny diamonds; the stark silhouette of branches against the sky; crunching through newly fallen snow; being able to peep through lamp lit cottage windows at scenes of cosy country living and picturing the roaring fire, glass of red wine on the side and piles of throws, blankets and cushions. I am a terrible nosey parker and can’t help but glance in through such windows – they tease me and call to me to look in at the hidden domestic delights that only weave their magic at this time of year.

O again and back to outside. Oak trees. I know others have mentioned these trees for all the same reasons as me. These majestic trees epitomize everything English countryside. Living on the Herefordshire/Gloucestershire borders, many of the local houses here are timber framed and we live fairly near to the “Black and White Trail” which joins many Herefordian villages together, such as Weobley, Pembridge, Eardisley, Dilwyn to name but a few. We are using green oak to construct two porches as part of our extension works and I have been stock-piling clippings and down loading pictures of oak porches for our carpenter to get his chisel into!

Z. Oh, blimey. I guess it has to be zeal. I am often accused of being like an over-zealous puppy. I talk too much, wave my arms around and have a terrible habit of interrupting. Or Zester as I couldn’t live without mine and it gets plenty of use in our kitchen. We love to cook and whether it is on the Rayburn, electric cooker or barbeque, this little device has seen its way through a plethora of limes, lemons and oranges.

L is for lavender. I adore this plant and it is my signature scent in my Home Scents cleaning products. If you haven’t heard of this company, visit their website as it is full of wonderful products that do not contain ANY chemicals at all. Their bathroom cleaner is amazing and I can still smell it hours after cleaning.

E is for earth. I love my garden and one of the simplest pleasures is to feel the earth running through my fingers. It never ceases to amaze me that putting a seed or bulb into the earth and then, with the right conditions, it can yield a crop of wonderful flowers, cereals or fruits and vegetables. The earth can nurture and produce our food or, in complete reverse, you can bury something and it will rot away. How amazing is that?

And finally - 1967. No prizes for guessing it’s the year of my birth!

Yes, I'm still here!

Well, it’s finally happening. Our long awaited extension is under way and our feet haven’t touched the ground.

The floods in July caused chaos in our surrounding area and postponed our build as those suffering from the effects of the flood water were, quite rightly, prioritized for help. However, soon, it was our turn and our builders have not let us down. They have worked like Trojans and we are now above ground level and waiting for the brick layers to come to get us up to first lift: a builder term, I have recently learnt and am bandying around like a seasoned professional! To the rest of us, that’s up to bottom of first floor level for the joists and scaffolding to be fitted.

Our supplies of tea and sugar are vastly depleted; there are crumbs in the bottom of the biscuit barrel; our home looks like a bomb site and I am in my element (for the moment!). Today (Friday) we are having the kitchen lights taken out of the ceiling so that it can be pulled down next week. We are already in semi-gloom as the window has been taken out and a shroud of blue tarpaulin is flapping in the breeze. My beloved Rayburn is lying cold and silent, decommissioned until further notice. The Rayburn really is the heart of our home but the buzz and excitement is, surprisingly, filling the gap that appeared when it was turned off.

Next week, all of our hot water will be gone and the electrics in the kitchen will be disconnected as the roof is taken off in preparation for the new floor above. We will be using the camping stove for tea and coffee and to boil water for washing mugs, spoons and cereal bowls in a bowl in the bath. Oh joy!

My mum and dad only live 10 minutes away and have been feeding us for the last 2 weeks. We go for showers, food and clothes to be washed, and they have been absolutely golden to us. Without their calm and organized back-up, things would be so different and they are helping to keep this an enjoyable experience, rather than the nightmare it could so easily be.

We have had family traumas in J’s family during the last couple of weeks and this has threatened to bring us down. I won’t go into it too much right now – it is raw and hurtful for J, but one of his brothers is seriously ill and the effects are still rippling through the family. We have a long journey ahead but J is throwing himself into our build, although I see the pain in his eyes when he thinks I’m not looking.

I’m keeping this short but posting pictures of our wonderful chaos so that you can get a glimpse of the reason for my brief dipping in and out of the site at the moment. I think of you all lots and miss the rapport but my time on the computer is strictly limited now to keeping the spread sheet of costs up-to-date and pouring over delivery notes and cross referencing invoices. Please keep my desk free at skool and I’ll keep my coat on the peg as it doesn’t go with my overalls at the moment. I hope you are all keeping well and I would love to attend the get-together with the Welsh/Shropshire lot – thanks to Angel for keeping me in the loop. Much love.x