Travel up to Lewis and Emily's new home

Not a great night's sleep but it was okay, and I took Bess for a walk in the morning after having quite a nice relaxing coffee and toast in the sun on the patio - going to be a lovely day today.

Checked in with Sue and was able to drop Bess off early and then set out from her house around 9.45am with x2 Belgian buns from Coop and it was a two hour drive - very uneventful but enjoyable at the same time.

Their town is right on the junction so only 1.5 miles off the M6 so that was handy.

Took them some goodies that Tash had sorted and had a tour of the house and listened to their ideas - all very exciting and it's great that they have savings and profit so will be able to do a lot of the things that they have in their mind. Going to be a lot of work but they have decent rates from builders and designers up there so that makes one hell of a difference.

We did some moving of heavy items out to the garage - they've got so much space and the guy before them was very clearly a competent carpenter that's for sure. Lewis and I then went back to his old house and collected a load of plants that couldn't fit in the van on Friday and we popped into the large Go Outdoors up there and I tried on some zip off trousers but they weren't what I wanted.

Showed them how to use the wall-paper stripper and then we went to the local pub and I treated them to lunch and drinks. Back to theirs and then at 5.00pm I set off to come home. Took a bit longer as there was a lot of traffic but got to Sue's in 2 hours had a chat with her and then came home.

Went out for a walk to get my steps up and then watched a it of TV and had an early night - a long but enjoyable day. Really pleased for them.

Home Alone update - Chinese Takeaway and wedding!

As per the title, Mum came over in the evening and brought Bess with her and she seemed excited to see me. But then she is excited to see everyone so I didn’t take it as particularly personal endorsement!! I think Mum gets bored in the week and having experienced this time off I can understand why. I need to be more understanding and accommodating to get her out and about and involved more.  Anyway, it was her tray and we had a lovely Chinese takeaway from the Mayflower in Kidlington. Got just about the right amount. Mum stayed a bit longer and then made her way home and kept Bess, she loves her company and it works so very well. 

I felt a bit choked when Bess went off I have to admit, she’s coming home Thursday so that’ll be nice. 

A decent day today, completed the puzzle and also watched the wedding of Katie and Oscar which I’ll add to a different post so it’s more significant. 

Early night today, want an early morning and try and get my energy levels and exercise up. We’ll see!!

Pretty non-descript day really

Worked all day – busy and enjoyable for my Oxford company.

Not much to report – got a lot of tasks cleared so that was good.

Worked in the garden afterwards, sorted the herb planter and attached it to the wall and then had a couple of beers afterwards.

Not much else to report today.

Opened a bottle of bubbly in the evening with Tash and sat out in the garden wrapped up - nice

Lazy (very) TV day!

Tash worked today and was up and out around 9.00am – I was dead! Stayed in bed for another hour before feeling guilting and getting up and walking the dog and doing chores. Went and got Lewis from Bicester and also the shelter and then home around midday in which we proceeded to watch TV literally all day long! Tash came back from work and just crashed on the sofa so we watched film after film, incredibly lazy but quite satisfying at the same time.

Complete waste of time but we didn’t mind

Has some food and then more TV and Lewis went back to Manchester about 8.00pm after I’d walked Bess once more

A really enjoyable weekend all told.

Where’s the tree gone?

So when we worked on our garden to add the new shed and make the new area we chopped down the trees inside our boundary. Today I looked out the back and one of the trees in the Mill site was removed – I rushed round to the site and went straight in (contravening all Health & Safety regs) and tried to speak with the relevant foreman to find out what the hell was going on. They were removing the trees to make way for drainage and it was only us affected. Really quite pissed off because it means when the houses are built they will be able to see straight down into our area – we will have no privacy at all. Wankers!

Lumberjack!

Today was a ‘doing day’! Up and out in the morning and got the chainsaw up and running, got through loads of the stuff out the back and filled the coal bunker for the next few weeks. Sorted out my office and the garden, sorted monies and the like and then daydreamed looking at log cabins because Tash said she’d like a bar at the end of the garden, I would definitely be up for that! I then spent an hour or so working through our mortgage statement and calculating if it’s feasible and cost-effective to pay it off now, I think it might be, that would be amazing!

Sue came round for dinner and that was nice, watched some TV and then when she left we watched a film – Now You See Me 2 – it was enjoyable nonsense so that was nice

Anyway, having done some rowing as well I am now aching!! Only managed 5 minutes – bit pathetic really!!

Lazy Saturday!

Bit of a heavy head this morning and a bit of a funny day really, Saturdays do seem to drift at the minute which I need to take a look at, it seems a relaxed and wasteful day compared to all we do throughout the week. I got up and from 9.00am I worked on my laptop, mostly with the intent to do work but I ended up raising invoices and reconciling my accounts and that took all morning. Tash went out in the afternoon to meet up with her sister so I stayed and started working on the Thailand holiday Blurb book but that was desperately slow going and I didn’t get too far with what I wanted even though I spent hours on it.

I also watched some of the football and was pleased to see Liverpool lose to Newcastle 1-0! When Tash got back we went for a walk across the meadow and took Bella with us, I felt good walking and not as aching and tired as I do normally these days so, and I’ll say this quietly, hopefully I’m getting a bit more fitness about it…we’ll see!

Had a glass of wine back at Sue’s when dropping the dog off and then back home for dinner and then just collapsed in front of the TV and caught up with programmes we need to including The Missing, x2 episodes of Homeland and then Casualty and finally to bed so as I said at the start of this, not our normal busy day.

I guess it should be nice to have a relaxed time but somehow it feels like not much is achieved, it’s a strange feeling and hard to put my finger on it exactly.