A quick catch up....

Oooh where to start, well a brief round up of events.

Since Robin was made redundant at the end of June things have been rather stressful - as you can imagine. Having not long moved into our house, knowing that improvements needed to be made quickly, it has been very frustrating that all of this had to wait until things became more clear. We still have a very 'unfinished' bathroom with a lovely new bath, shower and some tiling - but naff old basin and bare plaster ugly walls - best thing seems to be to shower facing the new corner and it all seems rather nice! And no mention has been made of when the kitchen will be!

As for the garden, all rose beds have been removed. Which sounds pretty easy but in practice was not - the ground was so dry we had to wait for quite a while for rain to soften things up. Then for the most part of summer we were left with narrow grass paths round mud. Our hope is to take all remaining turf out, rotavate the soil and lay new turf giving us a blank canvas to then work around. Oh, and a proper fence soon too.

Elsewhere the stripping has begun (wallpaper!) albeit rather slowly. I have figured that it is probably best to tackle a wall at a time, as once stripped the walls still need filling, priming and only then get a lovely coat of fresh paint. So far our room has a single gorgeous wall, Joy's room has two, and Elias's has just been painted over and is very boyish in blue and magnolia. The kitchen is mostly stripped and filled - but no priming or painting has yet happened.

Also downstairs Robin has put up deep shelves in the lounge which are great for ALL the books we own, and the office is slowly taking shape between Ikea trips! And I must also mention that blinds are going up too. (thanks honey)

Joy and Elias started back at school a month ago, and Elias is finding his feet with his new group of friends. We're really enjoying his fascination with numbers, which has blossomed into a love of playing snakes and ladders. Joy still struggles with school work, although the school itself seem a very nice place to be for her. I can hardly believe we're so close already to the term break.

And to bring things right up to date...... Robin has now landed a contract position working for Xerox. I think I'll leave it to his blog (when fixed) to fill in the details there. Needless to say that it has been a tremendous weight off our minds, and we're really happy that he started well yesterday.

And I'll fill you in on our holiday adventure in my next post..........