Mud & Mischief

Right, am back on form now. Feeling much better for a whole heap of reasons, most of which are positive so I shall list them here.

1) I cornered my builder and told him a lot of things that were way, way overdue. In fact, I gave him such a bollocking that you could see the guy just wanted to crawl into a hole. I told him he’d ruined my Hallowe’en, my daughter’s birthday and that he was on course for ruining my Christmas. Except I wasn’t about to let him do that so he better do x, y and z, and do it before I get seriously p*ssed off. As well a number of other things not suitable for the delicate nature of my audience. I rang him up and yelled at him when he’d left and made him come back and completely redo something. And got him to admit that yes, he’d made a crap job of it (well, he hadn’t but one of his lads had). That’s my floor looking slightly more presentable anyhow. *grins*

2) Have crossed off another xmas prep from mylist. Every year, I print out James’ mum’s label for her 200+ xmas cards, and this year, I’ve been fighting with my printer. I had enough, threw a really good tantrum, and James ‘borrowed’ one from the shop. Labels all done and it only took 15 minutes!

3) Just took a sticky ginger parkin out of the oven and put a boiled fruit cake in. My house smells absolutely delicious - it’s even over ridden the smell of paint, brick dust and plaster. Slight modification to the recipe - will tell you if it works!

4) Have written half of my xmas cards. Only another 40 to go. Every year it surprises the hell out of me how many cards we get - but in a nice way. Kind of, gee, all these people like us enough to send us a card. At least, I hope they like us - I go through my list of addresses every year and strike off the people I haven’t spoken to in the last 12 months, apart from distant far flung family in, uh, Wales and, um, the West Midlands.

5) Took the Discovery club magazine to the printers yesterday. Am extraordinarily glad that is out of the way. Can concentrate on the festivities now. Enjoyed the child free afternoon immensely.

6) Inventoried the huge pile of presents in the corner of my bedroom last night, and discovered that I only need to buy 5 more things! I can scratch stocking fillers off the list for a start - the girls are going to need an entire pair of tights to stuff all those bits and pieces into. will have to have a rethink and maybe wrap up some of the stocking fillers - such as the A5 size chalkboard, with chalks, and the slippers too. No room for slippers!

So there, 6 nice positive things, add a few more in the guise of lovely cyberhugging comments, and I’m my normal cheery self. Apologies for the interuption in service, folks.

What should be my new kitchen.

I’m standing with my back to the gate we normally come in through, the back door to the house by my right shoulder. New white kitchen doors on right, opposite that, over pile of wood next to hutch is door to store room and laundry room.

The playroom. Complete with two inches of dust, uneven floor, missing bits of skirting board, cement splathered doors, hole in the ceiling (top left behind wall). And when you consider that black chair my normal perch, you can see why I’m not impressed at having to sit amongst that lot!

Just a small section of the crap that’s lying around in my beautiful garden. Can’t even safely get to bottom of garden to retrieve the duvet cover that’s been on the line for days.