Reflections on summer

It’s been a good summer. True, the weather wasn’t too great throughout most of August (although it doesn’t seem to matter what the weather is like in the summer, we still find something to grumble about! If it rains, we moan that we aren’t having much of a summer and if we had glorious sunshine throughout, we’d moan that it was too hot!) but we had some lovely weather at the beginning of the summer and I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll get a bit of an Indian summer. September looks set to be a busy month though.

Painting in progress

We’re aiming to have our new house decorated and ready to move in to by the end of September so all our free time at the moment is spent at the house getting more decorating done. Having done very little decorating before, I’m having to learn quite quickly – thank goodness Michael and his parents have both done quite a lot before otherwise work would progress at a snail’s pace. Our height difference turns out to be quite useful with painting – Michael can do the top half of the walls easily and I can do the bottom half and skirting boards.

The 16th Annual Eccentrics Dinner

This year’s Eccentrics Dinner was held halfway up a hill, just outside the entrance to an old graphite mine – a bit of a climb with our camping gear. It was a small affair this year – just five of us had been able to make it (the biggest one was the 10th dinner where there were 39 people present) but we still attracted surprised stares from the few walkers who passed by. It was a beautiful clear night – as usual I was struck by quite how many stars can be seen when there are no city lights to pollute the sky.

Black tie dining - Ecccentrics style!

Every year, Michael’s friend Fred organises a dinner around the August bank holiday – the annual Eccentrics Dinner. It started off about 15 years ago as a birthday celebration and grew from there. It’s a formal, black-tie, five-course meal and is always held in an unusual location, usually somewhere in the Lake District. We arrive, set up tents, change into formal wear and sit down for a meal. Previous locations for the meal have included the Butter Bowl, a natural crater-shaped dip in the landscape; a field (it rained heavily that year!), up a mountain and in a disused railway tunnel.

Painting and parking

Michael arrived back this evening in time to help out with some more decorating (the wallpaper in the bathroom has now been removed and the lounge ceiling has been painted so we are making progress). I took a break from decorating to go and pick him up from the airport. When I went to pay for my car parking, I noticed that the machine wasn’t accepting banknotes and so went to use another machine. Unfortunately in the time it took to put my ticket into the next machine, my parking time shifted into the next bracket which was quite annoying.

Empty batteries

I’m feeling exhausted today. After a busy evening redecorating yesterday, I didn’t get to bed until 1.30am and then was up at 5am to take Michael to the airport as he’s gone to Berlin for a couple of days. Consequently, I’ve been running on almost empty batteries all day, relying on Red Bull in an attempt to be vaguely functioning and coherent (not sure it worked terribly well). Add to that my feeling a little fragile on an emotional level and it’s not really a recipe for a fabulous day. Tomorrow will be better I’m sure, just need some sleep!

Minor disasters in decorating

Other than helping Michael to paint a bedroom in his student house, I’ve never actually done any decorating before so the prospect of redecorating a whole house is a little daunting to say the least. Still, being ready to rise to the challenge I borrowed a wallpaper steamer from the in-laws and got stripping in the bathroom (wallpaper stripping, in case further clarification is needed). All seemed to be going well until I started peeling what looked like a cardboard layer off the walls which I discovered meant I had gone too far and was stripping away the plasterboard. Oops.

And so to bed... eventually

Driving home from the new house late at night after spending an evening moving boxes and unpacking stuff in the kitchen – my bed was calling me. And then my pager went off and the prospect of imminent sleep suddenly disappeared. Off I went to attend a labour, feeling very glad I had Red Bull supplies in the car (along with the rest of my birth kit, I hasten to add!) and a few hours later welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world. Finally, I made my way home, a very tired but happy midwife, looking forward to much-needed sleep.

Garden discoveries

I’m not much of a gardener (I managed to kill off the rosemary that was growing on the balcony last year which gives you some idea of how bad I am) but it has been quite exciting discovering what plants I have in my new garden, particularly those that are “useful” plants. We have raspberries, strawberries and currants growing in the back garden, plus there is a gooseberry bush (perhaps one day I’ll find a baby underneath it, lol!) Michael’s mum is a keen gardener so hopefully she will be able to teach me how to keep my plants alive!

Birthday surprise

It is Michael’s birthday tomorrow and I’d been wondering what to get him. One of the things he is looking forward to when we move is being able to have his bicycle back (there’s nowhere to store it in the flat) and going on cycle rides together. Eureka! I thought – and ordered a tandem. His parents brought it to our house this afternoon, all put together and ready to go – he got quite a surprise when he opened the van to see it there! We’ve had a practice ride – it took a little getting used to, but it was fun!

An extra special visit

My family is not what you would call particularly well-travelled. Most of my siblings live within a couple of miles of my mum and tend not to travel much outside the county they live in. So for my mum to catch a train and get on the tube on her own to come and visit me was quite an honour really as it is such an unusual occurrence. She was quite excited about my new house and was coming up especially to have a look around it. It was great to be able to spend some time together as well.

Hello?

There I am, surrounded by boxes, when the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Hello," says a husky male voice, "I was just phoning to tell you that I love you."

This isn't an unusual occurrence - Michael normally phones every day when he's away and tells me he loves me. Except the voice on the other end of the phone is not my husband's, it's a complete stranger's voice. This either means that (a) he's called the wrong number, or (b) I'm on the receiving end of a Lionel Richie moment which would be quite disturbing. Fortunately, the caller went for option (a).

Reasons to be cheerful

Reasons to be happy today:

1) Michael is coming home tomorrow

2) I’ve managed to pack about 10 more boxes today

3) By some miracle, despite being surrounded by boxes, the flat actually looks tidier than it has done for a couple of weeks!

4) I found time to go and see Clare and the twins and spent an hour chatting to Clare with Seren snuggled up against me

5) Whilst packing I found some scrap fabric and managed to get a little more of the rag rug done whilst having a lovely chat on the phone with my mum

Taking time out from packing

With packing now well and truly underway, it was good to take a break from sorting out through piles of stuff, escape from the chaos that is currently our flat and spend an evening relaxing at a church open house evening. I have spent far too much time at home by myself whilst Michael has been away this week – great for getting things done, but gets a bit lonely after a while, so the company was very much appreciated. Plus it was great to be able to share the exciting news of finally getting the keys of our new home!

Our new home

Completion all went through with no problems; I picked up the keys this afternoon and headed over to look over our new home and do some measuring. Seeing it empty made quite a bit of difference – I’ve suddenly realised that redecorating is not a bad idea – the green doorframes and skirting boards didn’t make too much impression on me when the house was full of furniture but now that it’s empty, I think they’ll have to go! The one room that doesn’t need anything doing to it is the kitchen which looks perfect, just a bit on the small side.

Garage trips

My local garage is generally fantastic, the mechanics are all lovely and don’t treat me like I’m stupid because I’m female (always good) plus their prices are reasonable and I never feel like I’m potentially being ripped off. But lovely though they are, seeing them three times in the space of four days is far too often for my liking. My little car needed a couple of parts replacing on Friday which then caused a minor problem elsewhere which has now been fixed (at no extra cost, hooray!) Hopefully I won’t make another trip to the garage for a while.

Packing now in progress

I’ve started packing in anticipation of our move (we’re keeping our flat until the end of September so we can decorate if needed and can move everything in a more leisurely fashion). On the plus side, it means I’m finally starting to clear out all the junk that has been accumulating over the last five years but despite having spent most of today packing/sorting out, it still looks like I’ve barely done anything. I’m beginning to realise quite how much stuff we’ve managed to cram into a small flat and the thought of moving it all is a bit daunting!

From rags to rugses

I’ve started making another rag rug for the house. I started off with lots of rags – Michael’s trousers which were in the mending basket for a second time and therefore were automatically relegated to the rag pile plus two skirts. I started cutting a third skirt into strips and remembered too late that it was in the mending basket because I was intending to mend it, not turn it into rag strips – oops! Halfway through, I ran out of rag strips but managed to resist the temptation (just!) to start cutting up other clothes just so I can finish it!

Young love

Michael is now in Germany for the next week working on an event so I am all on my lonesome and feeling a little bit blue. Phone calls home always cheer me up though and the conversation with my 9-year old nephew left me chuckling. He was telling me about his girlfriends and one in particular caused him to sigh and say quite seriously: “I don’t know if she still loves me so I’m just going to leave her and get on with my life.” Ah, young love! The sympathetic tone was a little harder to maintain at that point!

Exchanging contracts

Back in April we finally found what seemed to be the perfect house for us and put in an offer. It has taken a while (these things always do!) but we have finally now exchanged contracts and should be completing on Tuesday. It’s a lovely little three-bedroom house with a study and a garage in a village about 5 miles away from where we’re living now. The location seems great – it’s about 5 minutes walk from the village shops and pubs, opposite the village hall and infant school and about 100m from the junior school (thinking ahead a little here!)

Fast food farce

The golden arches were calling to me on the way home so I decided to indulge my sudden craving for junk food and pick up a burger in the Drive-Thru. I placed my order, reached the collection window and - it wasn’t quite ready so I parked in one of the grill order spaces and waited. 10 minutes passed: “it’s on the way”. After 20 minutes, I asked to see the manager: “oh it must have been given to someone else.” I asked for a refund and left. Possibly the worst service at a Mcdonalds ever which is saying something.

A night at the quiz

The Tuesday night pub quiz has been noticeably absent from the social calendar over recent months – it has become a rarity to have enough of us there to form a reasonably-sized team (often just me and Michael) but tonight, nearly everyone from the quiz crowd turned out and we had two competing teams. I was with the “young people” (all of whom are at least 10 years younger than I am!) and although the two teams were pretty evenly matched, we did beat the other team by 1 point (coming joint fourth overall). It was great to see everyone again.

Considerations on creative writing

My creative writing course has now come to an end and I was very pleased to get 77 in my final assignment with some useful feedback on my short story. The level 2 creative writing course starts in October so now I need to decide whether to register for this or not. At the moment, I’m not sure that I will have the time to commit to a more intense course but if I decide against doing it, there are several creative writing groups which met locally that I can join to help keep me going on the writing front.

Feeding the five thousand (or maybe a little less)

Once a year, it’s much turn on the Sunday lunches rota to provide the meal for those living on their own. It’s usually for about 35 people and every year I get to the week before and wonder why on earth I agreed to do this given my tiny kitchen and lack of time. And then I remember that ready-made desserts from the supermarket go down almost as well as home-made ones and breathe a sigh of relief. It went fairly well apart from forgetting milk for cups of tea at the end – fortunately the shops are very close by!

Embracing technology

I have to confess that I’m not really into technical gadgets. I still don’t own an iPod or MP3 player and I only upgraded my mobile phone after 6 years because it was starting to get temperamental. So when Michael arrived home with an iPad a few weeks ago, I have to confess I wasn’t really very interested. Until today, when he made the mistake of introducing me to iBooks. Within minutes, the entire works of Jane Austen had been added to the library and I was engrossed. I might give him the iPad back when I’ve finished them all...

A scrapbook full of memories

I love to keep old letters and cards, theatre tickets, photos – anything that has a nice memory attached. I’ve got better at just keeping a few extra special cards rather than all of them (the others tend to get cut up and put in the craft box for when I’m making cards) – my keepsake box was getting a little overfull. I’ve been busy scrapbooking some of them this evening – it is lovely to look over them all again and re-read what my friends and family have written – it leaves me feeling very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.

Sleep and celebrations

It’s been a lovely evening celebrating our friends Bryan and Nicki’s engagement with a few drinks in central London. It was good to be able to catch up with some of our friends from the quiz team as well – Tuesday nights at the quiz have become an increasingly rare occurrence over recent months as everyone seems to have been very busy. Michael was working late but managed to get to the pub later in the evening where he fell asleep within minutes of sitting down on the sofa (not too surprising given he sat up all night last night working).

Juggling the demands of work and sleep

Michael’s working hours might be frequently long and unpredictable but then there are times when my own are just the same. Yesterday ended up being a very long working day but finished with a lovely home waterbirth just before midnight and a beautiful baby girl being welcomed into the world. My arrival home from work in the early hours of the morning for once coincided with Michael coming home from work – unfortunately for him, he still had to leave at 9am this morning whereas I was able to stay off the pager until late morning and catch up on sleep.

Manic months

June and August tend to be months when I see very little of my husband as he is busy preparing for games conferences, working long hours or is away working on the conferences themselves. Needless to say, I miss him quite a lot when he is away and have tended to struggle a bit during the busy periods – there are moments when it feels like life is always this way and I never see enough of him. I’m trying to remind myself that the manic moments pass and to enjoy the time that I do manage to spend with him.

Meeting the twins

We met Michael’s new baby cousins Seren & Sian for the first time yesterday - Michael and I both left Clare’s house feeling a little more broody as a result! There is something very special about twins (well, I would say that being one myself!) and they are just such beautiful babies. Seren spent most of the time sleeping but Sian was wide awake and very interested in everything that was going on! It was so lovely to be able to have lots of cuddles with them (and not to have to take it turns to hold the new baby!!)

Engagements

Since getting married myself, I find that I have become much more excited and interested in other people’s wedding plans and it is always lovely to hear when friends announce that they are getting married. It’s been a weekend for celebrating engagements. One of my friends announced his engagement yesterday and last night we went to our friends Mark and Ria’s engagement party. It makes me remember just how excited and happy I was when Michael and I got engaged and it is such a joy to be able to share in the happiness of my friends getting engaged now.