Radelnder roothariger - Hairy biker

Ewig nix geschrieben, Schwamm drüber. Umso besser, dass ich jetzt den Schweinehund überwunden habe. Wir gehen direkt über zum Tagesgeschäft!

Mücki hat seit drei/vier Wochen ein richtiges Fahrrad. Ohne Stützräder! Damit er dann im Urlaub auf der kleinen Insel im Wattenmeer auch schon gut radeln kann, muss geübt werden. Gestern sind wir zur 3. Session in den Park gegangen. Erst konnten wir nicht schnell genug hinkommen, dann musste man ihn fast aufs Fahrrad zwingen... Typisch! Eine Runde um das 'Green' sind 1/2 Meile, was mich dazu veranlasste zu behaupten, dass er nach einer Runde auf dem Fahrrad fahren kann. Er brauchte letztlich keine Hilfe, außer moralischen Beistand (den nebenher laufenden Papi!) und hat es ruck-zuck drauf gehabt.

And he is off from Hendrik Schaefer on Vimeo.



Hinterher ging's dann noch in den 'Paddling Pool', während Bruder Mats den Spielplatz für die ganz Lütten ausgetestet hat.

Cool Surfer Dude!

Haven't given updates in an eternity, but no point starting to give you the grand summary now. Let's just get on with what we did today!

Willem has been the proud owner of a bicycle for about 3 weeks now - without stabilisers! We were hoping to get him cycling before we go on holiday to that small island in the Wadden Sea and only went for our third training session yesterday. While he could not wait to get to the park initially, he did not show much enthusiasm when we finally arrived. I suggested that he would be able to cycle if he'd manage to do one lap around the green (1/2 mile). Ultimately, he did not require any hands-on-bike or -back assistance and managed completely on his own, and with a little moral support by dad running alongside (hence the dubious quality of my filming!).

The afternoon was finished off with a bit of paddling pool action, while little Mats explored the play area for the toddlers!

Caravan Diary — Day 186

Bit of a low point what creature comforts are concerned. The kitchen is now gutted, with the window having temporarily been replaced by an old door with loads of cracks, so it's absolutely freezing in the back of the house. The window supplier keeps putting installation date back (we're now on 19th. I'm sort of hoping that's THIS month!). We're washing up in the bathtub upstairs (although to be fair we have decided to ditch a lot of the washing up by buying a shed load of disposable plates and bowls. Sorry, environment! We promise to revert back to our more eco-friendly selves when we've got our sink back...). Any warm meals are prepared in the microwave in our exceedingly crammed lounge.

  

I know, I know, I mustn't whinge too much. It's all self-inflicted AND it's all going to be worth it. We just need the work finished and our belongings out of storage before Christmas. That's all I'm asking, please pretty please?!?...

Caravan Diary — Day 183 (!!!)

We're on the way home after just under a week away and I am slightly nervous in anticipation of what I might find. I know that the big RSJs have gone in and the wall between kitchen and dining room is a thing of the past. But everything else is making me slightly queasy: is there still a big hole in our back wall? Have the windows arrived?... I wish I could just say "I'm sure it's all going to be fine!"

Herbstferien — Half Term

Vielen Dank, Oma Anne, Oma Barbara und Opa Matten, Frauke, Anton und Bart, Ghitti, Michael, Mattis und Ida für eine wundervolle Herbstferien-Woche in Bremen!!! Es hat uns riesig viel Spaß gemacht bei Euch!

Freimarkt-Trubel — Fun at Germany's second biggest fun fair, the "Freimarkt"

Many, many thanks Oma Anne, Oma Barbara und Opa Matten, Frauke, Anton und Bart, Ghitti, Michael, Mattis und Ida for a wonderful half-term week in Bremen!!! We had so much fun with you all!

Caravan Diary — Day 167

The kids playing on our brand new carpet

And suddenly it feels like we're no longer merely custodians of an old wreck! After yet another day of DIY SOS at the Schäfer house (all trades in at the same time waiting for each other to finish their respective bits) we are actually LIVING in this house at last!

Caravan Diary — Day 158

It's all systems go at the Schäfer house today: we're getting a new central heating installed (hopefully one that doesn't decide half way through every other shower session that it can't be bothered!). You would think that it makes me happy - which I swear it does - however the timing could not be less ideal: I'm at home with stomach bug trying my best to keep out of the builders' hair. Ah well, should all be fine by the end of today.

Caravan Diary — Day 148

Silence from the play pen is always a reason for suspicion: someone's cracked open the biscuit tin!

Camping mit Schweinen und Werder gewinnt mal wieder - Camping with Pigs and Werder finally winning again!

Schwein um 6 Uhr morgens, das wenig später die Campingküche unserer Freunde verwüstet hat.

Da Thea im Juli zurück zur Arbeit musste und ein gemeinsamer, richtiger Familienurlaub dieses Jahr durch Hauskauf und Renovierung unmöglich war, haben wir zumindest ein langes Wochenende Campingkurzurlaub genossen und das vor einem Jahr für £31 auf ebay erstandene Zelt endlich ausprobiert. Dazu ging es an die Südküste vor die Tore von Weymouth, auf eine Farm, die jedes Jahr im August ihre Felder mit Plumpsklos und Solarduschen ausstaffiert und aus der dann eine grosse Campingkolonie direkt an der Kanalküste wird. Der besondere Charme des Zeltplates ist einerseits die etwas alternative Grundstimmung, aber auch, dass man einfach Lagerfeuer auf der Wiese machen kann und das allerlei Getier auf dem Gelände unterwegs ist. Während man beim Camping in Kanadas Wäldern auf die Bären acht geben muss, musste man hier seine Vorräte vor den umherstreunenden Schweinen sichern.

Mum and Mats on Weymouth beach

Von Weymouth haben wir Chesil Beach und die Südküste bis Lyme Regis erkundet, und auf unserem Heimweg am Montag sind wir dann noch nach Studland gefahren, wo es einen herrlichen Sandstrand gibt der Mücki dafür entschädigt hat, dass die anderen Strände hauptsächlich aus Kieseln bestanden.

Chesil Beach, obwohl kein Sandstrand fand Willem es dort doch amüsant

Ein paar Tage später bin ich dann mit Mücki alleine nach Bremen aufgebrochen, um eine Woche Heimaturlaub einzuschieben, während Mats und Thea zu Hause geblieben sind. In Bremen haben wir die meiste Zeit damit verbracht Familie und Freunde zu sehen. Ein Highlight war, dass Willem und ich mit Frauke und Anton zum Werder Spiel gegen Augsburg ins Stadion gegangen sind. Anton hat Willem ein altes, inzwischen zu klein gewordenes Werder Trikot geschenkt, das auch in England jetzt schon mehrmals im Kindergarten angezogen worden ist.

Vielleicht muessten wir öfter ins Stadion gehen, Werder hat 1:0 gewonnen!

Caravan Diary - Day 94

Bath day @ Vicky's: Having fun in the mirror

Wow! WOW!!! I did think I hadn't blogged for a long time, but THIS long?...

Those of you who don't like long posts look away now! I have so much to catch up on...

Since the last post, such a lot has happened:

• I have gone back to work (full time. Eurghhhh!) 
• We have a nearly new roof. 
• We have nearly got a bathroom (still lacking a toilet and a few tiles, but very usable and on the verge of beautiful!). 
• And - most excitingly - we don't sleep in the caravan anymore! Haven't for a while, in fact. As of Saturday, the boys are even sleeping in their very own bedroom. Willem is very excited - as are we! 

The boys and I had been out for the day while Hendrik got a chance to get on with the decorating, and as we got home Willem stormed upstairs and shouted down "Mummy, Mummy, you've GOT to come and look!!!! It's nearly FINISHED!!! And it looks so GOOD!!" Awhhhh, bless! How long have we waited for this? If I had a pound for every time Willem has said in his weepy voice "I want our old house back!" in the last few months, I'd be a very rich woman. Let's hope we've now finally laid to rest the ghosts of houses past!...

Between us moving into the house and the boys moving into their bedroom we all slept together in our smallest bedroom. The one that is going to be YOURS if you come for a visit. I don't think I will ever forget the day we moved out of the caravan. We sat on our sofa bed for a long, long time, just enjoying the fact that we had four walls around us that were not made of cardboard. And we were lying on a genuine mattress. We had broad smiles on our faces for hours.



We have really learned to be incredibly grateful for the small things. For example for a day that starts with a shower and the boiler doesn't play up. Or for no longer sleeping on 40-year-old caravan cushions. Or for finding a favourite Playmobil police car in one of the boxes at the very bottom of a pile. Or for a sunny day in our new garden (or, in fact, for a rainy day in our new garden - especially when shared with good friends over a BBQ...)

Don't be tempted to think it's all roses in the Schäfer household, though. Our life on a building site comes with it's regular lows as well as with the highs. Both Hendrik and I have found coping harder the longer this project has been going on. We are both utterly exhausted. And I have been surprised to learn which issues stress me the most. If anyone had asked me at the beginning of the build what I would find hardest to cope with, I might have mentioned "deadlines slipping", "building materials not turning up on time", "not having a bathroom", "not having my things" etc. What I would certainly never ever had thought of was "having no flooring". And that, of all things, turns out to be the single biggest annoyance, which is making my life hell. Because it means that I can't leave the kids to get on with anything, EVER. The second I put Mats down, he will be off, crawling to the edge of whatever rug or play mat he is on. And because all our floor boards are caked in plaster (and other) dust, if no one intercepts him before he's got off he has a 20cm wide and 40cm long brown-gray streak all over his front and needs a change before being taken out in public. It's so frustrating I could scream. And Willem keeps coming up to us with cupped hands (which, by now, already sets alarm bells going in my brain) and goes  "look mummy/daddy (delete as appropriate), I have found some NAILS and a BLADE!" Aaaaaarghhh! And then the fight ensues, as we try to take his loot off him: "Noooooooooooo, but I want to use them for HAMMERING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And if you think the garden might be any better/safer: Mats has an obsession with eating grass and moss. Which would be fine in my book, if he then didn't reliably start projectile vomiting. So, yes, folks, life is STILL hard, albeit peppered with lots of glimmers of hope and a silver lining firmly in sight. When it's done we'll fondly look back and think it was all worth it.

In the meantime, I will probably have to find a new name for my blog posts, as the days of the caravan chronicles are well and truly numbered. I mean, we still have the caravan. Occasionally, like yesterday, we even use it as a lounge/playroom. But it doesn't nearly play the huge role in our life anymore, that it did in the beginning. Who knows, come stage 3 of the build with the kitchen extension we might gladly retreat to it again... If anyone can come up with a catchy new name for the build-your-own-house posts, please tell me!

And that's me for tonight. The matchsticks aren't strong enough for my eyelids...
I'll try to not leave another such long gap between posts.

Caravan Diary, Day 45

Getting on with the decorating is a lot easier now that Mats has started going to nursery full time. I would have made even more progress had I not spent most of Sunday and Monday up to my shoulder in crap trying to unblock our main drain again (eurghhh!!!!). The amount of rubbish I found in its depths beggars belief: stones, broken bits of metal grate, blood sugar test strips... Well, anyway, after many hours of scooping out liquid and ladling out junk it is now flowing again (for the moment), but thank goodness its days are numbered due to our impending kitchen extension! Keep your fingers crossed that it'll not give me any more grief until the work on the kitchen starts in autumn.

But the weekend had much better moments as well: We had a visit from Vicky, Megan, Oliver and Rowan who stayed for lunch and a walk and extended afternoon tea complete with Kidlington-made scones. It was lovely to see everyone, especially Roo who has grown so much since we saw him last!

Many of you will remember how I whined about 2013 getting off to such a rubbish start. Well, turns out it could have been A LOT WORSE! For reasons too complicated to explain here I happened to end up in our old house on Saturday evening. As it happens, our buyer hasn't even moved in, yet, because he started a new job in Manchester three weeks ago. Phiuhh! In fact: mega-phiuhhh!!!!! Had our sale taken even a couple of weeks longer to go through it would most certainly have collapsed, because this guy would not have bought Princes Street after all!!!!!!!!! And it gets worse: last week there was yet another fire in the derelict pub next door, so nobody else would have bought it, either. At least not for the foreseeable future. I simply cannot put into words just how grateful this all makes me feel. We HAVE sold and we HAVE moved. And we're loving being in this wreck of a place and doing it up. Yes, it's stressful, and yes, it's cramped, but hey, it's only a matter of time. Even if it is months until we get rid of the chaos and the dust. What is that in comparison to what could have been?...

Caravan Diary, Day 39 (is it?? I've lost count!)

Today I picked my first ever lock. Am feeling quite smug now, as it was rather easier than I had assumed. Just needed a set of feeler gauges and a "how to" video on YouTube. Now which lock to pick next?

In other news I watched my dad paint our garage wall while I was trying to console an eight-month-old who was desperately tired but refused to sleep. The roof is nearly done now, more skirting boards have been fitted and the last of the hideous doors are resting against a tree on our front lawn waiting for a new home (ELSEWHERE!). The last lot of doors took all of two hours to disappear. Let's see how long these will take to go.

Now, how long is this current spot of rainy weather meant to last? 'Cause it cramps my style. Big time!

Caravan Diary, Day 35

 

Mats keeping himself entertained in the garden

 
Well, well, well! The last few days have seen so much progress, I don't even know where to begin!

• The bedrooms upstairs are newly plastered (at least where it was necessary. Everywhere else the bad bits have just been patched. I so wish I had the money to get every room replastered completely - it would be like a whole new house!...). Now we need to paint the walls and gloss the skirting boards and we're actually able to sleep inside. Exciting times!!
• The scaffolding has gone up ready for the roof to be done.
• The old useless chimney stack at the back has been taken down
• We have successfully demolished the hideous fishpond in the garden. The three remaining fish - which turned out to actually be quite pretty when viewed through clear water in their transport-freezer bags as opposed to the green slurry that was left in the pond -  have been ceremoniously set free in the River Sowe by Stoneleigh. Our frog, who re-appeared this morning, has been gently encouraged to find a new home in some neighboring fish pond.
• The airing cupboard in the boys' room has been knocked out.
• The cloakroom has been stripped (but we're now waiting for the plumber to repair the main stop cock before anything can happen that involves turning off the water supply. Also, Mark our builder is still scratching his head working out how to make a twenty-first century toilet fit onto the mid-century soil pipe. Watch this space!).
• The potting shed is becoming more and more a genuine option to retreat to n the weeks to come. I can really see myself in there starting future grow-your-own projects. i can't believe how much patience my dad has to find piece after piece of reclaimed wood that we can repurpose. So far the list of things we have bought for 'Project Shed' is limited to a set of hinges, a hasp and staple and one length of shelf. Not bad going for a shack that was at the brink of collapse :-)

The long-awaited scaffolding is going up at last

  
And what can I say, the weather has continued to be incredibly good to us. I can't believe that we're in England when I see all this blue sky!! Mind you, we unequivocally deserve it after the run of rubbish summers that we have had to endure recently...

Caravan-grown strawberries – yummy pudding for Willem tonight

Caravan Diary, Day 31

Unbelievable. We have been more or less happy campers for exactly a month now! And we haven't killed anyone yet, or had any major nervous breakdowns. Result!

Today has shown glimpses of what lies ahead. Big progress (suddenly the door between the hallway and the sitting room is blocked up; tomorrow we'll get the new doorway slightly further towards the dining room) and even more dust (our smoke detectors don't like it any more than we do; I might need to find a bag to tape them shut tomorrow to stop them from constantly alarming). So stage 2 has begun with our builder doing his first full day. Boy, what a difference it makes when you suddenly see structural changes. Amazing!

Dad has worked wonders restoring the old potting shed and making it useful again. It'll never look like new, but I reckon a lick of paint and we'll still get years of grow-your-own fun out of it. Shall we have a quick poll? What colour do you think we should paint the woodwork? (I won't promise that I'll take any notice at all, but I'd like to hear your  ideas)

Right then, we've got a crack-o'-dawn start tomorrow to clear the rooms upstairs for the plasterers. Night, night, all!

Caravan Diary, Day 29

Gosh, we're only a couple of days short of our first month living gypsy-style. Who would have thought we'd still be relatively sane at this point?

This weekend has had three major items of news:

• Opa Matten has arrived (complete with a car packed to the rafters with sanitary-ware from Germany (and tools - one can never have too many tools!) and his arrival has really upped productivity levels in the Schäfer household. It is becoming obvious that it takes at least three adults to get anything of any significance done. Two to do the work and one to watch the kids. Short of three and you're always stuck with something that you'd need another pair of hands for...
• The weather has been so kind! That must have been the third weekend since day X that was fantastically, amazingly sunny. We've enjoyed the garden including re-potting our first courgette plants and a big BBQ. Ooh, and the first ever pudding with home-grown rhubarb. Lush! It has generally felt like a bit of a holiday - despite all the work.
• Another friend's birthday party where Willem was shy and moody and didn't defrost until it was nearly time to go home. What is it with the child at the moment? It's really hard to take him anywhere because he seems to be having a really difficult time for the most part... Well, let's hope it's just a short phase...

Next week is set to become a big one: plasterers, builders, roofers - they're all starting next week, so hopefully that'll mean upping the pace. Watch this space!

Caravan Diary, Day 25

Right, tonight for the very first time in all these weeks I am afraid. Afraid that this relentless rain might finally wear our 70s trooper down. 'Cos if it does, we do have a problem!... I am lying here and not only am I listening to a thousand-fingered drumming of the raindrops on the roof. No, I am also hearing a suspicious drip-drip-drip somewhere. I have been trying to work out where it's coming from, but so far to no avail. I am praying that this is good news, although I'm not yet entirely convinced...

Caravan Diary, Day 24

I really wish we would at last get a handle on this bleeming dust!!! Day 4 without anyone generating any fresh dust and we're still nowhere near winning the battle. Although, Willem obviously thinks it's ace: everywhere I look I find that he has written his name with his finger.

Caravan Diary, Day 23

Picnic with toys

A bank holiday weekend characterised by good intentions, zero follow through, fabulous weather (against the odds!) and sheer indulgence. All's well in the Schäfer household :-)

I can report that the loft is now empty. Cleared by two nice young blokes; one quiet and one trendy, who went about their business efficiently and still spent a good two hours until the job was done! Both seemed as bewildered by the large selection of beheaded Barbie dolls as we had been.

I got five whole hours of child-free bliss on Friday night when I went to the Stratford Comedy Festival with Kedi. I haven't laughed as much since we saw Dave Gorman at the Warwick Arts Centre yonks ago. It was brilliant! The evening was gilded with nice dinner afterwards. What else can a girl ask for?

The highlight on Saturday must have been the SKY engineer's visit. Not only can we now enjoy an unbelievable choice of channels (which I am sure we will never fully explore. I am usually happy enough with BBC1 and 2 and Channel 4...) and have a clever SKY box thingamejiggy, no: bribed by constant supply of chilled apple juice, he also ran what feels like several hundred yards of extra cable into the bedroom, which means my planned sewing/craft corner will have entertainment of the audio visual kind. The guy was also super-good with Willem and involved him in the setup by letting him terminate cables etc. He felt like a proper grown-up :-)

This is the life!

Sunday was spent almost entirely in our garden enjoying the unexpected sunshine. We must have left the house for something, but it's just a very hazy memory which must have got wiped by the copious amounts of Pimm's and lemonade that accompanied our barbecue in the evening.

Mats - very happy with his ball

And then there was today, which was under the zodiac of boys' toys: Hendrik went out and bought us a lawn mower, which was duly tested and deemed more than adequate. And then we scoured Coventry's shops for football goals for Willem, which we were just about able to try out before the weather turned chilly. We are all fantasizing about a summer party now, at which we can have an inaugural little tournament. Does anyone know when the weather's going to be good in July/August?

The list of things we DIDN'T do this weekend, despite best intentions, is long and includes stripping the wallpaper in the staircase and hallway and fitting the newly procured carpet in our caravan (I decided to give the local economy a boost on Friday by buying an offcut at the little carpet store round the corner. £30 to do the whole camper. I say!).

Whatever! There's a whole week without tradesmen ahead of us, who have all disappeared since it's half-term. Surely Mats will sleep at some point so I can get on with yet more wallpaper stripping?...

Hausbesichtigung - House slide show

Hier ein paar Bilder vom derzeitigen Stand der Dinge auf unserer Baustelle.
Ich mache jetzt keine langen Worte, Mücki will dringend mit mir Fussball spielen...

Well, not so sure whether I can make this a slideshow, as I have not tried that before, but a few photos from the construction site that is our house at the moment.

 Essecke - dining area

Vorderansicht - street view

 Vergissmeinnicht - Forgetmenot border

 Wohnzimmer - Lounge (viewing towards dining area)

 Kueche, vom Flur aus - kitchen viewed from hall

 Flur zur Haustuer - view of hall and entrance door

 Flur und Treppe - hall and staircase

 Treppenabsatz oben - landing

 Schlafzimmer und Gaestezimmertuer - Towards master bedroom and guestroom

 Gaestezimmer - guestroom

 Gaestezimmer - guestroom

 Schlafzimmer - Master Bedroom

 Schlafzimmer - Master Bedroom

 Schlafzimmer - Master Bedroom

 Kinderzimmer - kids' bedroom

  Kinderzimmer - kids' bedroom

 Garten vom Kinderzimmer - garden view from kids' bedroom

 Superwanne - Walk in bath

Mmmmh Spinatgruen! - Spinach green bathroom suite, grrreaat, a keeper!

 Windfang - Porch

 Car port

Hinten Anbau - Side view of extension

Haus vom Garten aus - back elevation

 Garten - garden

 Potting shed

 Fussballwiese - footy pitch

Front-'garden'

Caravan Diary, Day 19

Day 19, the lowdown:

• TVs arrived by courier, ready for UEFA Champion's League Final on Saturday: 1
• LNBs for satellite dish retrieved from unknown box ready to be installed tomorrow: 0
• Lofts cleared of all the previous owners' belongings (including a dozen or so beheaded Barbie dolls – WTF?): 1
• Times taken the washing back inside because of rain: 5 (or more - I lost count after 3...)
• Gas fitters visited to look at job: 1
• Gas fitters who previously visited having quoted for job: 0
• Door handles in place: 4
• Rooms skirted out: 2
• Plasterers lined up for week after next: 1 1/2 
• Appliances killed: 0 
• Husbands back at the fort and instructed to babysit tomorrow night: 1

Pretty good for one day, don't you think? The lost LNB bugs me, though. That must have ended up in storage accidentally. B***er!

Today feels like it has been half-way successful. Mainly because I kept myself out of harm's way and because Mark The Builder showed up for a flying visit and managed to arrange for a schedule of works that includes possibly (!!) having 2.5 rooms ready to decorate in about two weeks' time. Yayyyy! Can't wait!!! Painting a wall sounds like a day at a spa these days compared with peeling off flipping wallpaper that's been painted with gloss. And what's best is that this implies that we can begin to unpack our most-used belongings AND sleep in a house as soon as these rooms are done. Which is just as well, because last night was really freezing in the caravan! I kept waking up with icy feet trying to decide whether I can be bothered to go back into the kitchen to heat up my wheat cushion. Turns out I couldn't be bothered, which meant I just lay there getting more and more annoyed. So there, I am not the most rational of minds when in bed. Nothing new there then...

Hendrik came back from his NERC grant panel thing with hayfever and insect bites and suitably knackered, but duly agreed to deal with the kids-in-caravan-at-bedtime-drama on his own tomorrow night while I sit in my hopefully comfortable seat at the Royal Shakespeare Company watching stand-up comedy, followed by a lush meal and drinks with Mrs Simpson. Bliss! Which reminds me that my make-up bag is still AWOL. I REALLY cannot wait to unpack all these stupid boxes!! I have been running round like something the cat dragged in for weeks now and I don't even care anymore. But still, it would be nice to at least don some lippy tomorrow. Well, I guess I still have 20 hours to hope for a minor miracle...

By the way, this might be the one time that I am SERIOUSLY enthusiastic about a UEFA Champions League final*: I have been trying to wangle a TV for my planned sewing/craft corner out of our household budget for absolute ages to no avail. But as it happens the SKY man (or woman) is coming on Saturday morning to install SKY TV (for free. Long story. You really don't wanna know. Suffice it to say that we're way too tight ever to pay for subscription TV!). Which happens to coincide with the Champions League final. And our existing TV is in storage. I leave you to fill in the blanks :-)


*Those of you who know me well will know that I am an avid follower of Bundesliga football - but the delights of the Champions League - and worse: international friendlies!! - so far escape me.

Caravan Diary, Day 18

Aaaaaaaaaargh, the dust everywhere is driving me insane!! Everything in the house is coated in a layer of orange masonry dust. It is literally everywhere. on our belongings, on my tongue, in my throat. It cakes up my hair and most of the day I run around with glasses I can't see anything through, because there's a thick coating of dust on the lenses. I can't wait for this first stage to be over! I know there'll be a second stage which'll probably get even dustier, once the walls come out - but at least that'll feel like such massive progress that I might not mind so much (??) or we might be able to contain the dust more, because it's going to happen in two very distinct areas which hopefully can be shut off from the rest of the house. But the bleeming wires are being channeled into the walls ALL OVER...

Right, I haven't dared confess, yet, that I plumbed in the washing machine the other day and - wait for it - nearly killed it in the process. That's what you get when you get über-confident. You become stupid. Just like me, when I forgot to check whether the transport bolts were still stuck in the machine before turning on the inaugural wash. Well, turns out they were. Darn! You have never ever heard such a racket and seen your washing machine positively skip across the kitchen floor, I bet! I ran to it and threw myself on top at the same time as pressing every single button the thing has in order to make it stop before it would tear off it's leash (aka electric cable!). It did stop with the cable still in one piece - but it didn't switch on again afterwards. So I faffed about helplessly, then did the typical woman thing of having a secret little cry, then tried to call Hendrik to confess that we'd have to find £1200 for a new washing machine. Thankfully, he didn't answer the phone. Turns out that all this trying to get the drum to spin has made the machine take out the RCD. Our friendly electrician Dave found me in the caravan about an hour later to tell me he'd reset it and did my internet work again :-) This is becoming a familiar theme. Maybe next time I "kill" an appliance I will remember to check the fuse board AND reset the RCD. Anyway, Hendrik is still blissfully unaware of the full extent of my stupidity and panic (I DID mention that plumbing the machine in hadn't been straightforward, but I somehow skimmed over the detail) and seems duly grateful that laundry can again be dealt with on site.

In other news, I am waiting for more quotes from gas fitters for the boiler move (ouch!! That's going to be more expensive than we've allowed for in the magic spreadsheet!) and apparently tomorrow is the big day when we can take possession of our attic sans previous owners' trash. Hurrah! I just need to make sure they ONLY take previous owners' trash and don't 'accidentally' manage to take any stuff of ours. I shall report tomorrow how that went. Night, night!