Back to the UK and full speed ahead

Enjoying a late evening summer drink in John's garden with Helen and Richard. They are normally our bird identifiers when we're travelling and haven't a clue what we've photographed, so it's nice to have a photo of them

We’ve now been back from Italy, nearly a fortnight, and it’s over a month since the last ‘home’ blog, and guess what? We still HAVEN’T got a patio! I couldn’t write before we went away, as I think Simon was reading the blog. He worked one day before we went away, and we’d decided enough was enough and we’d found someone else. Darren, man number 2, who had been round, pointed out the errors that Simon had made, but had agreed to finish the job. Obviously we didn’t want to tell Simon this just before we went away so we just told him to tidy up and take all his stuff away. Take the opportunity in the fortnight to get himself together, sort his head out. That sort of thing. He looked so relieved to have some time, and was so grateful for our understanding and patience, told Brian he was going to bring me flowers (that’s why I assumed he’d read the blog) and that he would do a fantastic job for us that we both relented. Told him to be here on the 24th, the day after we got back, and finish the job. Man number 2 obviously wasn’t very impressed and thought we were nuts, as did everyone else we told, but we felt happy in ourselves.

I went for a Parkrun at Arrow Valley park in Redditch last Saturday for the second week running and, believe it or not, I finished both in exactly the same time, to the second. 27min 54sec, not amazing but at least I'm consistent! Saw old friend Mike there last week, he was disappointed that he hadn't broken 20 minutes! The leader this week did in just over 15 minutes and apparently the Olympic record for 5000m is something over 12 minutes - they could have done it more than twice over in the time it took me! This is looking across the lake and, on the other side near the right you might just be able to see the runners at the pre run meeting. It's a pleasant location, pretty flat and all on tarmac, so no muddy bits to deal with

So, back from Italy to find tarpaulin and board taking half the drive for the sand delivery, which arrived, on the 24th, but no Simon. Or the rest of that week, or Monday. We begged him on Monday evening to be here Tuesday, and got an affirmative, as we had for Friday and Monday, but another no show. We went back to man number 2, grovelled a bit, got a date of the 12th from him, so told Simon he was off the job. “But I’m coming tomorrow, I told you this at 16.45, how can you do this to me?” We ended up that night turning our phones off with messenger messages, WhatsApp messages and text messages all saying that he was turning up, we had to let him in, he’d done all the hard work, he needed the money…… As you can imagine, Wednesday morning we were both a little tense, till finally he messaged that he wasn’t coming though he would have been there, and through till it was finished and that we were really unjust and unfair. The fact that he’d never made more than 2 consecutive days and had made promise after promise seemed to escape him.

Jackie on the phone to Wickes who told her 'no, you won't be getting your delivery today' despite the fact that here it is, delivered by a third party courier. That's all our stuff in the back of there, has he done a cross-country event before arriving here? Will it all be undamaged? Who knows, but the nice man a Wickes said don't worry, any damage units will be replaced - hope so!

Apart from all that which has been incredibly draining, lack of sleep inducing and stressful we’ve slotted right back in. We now have full fibre broadband, so no telephone line. The car has been MOT’d and serviced , in that order, which isn’t the most logical. We’ve both been to our respective dentists, hopefully for the last time, as the dentist in the village was taking on clients which will be much more convenient. Brian was still driving over to Leamington for his!

Well, it's in the house, now we can't move!

We’ve had curry with Helen and Ian in Stirchley, and curry with Helen and Richard in the village. We’ve also had a long lunch with Terry and Sue as we do once or twice a year. We have mostly been eating in though, which is good, as next week we probably won’t be. The kitchen fitting starts on Monday! Wickes are very organised, you have a kitchen experience manager and lots of texts, that tell you to watch this 2 minute video of what to expect on delivery day and how you can make it all go smoothly. I’d dutifully watched, and received many texts saying delivery would be between 07.00-18.00 not particularly helpful, but click on this link to track your delivery. That never worked. Then one that said it would be between 10.30-14.30, better. At 10.30 I got a text saying it would be 11.30, ok, that’s good. At 12.30 I rang to say it wasn’t here yet. He had no information to give me, but was sure it was on its way. At 14.30 I rang again to be told that hmm, maybe it was on the lorry that had broken down, but not to worry, he’d call in some favours and it would be couriered on Monday. “So, we can go out then.” I asked. I’ll just put you on hold and check. While the music was playing a grey transit van turned up with the epitome of ‘white van man’ courier driver. The extractor hood was bouncing around in the back, and the very large man was standing on our work surface lying in the back of the van. The customer assistant came back on the phone, saying, no, you won’t be getting a delivery, to which I replied that I thought we were. He didn’t recognise the registration plate, but I had to go. To try and stop the man literally throwing things around in the kitchen. If it’s all here, and in one piece it will be an absolute miracle, but that’s the fitters first job tomorrow to inventory and for Wickes to replace anything that needs it!

Now the small job of emptying the old kitchen ready for the work to commence tomorrow

After feeling that Simon was reading the blog, and after news items about home insurance companies and people posting on social media, we have decided that we won’t be putting many more blogs on Facebook. We would still welcome our friends to read it, but you will either have to go to the URL, which is shown on the Facebook link, or drop us a message and we’ll add your email addresses to the distribution list so you get alerted when we published a new blog.