Bristol and parties

Family birthday party in Solihull. Me with sister Denise and eldest granddaughter Abbie (she was 26 a few days before)

Quiet on the DIY front last week as we went to Bristol, for a quick overnight catch up with Bev and Iain before they went away. We stayed for a week to look after Millie and Tinsel, mostly because as Millie has aged, she’s gone deaf and seems to have dementia so just sits and yowls until she can see someone. We’ve done this before, love them all, the house, and Bristol and needed some time away from our house to concentrate on our next trip. 

Temporary staff looking after very shouty Millie cat. Deaf and with dementia she's a lovable cat

We have Kenya coming up in 10 days, but for the winter we are planning on South America to do some of the bits that we missed last time. I had applied for the only Housesit I have seen for Christmas, which we were lucky enough to get, so we have a month near Cuenca, in Ecuador for three dogs for some lovely sounding people. Better at least book some flights to the continent then. That’s done, via Spain for family visiting, as are our first few nights in Arequipa and an Amazon trip just before the sit. Just the 5 weeks in the middle to plan then, and the time after Christmas!

Half blind and neurotic Tinsel cat, she likes a bit of fuss on her terms and shouts very loudly on others. We like her one white whisker

It was Brian’s birthday while we were away, so we did have one day out, with a lovely lunch, in Bristol. New binoculars bought ready for Kenya, so all good

August for Brian's family has lots of birthdays so the Happy Birthday song had many verses. Here's Steph blowing out the candles for hers. For us it was bad planning. We knew the party was on this date, but forgot and agreed to Bev and Iains housesit in Bristol later. It meant driving up from Bristol and back in a day, going past our house on the way! 

Family have pretty much all been seen, slightly bad planning as we drove back to Dickens Heath on the Sunday for Brian’s family’s huge number of birthdays, fortunately all hosted by Steph and Sam, for her 40th. A lovely day, well worth the journey. 

More of Brian's family. LtoR: Matty, Steph, Jackie, Fiona, Sam & Paul

We did get back from Bristol to a speeding fine. Obviously your heart sinks when you open something like that, then you realise it was from Derbyshire constabulary on the Monday we were in Bristol, and then you realise it was the car before last. The one that blew up in Ashbourne, 5 years ago, that we left on the forecourt of a garage who gave us £200 for cash! They did include a note saying we think you may have sold it recently, so they had got our slip from the V5 and we had an acknowledgment of its receipt. The new owner however had not filed the other part of the V5 and we hadn’t chased after 4 weeks as the acknowledgment says we should do! We hope they are just clutching at straws and that my letter will make this go away! Keep everything crossed!

Birthday lunch in 'Muse' in Bristol. We only had one bottle of wine and not all those on the shelf! Look at the vertical carrots on my plate! They even bought me a small birthday cake with candle and sang to me once they knew it was my birthday

The following Saturday after our return was Charles 22nd birthday, so a trip down to them. Gave us the opportunity to meet the lovely Phoebe and to catch up with Martyn and Annabel who we haven’t seen since Charles’s 21st, and obviously Jonathan, Lucy and Caroline. Again, a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Happy 22nd birthday Charles, there he is at the far end next to his dad. LtoR: Annabel, Caroline, Jackie, Martyn, Charles, Jonathan, Ron, Veronica & Lucy

And in the middle is Charles' girlfriend Phoebe. You know the others from the photo above, with the addition of that handsome chap on the left!

Friday we had popped over to H&I to borrow the sack truck to move the fridge freezer and a circular saw for door fitting, so rude not to go out for a curry! Sunday we spent the morning clearing the kitchen floor, and taking up, and tipping the carpet and gripper. Brian then decided running a cable under the floor to the fireplace, just in case, made sense, which it did, though it nearly needed Lunacat from next door to run under the floorboards! Then down to Pershore to meet the cats and owners of a short sit we are doing on our Kenya return. Beautiful cats, and lovely house and people. That will be something to look forward to. Finally made it to Sunday club, though I did let the side down, drinking a G&T as beer after the red wine at dinner in the Red Lion would have been a mistake! Monday was another curry with the Monday Club boys, so although I’ve got a new kitchen I’ve barely used it.

Out for a beer and curry with the Monday club boys. LtoR: Mark, Jackie, Bill & Tim. They found it quite amusing that we have on WhatsApp groups called Monday Club, Sunday Club (which doubles up as Wednesday Club too and we occasionally join Friday Club), Sunday Tea Club (Chinese dinner and tea with an entirely different set of people) and Tuesday walking club. That's what happens when you retire we told Mark

This week my excuse is that apart from the new flooring going down on Monday, the guys arrived to start replacing all the windows. They are doing a good job, but it’s disruption everywhere!

The upstairs window going in. Phil had handed it up to Pete who stood holding it while Phil dashed upstairs to help him in with it

One of the Sunday club boys had taken a picture outside one of the others houses as a joke. I saw what was being left out for the scrapman and wanted it. Keith obviously thought I was mad, but it was mine for the taking. It’s the spring out of a retractable garden house, and I’m so happy with my bit of salvage. We spent yesterday in the garden which we are now very happy with, it’s taken the summer, but well worth the effort. Yesterday the new cooker hood extractor arrived, we only wanted one section of chimney cowl, but they can’t send that, so we now have £500 worth of extractor we need to find a new home for! The splashback for the kitchen is due today, all we are then waiting for is our ‘way out’ clock. It’s finally all coming together.

Phil poses for a photo during kitchen window fitting. You know that nice new sparkling kitchen we had fitted and all the walls skimmed and neatly painted? They've managed to make it look 20 years old covered in grit and dust. We've got a right old cleaning job to do when they are done, not just in the kitchen but every room in the house as all windows have been changed to high security frames and energy efficient glazing

We have a new fridge and there's two of us trying to feed the plug through to the socket to connect up. We thought fridge buying would be easy, but no. 550mm wide fridges are only nominally 550mm, some are much bigger than that and we only have a 560mm gap, but also the standard depth is too deep to fit under our units (with skirting board on). We can accommodate 560mm depth up to the skirting board without it protruding beyond the work surface and most 550mm wide fridges were 580 or 590mm. About to give up Jackie found this Kenwood one, exactly 550mm wide and 560mm deep. Perfect! Did you know, Kenwood is named after the original owner? His name was Ken Wood 

So Jackie saw this photo on our Sunday Club WhatsApp group of Keith having put this lot on his front drive for collection by the frequently passing scrap man, Jackie decided she wanted the metal coil (not the bed springs!) so we had to hurry down in the car, untangle it from the bed springs and load it into the car. I didn't really understand this, but she seemed convinced it was going to be art in the back garden... 

And here's her creation with it, which I do agree looks pretty cool and a great lesson in recycling

And here's the garden so far from the newly fitted upstairs window. The acer tree is planted as are the grasses around the spring sculpture. I've put the solar lights up and over the arch and in amongst the rustic fence on the left with the solar panel at the junction of the arch and rustic fence (you might just be able to see them). I just have to attach the metal robin to the rustic fence that Jackie bought me for my birthday. Can't get a decent photo yet with all those windows. That's the kitchen window you can see there ready to go in. The delivery driver has just delivered the multi coloured splashback (that matches the dining room wall) to go up behind the hob in the kitchen, so I need to go and fit that. Photo of that in the next blog! Until then....