Ez on the move

Ez is crawling forwards, after a few weeks of sliding backwards. Now nothing is save as he has an eye for wires and buttons. I think I might be borrowing Mum's play pen to keep him in one place.

Courtyard Phase 1 complete

This was how the courtyard looked when we moved in. It is a completely enclosed space and a lovely suntrap (when the sun is shining!).

Sadly the colourful pyracantha had to be pulled out to lay the new ground cover.

Work began with Michael and his team. Digging out a hole for the hot tub, pouring concrete, building retaining walls and creating new raised beds.

The hot tub was craned in to place without too much difficulty.

The artificial grass was laid, the raised beds filled and the paving slabs chosen and placed.

We don't normally have a paving slab sitting on the hot tub but after the cover blew off three times in the high winds last night, the paving slab is perching there until the weather improves.

We love our hot tub and it is used most days. Lj likes to sit (or not sit as she never sits) in it with M as she says it is a great way to talk to Daddy! MJ ideally likes to be in it alone so he can chill out and relax. I like to jump in in the evening to warm up and relax before bed time.

Phase two will be planting the raised beds which will be carried out in Spring and will help to soften the pebble dash walls.

Lj's EGR enrollment

Lj was enrolled into EGR (Every Girls Rally) back in November.

Lj loves EGR, in fact on Monday morning she woke up saying 'This is going to be the best day ever!'. EGR was beginning again after the Christmas holidays. As soon as she came home from school she got her uniform on and bounced around the house for 3 hours until it was time for us to take her. She says she is going to become an EGR leader when she is older. I'm delighted that she loves it so much as I too attended EGR from age 6 til I left for university and loved it too.

As you can see I'm catching up on some blog posts this morning! I should really be cracking on with the perhaps more important items on my to do list, such as 'clean pink bathroom' or 'wash floors' but on this cold and windy morning it is much more enjoyable to be sitting at my laptop with my cup of tea, uploading photos!

Christmas 2016

Lj wrote a great report of our Christmas, a daily guide of what we did, in her school book. Annoyingly I didn't scan it before it was returned to school but if it comes home again I will scan it and add it to this post. Ultimately we had a lovely Christmas in Chester, Bromsgrove and the Coltswolds with the Carrier/Snowden/Haigh family.

Smiles

Last week...

We were listening to 'Friend or Foe' by Michael Morpurgo on audio book. Lj would like a 'normal' story next as she is tired of MJ and his war obsession!

Construction began in our courtyard.

Kindness Elf made a reappearance.

We had a lot of IKEA furniture to build for our walk in wardrobe.

Lj discovered M's old version of Mastermind. Her and MJ love playing it together.

We spent Saturday at Millennium Courts Arts Centre.
Lj loved reading in their Christmas dome. The movie this week was Star Wars so MJ was very happy. The craft was junk modelling rocket night lights with a glow stick inside.

Last week I...

Last week I was...
- Breaking down on the highway and needing to be towed by breakdown recovery back home.
- Living in the cold when our boiler ran out of oil and then had to have its filter replaced.
- Trying to stay friendly with our neighbour who is cutting down our trees.
- Herding a cow back into its field after it escaped through an open gate!
- Driving at 15 mph along a main road to take our poorly car to the garage.
- Visiting our new doctor with a poorly Ezra.
- Medicating Ezra with his first ever antibiotic to treat his sore ear.

- Chasing a mouse around our kitchen.
- Purchasing 10 mouse traps, mouse poison and throwing our plug in scarer in the bin.

Thankfully this week is turning out a little calmer although I wasn't sure how long the calm would last when I found my mobile phone bobbing in a puddle of tea yesterday!