Kitchen floor

Today I have mostly been scrubbing the kitchen floor.  In fact I have scrubbed it four times with an acid wash to remove the excess grout from the surface, and mopped it four times and hoovered it twice.  Finally, I think they we are at a point where we are able to seal and polish the floor.  That will be a job for tomorrow evening, in the meantime, I am going to sink into the sofa with a cup of tea and a dose of Downton Abbey.

Brighton Rock

We've suffered a small set-back after having to return five hundred ugly terracotta floor tiles.  We now have five hundred beautiful terracotta floor tiles on our driveway, waiting for Geoff to lay them in the kitchen/ utility/shower room area later this week.  In the meantime, we have been spending our weekends painting the house, which is no small task.  The children have chosen their own paint colours and the first coat of 'Brighton Rock', Jenny's bold choice, went on today.  We were all pleasantly surprised by the result, except for Jenny, who knew all along it was going to look fabulous.

Book week

The children have been celebrating Book Week at school.  Earlier in the week, the school had a visit from a pirate who found some treasure burried in the playground.  It was exciting for most but poor Jenny was quite distressed by the presence of a real pirate in school, so it was lucky Mummy came home with a fabulous costume for her to wear today, on dress-up-as-your- favourite-book-character day, which kept the nightmares at bay.  James and Jenny made a great "Scary Bones" and "Winnie the Witch", which they were persuaded were superior alternatives to their original choices of the baby beaver from "Beaver Towers" and the owl from "The Gruffalo".  Thank goodness for halloween, and a local Asda.

Painting the Chapel

The plasterers have been in all week, so today we were able to get the paint rollers out.  Jenny worked very hard and painted almost everything below 3 feet, including most of herself. 

The painting will be a mamouth task, but it's nice to feel that we have at least made a start. 

The Cotswolds

We have been living, eating, sleeping and breathing our extension project for the last few months but last weekend brought a little oasis of calm among the stress as we literally "got away from it all" with a visit to Lizzy in the Cotswolds.  And what better way to de-stress than to visit the beautiful gardens at Hidcote, with it's huge collection of hydrangeas.  I can't remember what this is one is called (Lizzy?) but it was one of my favourites. 

And then on Sunday a trek across the fields took us to yet another place of zen-like calm, Lizzy's ceramics studio.  In true generation game style, we watched the expert at work and then all had a go at "throwing" (which I discovered means anything but, which might explain why I was never any good at this at school).  
Thanks Lizzy for a great weekend. 

First day at school

It has been an exciting day for our little Jennifer as she started school today.  James proudly directed her to her coat peg and book tray before going to his own class (which incidentally made him a little late - oops bad call mummy, didn't look too good walking into his new class still in his coat while all the other children were sitting down chiming "good morning" to the teacher - sorry Mrs Vanns!)  But the rest of the day went well and they both came home full of beans and excited about another day at school tomorrow.

Beautiful house

From the outside it almost looks finished, but the inside is a completely different picture.  Probably another six weeks to go, but we are very excited about how it's progressing, and longing for the day when we can live in it again.