Tuesday 25th? August - the days go by in a blur...

I'm enjoying the 10 minute visual journals, and they do help me keep track;

My finger seems to be healing up nicely so far. We didn't have the pork belly in the end, it's gone into the freezer. I'm trying to avoid messy activities like cooking to keep my plaster dry, so we are eating rather a lot of 'pierce and ping' meals. I heard, on Antiques Road Trip, I think, that the Welsh for microwave cookers is 'poppty-ping'. I would so love that to be true!

 

Now, how did we get to to point in the pre-zoom-church-service chat where one man got up and reappeared with a much loved Muffin-the-Mule puppet? It was... 

talking about the importance of staying cheerful, especially when you are dependant upon others,

 and me saying I learned that from reading 'What Katy Did' and also watching my mother after her stroke,

 and we talked about the old-fashioned books we read as children, and one lady said there were no books in her house apart from the Bible when she was a child,

 and I asked her if she had toys - oh yes, she said, and then Muffin-the-Mule joined and presumably stayed for the service as it was time to begin... I do love this congregation!

Monday morning was manic; FOUR plumbers, armed for bear, as they say, and the architect erupted on site at 8am. With that, two set to work on the soil pipe problem, which turned out to be magically simple. With the grouting loosened, the pipe just pushed up through a sleeve in the roof.

The other two worked on moving the outside tap (which was now inside the extension). This was a trickier business involving the dishwasher, washing machine, cupboard under the sink, drilling, soldering... but they were all gone leaving nothing but the memory of a whirlwind and a large number of footprints on the kitchen floor. Plus a nice new shiny brass tap on the side wall of the house.

The hup! installers missed all the fun of the fair as they weren't due until 10am! 'Didn't think you would have got ir done so quickly, ' was their surprised comment. 

This is today. Yesterday I phoned for the missing receipts, and I DID get those pesky claims submitted! Hooray!

I was on a roll and gathered all the information for my self-assessment tax return, but decided to stop while I was still feeling positive. Oh, what a frabjous feeling, filing away the dental forms!

Work continues on the extension, not a lot to see as it is all fiddly setting out stuff, and fixing a waterproof membrane to the outside and so on.

Current 'fingers crossed' moment is that Josh-the-plumber' can slot the soil pipe back in place soon, maybe 8am tomorrow? Who knows!