Housey Housey

Now, I'm going to play a little game with you. There's two pictures in this post, can you tell which is the before and which is the after?

We had a family outing to Wiltshire last week to finish off the work that needed doing to my house before it can be re-let.

Amazingly for once the weather was reasonable and we managed to complete all the outside tasks without getting rained on too much. We even managed to paint the new fence we put up behind the shed.

It seemed very odd going back to my house and seeing it empty. It had a bit of a sad unloved feel to it. After three days of hard work though it felt like my house again, so much so that I feel that I want to go and live there again. Even though there's been lots of changes in Westbury in the 18 months or so since I moved out it still feels like home.

Hopefully now the house has been tidied up it will be let quickly. We bought some rugs to put down in some of the rooms to take the emptiness off them as the rooms seem very bare (and small) with nothing in them. For once the gods were on our side and we found some suitable ones that were on sale at half price.

So did you figure out the before and after quiz then? I really enjoyed giving the bronze carex (pale grass clump to the right of the patio for the non gardeners amongst you) a haircut. It's amazing how simple things like that can make a garden look so much better, along with weeding and pruning of course!

Flatalist Fun!

Went to Skipton today for the Northern Lodge Flatalists Meeting. It was great to see so many people again, although sad that a couple of the regulars couldn't make it. Ian had set a theme for the meeting of moving pictures and had posted out invitations, but sneakily didn't tell us that they'd form the basis of one of the rounds of the quiz. The fact that Colin had his invitation with him and could refer to it had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with him coming second in the quiz! (I'm only jealous because I was sat too far away from him to sneak a look at it.) It seems to be tradition that the the Flatalist's quizzes are bloomin' fiendish! I struggled to a pathetic score of 36 out of about 752, but was saved from the disgrace of coming last by the wonderful Paul (who also organised the meeting.)

It's also become a tradition at these meetings (ie it happened once) that whoever comes last in the quiz has to read "Where's my cow?" complete with suitable animal noises. I suspect therefore that Paul may have deliberately fixed his answers to ensure last place in the quiz as he had an adapted version of the story which he read out.

Caravans.....

Went with Mum and Dad to Preston today looking for caravan stuff and ended up going round three caravan shops (okay someone’s going to get picky and point out that one of them is a motorcaravan dealers).

We saw a Lunar Zenith 4 (ie what we’re getting). It was last year's model and differs from the one we're getting in that they've redesigned the kitchen unit, and put in a different oven and draining board. It looks better and seems to give a lot more usable work surface. Mum and Dad were also pleased to see it as we've only seen the 5 berth and are buying the 4 berth. Fortunately it lived up to expectations so they don't need to cancel their order!

We also checked out the crockery there. We left Dad in the shop as security whilst Mum & I took two mugs into the caravan to see which went best with the colour scheme. Yes I know that’s sad but these things are important! Mum & I also bought some thinsulate gloves. As ever I can do the "ooh look someone's nicked my little finger trick" in them, but they don't half keep your hands warm.

It feels like we're actually getting a caravan now. Mum and Dad are trading in the motorcaravan on Tuesday and picking up a 2 berth loan caravan from the dealers to use until theirs has been manufactured (hopefully in early June), and at some point I'm going to learn how to tow. Now that will be worthy of a blog entry!

Seduction

Okay seduction may be an odd title when this post is mainly about Anthea Turner, but bear with me...

There was nothing on telly tonight, so I ended up watching "Anthea Turner Perfect Housewife" on BBC3. Now if we gloss over the fact that Anthea is desperately annoying (admittedly I may be biased here. My old manager grew up with Anthea and had a photo of the two of them stuck on her office wall to gaze at whilst she filed her nails. So immediately I associate Anthea with her) the programme is trying to teach us that if we fold our towels in the correct manner, organise our drawers and use the hoover daily our lives will be sparkly, fulfilling and generally wonderful.

I don't do tidy and very rarely do cleaning. My home has always been one of those places where you've barely got your toe past the front door before I'm apologising about the state of the place. The idea therefore that if I follow Anthea's tips and routines and fold my shirts around A4 pieces of card, then my home will look pristine and my life will be perfect has some appeal.

My life has never been perfect and maybe the state of my house has been the cause and not a symptom. If I'd trained myself to answer all the letters on time, used the iron for its intended purpose rather than as a doorstop and known what was in the kitchen cupboards that could be used as a handy stain remover then maybe it would all have been different. See I've been seduced!

Glingle Glingle

If memory serves me correctly, glingle glingle is the noise made when new creatures come into existence due to the demise of the Hogfather. Therefore a new blog can go glingle glingle surely.

So why have I decided to create a blog as obviously the Hogfather still exists? (Well someone sent me surprise presents at Hogswatch.) Well, obviously there's the whole sibling rivalry thing. My older sister has got one and I can't be out done. It also seems that it might be a convenient way of keeping in touch with friends I don't see as often as I'd like to and who I don't write to or phone as often as I should.