Building Up To Our Departure

Life can be feast or famine at times. There can be long periods of time when stuff just rumbles along, the routine is just that and there’s nothing of note going on. I look forward to when that happens for us!!

I’m not sure how we manage it but we always seem to conspire against ourselves to make things as busy and at times, as stressful as possible. Here we sit twenty odd days from a trip that has been so long in coming that I can hear you all sigh that we haven’t gone already and I’m still banging on about it. Between now and when we do go, we have somehow managed to cram in what is, for me at least, one of the most stressful things on the planet…..having the builders in, and for multiple separate projects. With that, work and other real life struggles I have enough balls in the air for now thanks….

We have had these home improvement plans for ages and despite it all being literally months in the planning, by chance, it all happens in the next three weeks. I HATE having work done to the house. The mess, disruption and angst is not something I enjoy. Having had the pain of the kitchen being renovated just over a year ago, we are now going for the other room in the house which causes the most pain when it is out of action, the bathroom. We are also having a new boiler and the back of the house redone to give us more parking space.

To add a touch of spice and extra stress to the day tomorrow, Louise gets her new car too, admin, paperwork and sorting the insurance permitting. Rest assured we have not won the lottery. It just so happens that a lot of things a long time in the making have all happened at once, as always seems to be the case with us.

I am not filled with joy at the prospect of this work to the house I have to say. Living next door to my Mum & Dad comes into its own here of course as it means we can wander in to have showers etc when we are without a bathroom, but I am still sticking to my sulking guns. I just want it to be over, especially as when it is, we’ll be heading for the airport. At least our house and pet sitters, Rebecca and Tom will have a shiny new bathroom, boiler and a choice of parking spots when they are here.

They have the dubious honour of looking after all of the pets. We have too many of course. Oli, I approve of, he’s my mate and a fully fledged member of the family. Bean, well, she’s almost there I suppose. She seems fairly settled and content anyway…

We’ve had our two cats, Pumpkin and Daisy, a lot longer than Bean, and everyone in our house apart from me, would tell you that they definitely are family members, but I’ve never bought into that. I am not a cat fan. They are all effort and no reward. Still, they need feeding and so that falls to Rebecca and Tom.

On that note, it is now hitting home to everyone that Rebecca won’t be with us on this trip. We all understand why. They have just got their own place and that among other things needs to be their priority right now, but it doesn’t stop them, us and me especially stamping my feet like a two-year old at the unfairness of it all. Real life has no right getting in the way of trips to Florida.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, after re-sharing the video of our 2008 trip, I have almost kept my word and the work on the next video has started. 2006 happened to be the tape in the camera when it came out of the case so the import process is underway and hopefully time for editing can be found, more likely by Emily than me. Having watched he raw footage there seems to be about seven hours of the girls playing in the pool for some reason. Clearly we’ll edit that down, but of course, for us, if for nobody else, there’s some lovely stuff there too.

Rebecca can be heard talking with her pre-tonsil removal voice that bears no resemblance to her current one. I won’t promise it being complete by a certain time as who knows, but best endeavours are promised.

So today is filled full of prepping the house and ourselves for what looks to be a messy and busy time. We’ve also got to pop round to Louise’s Mum to do some DIY there and I have a football match to cram in somewhere…well specifically at 4pm, oh and walk the dogs should it ever stop raining, and iron some clothes for next week and find the spare key for the car we’re trading in tomorrow and look, the shopping delivery has just pulled up!!

AAAGGGHH….first world problems abound.

Till the next time…..