Question....

Me and my daughter both write a blog and we can see that some people are reading them - which is nice.  However, apart from me reading hers and her reading mine - we are not aware of any other people who read it!  I am curious to know who you are! OR....is there is just some trawling software or something....

Please say Hi!

Wednesday 2nd May 2018

So....I'm not going to speak about the stupid utility bills today.  Trying to put it behind me and just go from here!

As I did not get the asbestos sorted yesterday - I have to do that today.  I want to get the rest off the walls - properly bagged up and taken to the tip (which will cost me about £75 to dispose of).  Then its done!!

Then I want to get the house all clean and tidy and sort something nice out for food because Andy is back tonight.  I am really struggling to come up with ideas for food lately.  How do people do it? To think of something nice that they can be bothered to cook?  I go through phases of cooking curries from scratch and they are really healthy - but I get fed up of them really quickly.

I'll have to have a scan through recipes and see if I can find inspiration.

This weekend there is some kind of biker festival on in Paignton and Andy and Paul really want to go and have lots of fun and listen to live bands.  I am really not sure what I want to do because I am not particularly interested in bands that I don't know...and don't really want to spend all day drinking and eating crap - well that bit does appeal to me but I'm trying to be good!

However, if I don't go and just stay here - then it will be the same as the rest of the week when Andy is working and I am here on my own.  We do have the cats to think about so we do have to come home at points.....I am not sure what Helen wants to do either....

I heard them talking about the Pirate festival - on one of the days over the weekend everybody dresses up as pirates - and just drinks and stuff! Weird or what? Guess it would be fun....oohh dilemma............

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So - all the asbestos is off, bagged up and is in the car with other rubbish.  I have paid £75 online so that I can dispose of it at the tip.  My only problem now is that the printer wont work and I need to take evidence....I might be able to do it from my phone....again dilemma - make the effort now or be lazy and wait until tomorrow...

I went our local shop and bought a pie and some carrot cake - about 2 minutes after I got home the pie and half the cake was gone! I was starving!!  I have to run today now cos that was way too many calories - but it is going to take ages until I don't feel so full of food!  It is now about 3 and a half hours since I ate all that food and I still feel full....guess I'm just going to ave to put up with it while i run. I don't know how much running I'll get done because if this blister on my foots starts to hurt I'll have to stop.  Only one way to find out......

Oh! So my brother Andrew and his wife Lorna are expecting another baby! He told Me, helen, Joanne, Antony and our cousin Clare in a group message today.  I know that me Helen and joanne already knew because Mum told us! hahahaha I can write this on here because I know none of them read it! Otherwise I'm in trouble!  So - the baby is due in November!  This will be their 2nd together but Andrew has twins from a previous relationship.  He has custody however, so they'll be a family of four children! Some people just don't know when to quit! lol

Tuesday 1st may 2018

Hi,

(only read this is you are prepared to be bored)

Well, a quiet start to the day...but I'm not happy!  Yesterday I got a letter from the Gas company saying that they need to check the meter reading as the bill is higher than expected! On the phone to them now - constantly on hold....the bill Jan-April is £1277.97, however, Nov to Jan was £250.  Trying to get them to explain this to me is impossible.  I was on hold for ages, so I could speak to somebody about the detail, and eventually the same person came back and said - yeah it is right, we will send out the bill.  I said - so why this, and why that etc. and she can't answer it! Wasn't that why I was on hold for ages so that I could discuss it???

Now I'm on hold again....

Either way we are going to owe a lot of money! So the upshot is - they have no record of the arrangement that they were calling me back to arrange a new tariff, and funnily enough they have no phone number on record for me.  We have to pay £1277.  Great our budget money is down by a lot!  So it seems, then when we have the heating on a lot it averages out at about £18 per day - plus whatever other charges they stick on.  Guess next winter we'll be investing in thermal underwear, jumpers and gloves!  I intend never to put the heating on again. Or use hot water!!

So, its now half one and I've done nothing other than mess about with gas/electric, call ppl, look for reference numbers, look for a cheaper supplier, and eat cheese and onion on toast!

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Okay the day got worse - decided to try and sort out my electricity supplier as I cannot get any details from my online account and they don't seem to be taking any notice of my meter readings....an hour later - I owe £1,040 - I have sent a long letter of complaint about how bad they have been...

REAL mansion problems.

Got renewal on home insurance via an email - taking the piss! So now sorted that out with another company.

What a crap, boring, expensive day that has done nothing but piss me off!!

I apologise if you have wasted any of your day reading this.  It's 4.30pm all I have done is this crap.  Hate being an adult sometimes.

Monday 30 April 2018

Monday morning.....Andy left for London just before 6am this morning and is not back until Wednesday evening.  He works so hard - I am so proud of him.  His job is so demanding.  Andy is the only person I know who works as hard as he does, is so dedicated and is intelligent and driven enough to do it!  I miss him when he is not here.  Just knowing he is in the house is better - knowing he is close....

So....today, I need to get on all my asbestos safety equipment on and get rid of this stuff once and for all!! I'm not sure I can do it in one go, but I need to try as I don't want to have to be getting in and out of the safety gear and possibly spreading asbestos dust around.  so...wellies, overalls, mask, gloves and goggles...special bags....get in there get it off the walls and bagged up and to the tip with it all (after paying over £12 a bag to get rid of it).

I also want to run 10km as I didn't run on Friday - only did 5km on Saturday and didn't run yesterday.

Weight loss back down to 8lb after the weekend.  Seems to be a theme - get to 10lb loss during the week and end up back down to 8lb after the weekend.  So...I need to try harder! and stop ruining it at the weekend!!

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So - I got kitted up and got most of the asbestos off and bagged up (although not sealed yet) apart from a piece under where the sinks were because it is full of screws I can't get out.  Better to come back to it fresh, rather than try when I've just had enough.....

I had lunch, then took ages to get myself out for a run.  I wondered how I would get on because I wasn't really feeling it....

Straight away I was walking more often and didn't do as well as last time on the hills.  By 4km I was debating turning around and coming back - as it would be a shorter 8km run - but it meant coming back on the busy road - rather than the nice paths and country lanes I was almost at.  I could feel a blister on my foot (always the same place)....I kept going knowing I'd have more down-hill runs now rather than up-hill.  It was not easy....at about 8km, my other foot started hurting.  This happens when my feet get too hot - the ball of my foot/toes start to burn and it's really painful.  At 9km, I paused my watch and sat down on the grass and took my trainer off, massaged my foot and let it cool off.  When I stood up to carry on that foot was okay, but my blister on the other foot really hurt!. I managed because I was almost home.  Glad to be back - and still glad I did it!  28km ahead on my challenge and hopefully burnt some fat off from the weekend lol.

Might not be able to run on this for a few days....and my hip is hurting a bit too.....going to go and get in the bath me thinks.....

Saturday 28th April 2018

Morning,

Last night we managed to get the cat (Bitsy) off a little bird she had brought in - it was breathing heavily and looked broken - after a while it calmed down and seemed to straighten up a bit - so we took it outside - and it seemed to run off....

Later we managed to get a tiny tiny mouse off Bitsy - and we released that too!  When we got up this morning - it seemed they must have found the bird and brought it back in again - it was very dead this time - its feathers were everywhere.  It is such a shame and me and Andy are so soft fussing and worrying about these little creatures - trying to feed them before we let them go,  but Bitsy is just too good at catching them.  The kittens love it when she brings them in too - I just hope they are not as good as Bitsy at catching them when they start going out!

Anyway....I woke up at 7am...my alarm was set for 8am so I could get up and do the parkrun - and I didn't go to bed until 1am.  As I woke up early - I got up - Andy was already up.  I felt a little icky, but got ready and went and did the run.  It felt really hard starting off and I thought I was running slowly - and I must have read my watch wrong as it also seemed to say I was behind my normal time.  I managed to run all of it apart from stopping for about 3-4 seconds once.  As usual it all feels awful as I was going around but feels better the closer you get to the end.  Unlike last week I was able to speed up a little near the end - overtaking a girl that had been ahead of me the whole way.  As soon as I finish, instead of thinking this is awful - I think - That was Awesome! hehehe

I am waiting for my official time but according to my watch, it should be just under 33 minutes!  I did the Bushy Park 5km a few years ago and that was my fastest 5km ever at 32.32.  Still slow for most people - but that is now what I am aiming to beat.

Hope I'm not disappointed when the results come in....

So - time was 32.44 - so beat my time again - last week it was 33.22 - and later changed to 33.25. I thought after last week I'd struggle to beat it!  Lets hope I can do it again next week.  Ultimate goal is 30 minutes or under!

This is the half-way point....



This one is coming in at the end!

relief.........

Helen and Paul came around at about 6pm....and we had a great night as usual, catching up, playing pool and generally laughing!  Helen is on a downer about running - thinking she actually doesn't like it and might not run again.  This is because she went out and had a rubbish run that left her feeling pissed off at the end.  I'm trying to persuade her not to give up on it - she hasn't done it much and I think she is expecting too much too soon.  I don't want to lose my running buddy!!!

Renovation - two offices to a bathroom!

So, I thought I'd return to writing a little bit about some of the work we have done on the house. The bathroom, was a big job and brought with it many problems!!

A room in this house had been made into two small offices, and as it was partition walls we thought it perfect for knocking back into one room and having it as a bathroom. It was a good location - upstairs in the middle of the house....here is the floor plan showing how it was before...





So, as you can see we needed to take out the walls in the middle of the room. Which also happened to have a radiator on each side - so first we had to get those off the walls!

Below are the two offices - and the doors between them that we also had to remove...

We removed these walls with a week of moving in! Adam and Paul came and helped, and it was a lot more difficult than we had anticipated! The wood holding up the walls, which the plasterboard was attached to - did not want to come out!! and the mess from the plasterboard was awful! The waste we had to get rid of too - seemed to triple in size as we took it out! Plus we couldn't put plasterboard in the tip - we needed special bags which we had to pay for - they were huge and I thought 2 would be enough. It wasn't!

You can see below how awful and dusty it was! This is my crazy husband Andy and my son Adam.

This was the first real look we got of it as one big room rather than two offices!

Tidied up it looked good!

I still had all the woodchip to get off the walls - and it needed plastering - it still had office lights and plug sockets...

So, the plumbers were already about - they saw it as two offices on the Friday when they went home and they came back to it looking like the pic above on the Monday!

I had designed how I wanted the bathroom - it looked something like this: (pic to go in)

So...the plumbers started lifting floorboards etc. and then they hit me with it - we can't do the bathroom in here! They said that there was a massive steel running right across the middle of the floor meaning that they could not run pipes across. Furthermore - because the house is extended further out on the floor below - all the waste pipes had to leave the room in the far corner and they would not be able to get the pipes at an angle so that the water/waste would run down it. Panic, disappointment, worry about the planning permission we'd need to change room...and what other room would it go in?? We scoped the house for other options - pulling up floor boards etc. Eventually they said - if we raised the floor, we could get over the steel thing, and get the angles they needed. So I searched for somebody who could do this for us - and £1,000 and a week later - we had a raised floor!

During this time I also stripped off a ton of woodchip wallpaper (the plasterer had provided me with a young lad - cheap labour to help, as at the time I was also stripping wallpaper off our bedroom wall), and I had all the walls plastered. When I tried to get the wallpaper off the ceiling - it started to come apart, so we had to put in a new ceiling and get that plastered too!! All of which was more expense we didn't expect. Before the bathroom could go in - I needed to tile too. I had done a tiling course whilst we were waiting to buy the house and I was very nervous about tiling it myself - my first attempt!!

I tiled an area where the sinks were going - and I really struggled because the wall was not flat - despite having been plastered.

Then I realised that there was no way I could tile around where the shower would be, because it was going up higher and the wall was so bendy!! I ended up getting the plasterer back to straighten the wall. They did not do a perfect job. I was stressing so much that Paul agreed to come and help me - and between us - I think we did a good job!!

Then...I had to paint, and get the flooring in - before we could finish getting the bathroom fitted. I think it was already October and we'd started this in June! I was desperate for this bathroom! I was so excited because I knew it would be awesome when finished!!

Here it is painted...you can also see the raised floor and the taps ready for the bath...

I cannot seem to find any pics of the floor going in - but I must have some - so will add them if I ever find them!! But it is Amtico, and is a pale grey wood type....thing...very nice!

The next thing that happened is that the whole bathroom went in - apart from the shower because we had so many problems with missing parts. Victoria Plum - have a lot to answer for - that and they sent me two sink pedestals that were all bendy and they looked nothing alike when stood together. The replacements they sent were all smashed - and eventually they checked everything and sent them specially packed etc. Took a LOT of time and stress to get this sorted and even more so with the shower!

So - the end result (I cant show the whole thing in one pic unfortunately - too many weird angles), and you get to see the new floor here too.....drum roll......



































If you go back and compare these to the two offices, or the wall coming down, it makes you (me) realise just what we achieved. These pics don't actually do it justice. It definitely has the wow factor!

FriYAY - nicked that off my daughter!

Hi!

Well....yesterday, the guy came to fit the smart meter and took one look at out 3 phase electricity feed, and declared himself not qualified...

I tried to steam the wallpaper off the walls and it would last about 8 minutes before cutting out, then took an hour before I could turn it back on again!  I cut the grass (the mower worked!) but had to stop before I finished because of rain.  Grass looks like its had half a hair cut!

I ran 5km on the running machine and tried out my new trainers.  They were fine.  I am now 24.5km head on my YVSTY challenge (1018 km in a year).  I think my total is 346km so far...

Weight loss is back at 9.5lb loss.  I can live with that.  Just need to keep it going in that direction - I have another 22lb to lose! I think I'll start feeling better after another 10lb or so...I should start fitting in my clothes again by then!

So today - I can pick up my asbestos safety equipment from about midday...overalls, goggles and mask.  So - I'll do some more wallpaper stripping until then.  I was dreaming last night that our plasterer (Ray) had fitted amazing bathrooms in a our house (not this house, but an amazing big house!) and I was really pleased, but was very worried as we had not agreed a price and he'd just gone ahead and done it.  In my dream I was complaining to Lissa that it may have blown all the money we had left and he should have agreed it first - he heard me and so I was telling him to his face...its AMAZING but.....

This obviously shows that I am worried about the work we have left to do and the lack of money!  We are a few grand short to finish the annex....and I really want to finish it! Paul has offered to help us fit the bathroom ourselves to save some money - and I think we could do it.  That will save some money - but until I get rid of this asbestos and strip the walls we can't move on.

Did I mention yesterday that we got the permission we need to fit the new external door? Well, we have and that's another expense - getting a door made and the doorway put in....having to arrange that would have frightened the life out of me before we moved here, but I've arranged and completed so many projects in this house, i know that everything can get done - you just need money!!