Happy Birthday Mr Leech – the big 40 is here and is here to stay.

Well, the end of another long week, and we are finally back in ForkHall – it is really nice to sleep in our own bed again.  Elliot seems to be sleeping well at the minute as well – hope that is not the kiss of death for the sleep patterns of course 🙂

A few birthday parties are on this weekend – Guy tomorrow and Dave on Sunday (was Pembos birthday on Thursday) – so we have a fairly busy weekend ahead of us.

The great news is that Simon’s teeth have pretty much stopped making him whinge and bitch on – giving Vicky a break from it.

It snowed last night !!!! We were going to capture on film as evidence but thought it could wait until morning and would be better lighting then – only to find it had all gone this morning – bugger !!

Simon has been to the dentist and the optician today – typically yesterday he began to have toothache, so you could argue fortuitous timing – a filling needed removing, a hairline crack in a tooth fixed, and a new filling applied.  All seems sorted now, although being a bloke, Simon is still whining on about the pain in his mouth…… Vicky keeps talking about the pain in her neck – not sure what that means……

Vicky’s parents are due back from their holiday tonight so we will be heading back to Fork Hall tomorrow and will be back to normality.  Simon has struggled with rebooting the pool boiler every other day due to it overheating (overheating – we wish it had been doing – it has been really cold in the new section of the house for 2 weeks and then damned boiler thinks it is overheating…. rant over), ensuring that the levels of water and their chemical consistency is all OK in both the pool and the hot tub.  We certainly would consider not having such items if we ever had the cash to have them in our near the house – they are possibly too much bother and require plenty of spare time to maintain – you generally do not realise until you are responsible for it.

Greg is also going to be very please to find that the company who supplied the gate opening video entry system are saying that it will not integrate into the telephone system here.  Simon has a feeling that with a little messing around we may be successful, but with no help whatsoever from the suppliers of the kit.  Simon does not want to be the one who tries stuff out for fear of breaking it when Greg is not here to take ownership of any balls ups 🙂

Oh, and the new switch is working just fine in Greenlea so the original must have been faulty in some way causing it to overheat.  If Simon could be bothered, he would check into why, but he can’t so guess that he won’t.

Home again now although there is plenty of evidence of the bad weather of the week – trees still cut up on the sides of the roads, traffic lights still not operational etc etc.

Simon got back to find the boiler had overheated again – that’s four times in less than 10 days – Gregory suggested that it had occurred three times since it was installed – yet suggested to check it daily – think that suggests three times before they went on holiday BUT this year !!!!!

Simon also had a go at the backwashing the filtration system in the pool today, and got rather worried when there was what appeared to be scum on the surface of the water – it ended up that the water level in the pool had dropped below that of the filter, and it had begun to suck air in, and then push it back into the pool which appeared as tiny bubbles – Simon thought this was something he had done wrong – dumb ass 🙂

Anyway, all sorted now, and we got a high chair from Mamas and Papas that was reduced by £25 so that was nice as well.  Hopefully it will see Elliot through for a long time – thanks to Great Grandparents Rust for buying it for Elliot.

Simon has also replaced the computer switch in Greenlea as the previous model seemed to overheat and basically stop functioning – so far the new unit is not overheating and having the same issue – or certainly it has worked for longer than the previous one – time will tell.

Hopefully will get a few more minutes tomorrow to delve further into the telephone system / front door phone system to see how we can integrate them to get the external gates bells to ring through the house and likewise to then be able to operate the external gates from the phones.

Time is something we will always be short of…….

Simon is currently sat in the office over in Warrington and is not driving home as planned as the winds have really built up and the road network seems to be totally screwed up.  A piece of the roof of the office was torn off and fell down onto the cars below – not nice if you own a Vauxhall Corsa or a Land Rover Freelander 🙁

At home, it seems that there is a similar story in that Greenlea seems to be taking a battering with slates being removed from the roof and the trees being systematically pulled apart.

Vicky is currently in the process of putting her car and her mum’s car into the garages at ForkHall as this is probably the safest place for them right now.

Hopefully Simon will be able to get home tomorrow night……

First few days of looking after Greenlea are out of the way – man – what a big job it is.  We have found it VERY cold on the nights in the new bedroom out back – then Simon noticed that the boiler in the poolhouse had overheated – we fixed it using Greg’s mega instruction manual and we are off – the bedroom was nice and warm last night so we are back online.

5 days in a house with its own pool and gymnasium and we have used NONE of it – just been manically busy…….

Elliot is trying loads of new foods (sweet potato, carrot, pears, apples, bananas) and seems to be really enjoying them – we are slightly concerned with one of the banana breakfasts and so will be not giving him it for a day or two to see if things get better.

Sleep is not great at the minute as he only slept for 30 minutes continuous last night although he is struggling big time with his teeth.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories was purchased by Vicky for Simon last week – perhaps she is regretting it as a mistake 🙂

More updates as and when time permits.