So we are almost a week in now, and Elliot appears to be enjoying school more and more by the day.  Apparently today he was participating in the singing for the Christmas concert 🙂 🙂 🙂 He had been doing the hand gestures etc, but today he actually got stuck in with the singing.  We are soooo pleased…

Olly had his second dull day in nursery and apparently he cried when he realised that we had actually left him, but then just got on with it – the nursery teachers have commented on how advanced his speech is, and that he knows his full name – apparently most of the little ones only just manage their first names at this stage.

We have been out trying to make some moves on kitchen, bathroom and bedroom furniture as we have decided that the kitchen needs updating, we need a completely new bathroom (and we may just update / replace the downstairs lavatory) and the bedroom needs cabinets etc.  Hence this could be a BIG spending spree.

We have not been overly successful on the kitchen front (the shop we went to in Wakefield (3D was the name) was a complete waste of time – the salesman didn’t even have a rough idea of what it cost to build a set of furniture in their own store….) although we have put a call into the place in York where the original kitchen came from in the hope that we can accelerate things by making use of them.

Hopefully we will have a guy coming round from Wakefield Bathrooms in te next week or so to help advise us on the two bathrooms that we are going to replace.

Need to get on with the man cave as well…… oh, where will we find the hours in the day…..

Oh, VAR 625 is now home again – sat on a cheeky Porsche Boxster S 🙂 V12 UST is legally in place on an Aston Martin DB9 and we are waiting for the V5 for the Range Rover in order to place VAR 72 on it 🙂

Tim put Julie together for Vicky today and so she just needs her brakes bleeding and is ready to roll.  Barbara needs to be put together also, so maybe a task for tomorrow if time permits.

We have built up the kids furniture and begun to open up the boxes of toys etc.

Tim also put together the other bikes yesterday so we are really cracking through the gear and maybe, just maybe we will be riding Barbara and Julie with Tim and Betty in a trail centre before the next 10 days is out.

Oliver’s first day at school was today and while he was VERY pleased to go this morning, he was also very pleased to see us this afternoon (full day from 8:30 to 3:30). Apparently he did well and only had a couple of tearful times when he was asking after us.  He seems to want to go back on Thursday though so we will see how he gets on then.  He did want to go to bed at 7:15pm tonight and was asleep within 15 minutes of getting in 🙂

Elliot seems to be doing well with school as well and had homework to do last night – he did it with mummy this afternoon.

Simon took the DB9 out for a spin this afternoon and noted that one of the heated seats does not work 🙁 Sure it will be a relatively simple repair, but is still slightly irritating – particularly given the issues that we have been having with the Range Rover… 🙁

As the subject suggests, today has been a big day.

Elliot has enjoyed his first full day at St Hilda’s school in Horbury – see photos below for his uniform etc.

We also took Olly for his induction into Nursery as his first day will be tomorrow 🙂 Olly is SO in need of going – he really did not want to come away again today 🙁

We have also taken delivery of the 70 boxes that we sent from California – they arrived 3 hours earlier than we were anticipating so we have managed to get some of them unboxed already.  There is a MAMOTH task ahead of us in terms of spreading the goodies around the place, as well as deciding what we probably don’t actually need here, and taking to charity shops / donating to schools etc.  The toy pile is MAHOOSIVE – big work required in there…

Finally, Vicky’s car is still not right with the plastic over thw windscreen having come off again – sadly the dealership do not seem to be taking the issues quite as seriously as we might like.  Fortunately they are seeing sense however, and are sending the chap out to the house on Wednesday to hopefully resolve it for the last time.

Sadly, only time will tell…

We collected Tina from Sam this afternoon – she was in marvellous spirits until Simon found a pile of dog muck to drive her through – needed cleaning sadly when we got home – damned dogs!!!! grrr

Anyway, here are a couple of early phtos for your visual pleasure:

Oh my….

The other great news of the day is that Bruce has been given the all clear at the doc today as well (Bruce is the name that Vicky has given to the Range Rover). We collected him after collecting Tina and his hiccups are gone and his hair has been reattached and his clothes reattached properly 🙂  We just need to wait a few more days and then we will be in a position to put his new registration plate on.

Simon went along to DVLA in Leeds on Wednesday and Portia will be getting her new registration plate (VAR 625) sometime in the next 10 days, so within 2 weeks our trio will be all setup and a photoshoot will be organised 🙂

We also got Elliot’s school uniform sorted today (clearly this was way more important than car stuff and hence why we did it first) so he is all setup for school on Monday.  Fortunately Olly does not need a uniform for Nursery, else that would be a further 200UKP + needed….

Hallowe’en party tomorrow 🙂

We are heading out early doors to get Elliot’s school uniform from Rawcliffe’s in Dewsbury so that he is all set for next week – first official day on Monday 🙂

We also have to go and collect the Range Rover from Farnells in Guisley – we have chosen to collect since we will be passing anyway (more about that in a minute) and that we would rather check out that the car is indeed fixed rather than it getting back to Ossett, only to have to go back next week….

The garage did call us last night to tell us that they had located the fault as an issue with the management system and how the engine and gearbox interact with each other.  Apparently it is a known Range Rover fault and there was a bulletin out with a software fix for it.  So it has now been “patched” and is ready to go.  The other parts had been ordered and would be fitted this very morning.  Does tend to pose the question – why did you not patch the car before selling it to us if it is a known issue of course….

Anyway, the DB9 is ready 🙂 So we are going to head to Harrogate after lunch to collect and bring her home – hence we will sort of be passing Farnells to check and hopefully collect the Sport 🙂

The garage is ready for the DB9 AND also for the delivery of US goods on Monday – we are well organised 🙂

We are having a kids Hallowe’en party tomorrow as well so we have some work to do for that also.

We still have to think about the following though:

• Mancave
• Driveway (to include all the way around the back of the house)
• Fencing in front garden
• New kitchen (poss to include dining room refurb)
• New master bedroom
• New dressing room (converting the old office once the mancave is in 🙂