Category Archives: General

General Posts

HSBC win

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When we finally got the boys setup with HSBC bank accounts last year, we couldn’t get a current account for Oliver because he was only 10.

Just last week we we’re talking about how painful it will be to get one arranged for him (as he is now at 11, old enough for the account ) given the measures in place due to Coronavirus.

All that was in vain as he got an email stating that his new debit card was on the way. It arrived this morning and lo they have automagically created an account for him and sent the card out to him. Brilliant automatic service that has him delighted and a small pressure off our to do list.

👍

Office refurbishment

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Simon has been working on the office over the last month or so during our lockdown – the plan was to convert the space into two offices where one of them could be a space for the kids to hang out or a gym.

At the moment, it is setup as two offices with a playseat and exercise bike in place until we figure out how we want to use it.

In short, there has been additional insulation applied to the external walls, network and power points put into the new office, plastered walls throughout, electric underfloor heating and a new laminate floor to finish it off. The flooring is setup to work with Alexa so we can ask her to set the temperature if we need to use the space etc.

See below for a couple of pictures to show how it is looking now.

Online education with Silcoates

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This week has seen the start of the Zoom school lessons for the boys – well only Elliot so far but Oliver’s start on Thursday.

It has to be said that the teachers have done a brilliant job translating over to video lessons, with Elliot’s English teacher leading a particularly impressive lesson yesterday. She totally commanded the virtual room and kept all that were online, attentive and on point – great work Miss Smith.

Later in the day, Simon had not been aware that Elliot was in a lesson, and the ensuing flatulence was not a particularly welcomed noise for the virtual lesson….. whoops

All joking aside, the education from Silcoates through this tough period has been really very well put together and has kept both boys engaged and on point. Oliver has needed more extra motivation in order to get going and keep going but Elliot has taken to the approach like a duck to water.

We are fortunate that the boys both have a laptop and that there is space in the dining room for it to become a virtual office during the day – shame that the real office in the garden is not yet finished with the renovations as that would make it better still – hopefully we will be finished down there by this time next week – the photos below should demonstrate the current progress – we are waiting for the plaster to dry. (ignore the bikes, they are just being stored in here short term since all of the office furniture is in the container, hence there was no room for the bikes

Easter weekend

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Today is Good Friday – a day that we had planned on being in a vacation home for the weekend with two other families. Sadly, that was a plan that died given the current situation.

So, today has been about tidying the house and working on the garage / office conversion. Simon realised that the progress was actually better than planned so an order was placed a few days ago at B&Q on a click and collect gig – the email came in at 4pm stating that the order was ready for collection. So, given that the sun was shining and there were 10 sheets of plasterboard in the order, he decided to hook up the trailer and go get it straightaway, as there was no guarantee of sunshine tomorrow and plasterboard doesn’t like rain that much.

The collection mechanism at B&Q was really rather smart – a whole heap of pre configured collection bays has been setup, so the buyer drives in, a person wanders over with a clipboard, requesting the order number and name etc. They then essentially deliver the contents of that delivery into a trolley that is left behind your vehicle – then simply load up and go.

All good, except the team at B&Q didn’t actually bring out all of the order – Simon only realised once he had emptied the content of the trolley into the trailer that there was 10 sheets of plasterboard missing… not a major drama except it was now 5 minutes past closing time and the doors were closed and nobody around to help…. Fortunately, 10 minutes later a staff member showed up (who had been to a food shop for something after their shift had finished) and she was kind enough to quickly check what happened with the rest of the order. 5 more minutes and we were all set with the remainder of the order.

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day of trying to get all the battens on the walls and then hopefully some of the plasterboard will make their way onto the walls in the office.

We just need to figure out if we will have two offices, an office and a gym or an office and a man cave down there 🙂