Lights finally working

So after two weekends of effort, the back garden lights ar finally operational again 👍

We also have a new light with a sensor over the rear driveway to light that up should there be a person / car or other heat source wander up it πŸ™‚

The three lights in the garden have been a painful situation but we now have operation in place with new waterproof junction boxes to hopefully rid us of the electrical issues that we have endured in the early apart of the year.

We have also burned more leaves etc although daddy is not allowed anywhere near the compost heap or the burning bin with warm / cold / anything ash… This is because last week Simon put the (what he thought was) cold ashes from the burn bin on the compost heap – the following day, when he was in Stockholm, Vicky noticed that there was smoke coming from the compost area – transpires that there was a reasonably significant burn taking place that took 7+ hours of effort to put out and rid us of almost 1/3 of the compost pile (will accept that as a small win out of the ordeal). We are monitoring the tree in the corner and the bushes earthed side as there is a lot of charring sadly…

Elliot’s Birthday Party tomorrow in the woods with laser tag and 17 other boys….

Burn baby, burn….

This week Simon has had to stay at home as he could not travel due to the exit hole issues πŸ™

A positive to this is that he has managed to keep the garden burn bin going all week long and has therefore got through all four bags of garden waste over the week – on top of this the majority of the wood that was left over from the previous owners shed that fell apart. The last burning took place yesterday afternoon and the bin is STILL very hot – the ash will be applied into the composting area tomorrow assuming that it has suitable cooled by then.

Separated, Simon has applied several nice blisters on his hands this afternoon by using two bags of cold tarmac repair to fill the worst of the holes in the front driveway – fingers crossed that the neighbours realise that the spots really need to be avoided for the next day or so.

Hopefully the patches will dry in well and give us a few years of protection – a new drive would be a costly upgrade.

Pile central

We got back from Devon on Saturday at about 11:15 after a super early start to avoid the Bank Holiday traffic – it worked 👍

We enjoyed a lovel day at Beaulieu even though it took just under 3 hours to make the 72mile journey πŸ™ a lovely sunny day and Hugo was allowed in all the grounds – just not inside the buildings – no skin off his nose as there was so much to sniff outside….

We finally managed to find a sandy beach that both the boys were happy with and that Hugo was allowed on – it was called the Dawlish Warren beach and it was perfect – we spent all afternoon there on Thursday – the only downside was that we were not permitted to BBQ in any of the area so we had to take all the BBQ stuff back to the cottage and grill there instead. Either way, Thursday was also a tip top day ev n without sunshine. Mummy also showed us of her expertise when it comes to kits flying πŸ™‚ she was v pleased with herself and flew the little kite for almost an hour !!

Friday was a day at the cottage with a dog walk thrown in – although Elliot and Oliver complained pretty much the whole walk so at 1.5km we abandoned the walk and head back to the cottage.

We enjoyed another lovely meal at the Tuckers Arms before wandering home to pack before the long trip back to Flockton in the morning.

Now, since Sunday, Simon had been experiencing a little pain around his back door so under the assumption that maybe a cheeky little pile was up for showing itself, we went to the local Boots for advice – came out with some cream and a handy tube to insert…. nice

A day passed and things were not getting better to we returned to boots and picked up a pack of suppositories – an even worse “nice” situation – those little suckers were determined to test Simon…. let’s say no more.

By Friday things were not improving enough so the rest day was the plan.

Walking was beginning to get testing and sitting down was almost impossible except strangely enough in the car.

When we got home Simon emptied the car and then promptly cleaned and vacuumed the inside before cutting the front lawn. Not long after the anger of the bottom kicked in and Simon took a long hot bath and then hid out in bed.

On Sunday morning the anger had not subsided and the what was a small lump the size of a small marble had increased in size ever so slightly but more important was now red with anger and for some reason has decided to piss off his right butt cheek as well πŸ™

A trip to the drop in centre gave penicillin and advice on the continuation of Ibruprofen. Thankfully it was confirmed as being a pile and not something more serious (although at the time Simon was struggling get to walk / sit / stand or anything really. The pile was considered as having been infected and hence why it was red and annoyed.

Anyway, 24 hours later and things are a little better – the penicillin and / or continued use of suppositories has been doing a pretty good job – although at 9pm last night this was definitely not the case.

Here’s hoping for a relatively speedy and painfree recovery – Happy Bank Holiday Monday folks 🔥

Mower is fixed…

…but am Β£150 lighter πŸ™

Last weekend Simon hit a stone on the mower and one of the cutters broke off and damaged itself and the other πŸ™ 

Thankfully it seems it was a relatively easy solution to replace the broken bits and the mower was returned this lunchtime.

Hopefully it will dry up enough to cut the grass on Sunday πŸ™‚

We also had another power cut in the garage this week so need to figure it out – thinking Simon did a poor job with the outside lights last year… πŸ™

They are switched off for now and we can test later in the summer…

Leaky pipes

Sadly last week Vicky noticed the carpet in the bedroom was reasonably wet near the en-suite so left a towel on it to soak up the moisture. The moisture removed was quickly replaced with yet more moisture so when Simon got back from London on Thursday, we lifted the carpet in the little ante room area – to find that the carpet was indeed rather wet, the underlay saturated and in time we saw that water was slowly pooling up from the corner of the en-suite room door. Kind of drip by drip but it was certainly filling.

So, we called on the services of the British Gas insurance policy that we have and if it weren’t for the school run, they would have arrived some 45 minutes after making the call – WOW.

Anyway, we now have three large holes in the wall behind the shower (in the bedroom) and the shower unit has been capped off – basically the inlet (cold) to the shower tap was dripping. It has likely been leaking for between a week and a fortnight as the insulation first needed to be saturated before the water would seep out to the bedroom itself πŸ™

So, we are now drying the carpet out on the heated conservatory flooring, hoping that we were quick enough with it. The underlay is still in situ and we will simply have to take a call on it in the coming days as to whether to just simply have it replaced.

We are now going to get some quotes for;

  1. Simple repair of what we have
  2. Full price for en-suite upgrade

Then we can make a call as to whether we want to give up on a family holiday to have a new ensuite in place….