Spring Has Sprung

Well, spring has definitely sprung in my garden. It's so nice to see something doing well, other than the weeds which are flourishing! Mind you, if I planted more nice things I'd get to see a few more flowers wouldn't I?! We have made some progress with our front garden, including a minor disaster, but I'll put that in another post.

This seems to have been a very long week! I am trying to get the house back to some sort of order following decorating our living room. I'm not sure the photo's really show the before and after very well. Here's the floor before:

And after - shame to cover the parquet but Nipper has slipped and banged his head so many times:

Nipper was having fun 'helping' me to hoover the new carpet, which is a lovely cream colour. He has his own toy Dyson (thank you Ebay). And you can see the state of my back garden too!

Another couple of 'before' shots - the walls were a very minty-green.

We have a stone fireplace and hearth with a teeny-tiny woodburner. Now that the room has been done up I'll get a nice rug to cover the hearth and hopefully avoid nasty bangs on the head.

Here's an almost finished shot - the walls are now Dulux Orchid White:

You realise how much stuff you have when you need to clear a room out (we were having a carpet laid so the room had to be emptied), and we have far too much stuff despite my freecycling and frequent deposits at the charity shop. We are still trying to finish it off with a nice curtain pole but the drill bit has gone blunt and we're having problems getting a replacement (our drill has hexagonal bits which push in and click and we're struggling to find someone who sells them).

Then of course there was the pranging of the Go-Go. I can't believe how much hassle it is to sort out and how many different people you have to deal with - insurance company, courtesy car company, salvage company, engineer, underwriter, dvla. The underwriters want copies of every piece of paperwork we've ever had for the car so I've spent a lot of time rummaging around looking for it all, photocopying, and form filling. I really must do an overhaul on my household filing system!

I've also had some hassle from the other driver's insurance company. The cheeky so-and-so's organised a salvage inspection of my car without asking/telling me about it. They are desperate to sort the matter out themselves as I guess it'll work out cheaper for them. When I found out about the inspection I rang them to complain and told them my insurers were dealing with everything. They accused me of being obstructive and said I was witholding information and failing in my legal responsibilities. At first I was a bit alarmed but then I twigged that they were trying to scare me into allowing them to deal with the claim. So then I got a bit annoyed and gave them a piece of my mind!

We also had some sad news this week. Mr Earplugs was working in Belgium and his Mum rang me to say that his Grandad had died. It wasn't altogether unexpected as he had suffered a stroke recently and was rather poorly, but still a bit of a shock. I wasn't sure about this but I decided not to tell Mr Earplugs about it until he got home. He couldn't do anything and he didn't need to come home straight away - the funeral's not for a couple of weeks. I didn't think there was any benefit in him finding out when he was at work and miles away. It turned out to be the right decision.

Rather than sitting here blogging I should be clearing out my kitchen. We decided to replace our kitchen which is about 25 years old and hideous (grey stripey doors, grey trim, grey mottled worktop - yuck). We got a very good deal in the January sales and I know someone who can fit it for a quarter of what the store wanted to charge (and my chap's no cowboy, I've been using him for electrical and plumbing work for years). The work starts on Monday and I need to empty everything out. It's the same scenario as the decorating - far too much stuff and nowhere to shove it all! Here is a peek from the catalogue, though we aren't having any curved units and my kitchen's nowhere near as big:

It'll apparently take a couple of weeks. After that I've got a plasterer coming to do the hallway followed by a decorator to sort out the hall, stairs, and landing. Pretty much the whole of our house was trashed when we had building work 3 years ago. Here are a few pics to give you an idea:

We've been redecorating ever since but I'm hoping to get most of the house finished before the baby arrives, hence getting a decorator for a final push. It'll be so nice to be able to relax and enjoy the house without constantly seeing a list of jobs which still need to be done!

Spring Has Sprung