A Few Days In France

Plenty of shots to share, but here's a few to get you started.........
More (and some words) when I get time.....

Friends & Pizza

A quick trip to Norwich last Sunday......

Before & After

Just a few shots while I've got a couple minutes










And a few of us getting plastered (yes, I know it's a poor joke)

Sorry It's Late

Yes, having said that I will try and update this every Saturday, the last one came and went.
Maybe the guilt was enought for me to make time for it now, maybe not.

We treated ourselves to a new digital camera last weekend too. No need to borrow the one from work anymore!
It's very tiny and more powerful than the one I've been using.
Got it from Ebay at a knock down price. Brand new shipped from the states. Well pleased with it.

So, it's gonna be a photo post this one. Things have moved inside.

Old living room/new dining room...........




Those french doors that you can see in the background only went in today. Look good, don't they?

This is what our kitchen bay window looked like yesterday.......



This is what it looks like today



And looking back the other way (those blocks are where our back door used to be!)



Short and sweet again.

Right, it's Saturday again and time for lots of photos.

A lot has been going on with the house which is great. We've had to make some very quick decisions and even this morning we went from having a tiny en-suite to having a big dressing room/walk-in-wardrobe!

Okay.......... here we go......
(once more, click photo to enlarge)

One from the front showing the fully completed roof (no guttering though) with a new dormer.


A couple of the back. Looks really good now that the scaffold is down.



This is one of the day room next to the shed to be. The roofs are going on this week. The french doors aren't to be fitted until we've removed the old bay window.


This is the usual view of the rear. Shows progress nicely.


I thought that I would add these to show the abomination of a hedge that we got free with the cottage. It really is awful. This week it goes! This pleases me greatly.
I spend getting on a week a year just keeping it in check. Not anymore!
Being replaced with a tidy 5' fence. Should give us a quite a bit of extra light too.



Finally, a couple of the inside of our new bedroom.

This second one has the en-suite now converted to a dressing room to the left hand side.


So all good. We're both very pleased today.


A PLACE IN THE SUN

Now for a couple of TOM's place in France




Very nice too eh?
Little chat today, sorry about that.

Here we go again

This is turning into a bit of a regular thing to do on a Saturday. Mainly, I guess, that this is the day that I have time to post updates on here.

So what news?

House first - the roofers have finished!!! About bloody time.
This means that the regular builders are back.
This week they've given us a floor to our new bedroom and insulated the new roof.
Dave the Brick and Terry have been busy building up wall bits on our shed and other outbuildings, ready for a new roof on those.
We came home yesterday to find many panes of glass stacked up in the new lounge. Strictly, I think that they're called cartridges. They're the double glazed bits that fit in the frames.
The scaffold is due to come down next week, so it should really start looking like a house again.

Talking of new builds, you may be interested in TOM's place across the channel.
He has sent me a few photos of it, but I forgot to save them and they've disappeared into the ether.
This one is of outside though and demonstrates that ma mere is still very much into plants!



We're due to go out there in about 5/6 weeks for a long weekend, Both of us much looking forward to it.

Other news............

WW is in danger of becoming a Travian widow at the moment. Last night was a prime example. There was about five of us (all grown men and should no better) all on-line at the same time, plotting and scheming to try and prevent one of our alliance getting attacked by an enemy. One of them even phoned me up to check on the plans!!! (I'm talking about you Mr Blighty, sir!)
Definitely need to reign in on this particular hobby. It's becoming an obsession.

The weather has definitely turned a corner. It's a bit wet and miserable. This means that the car gets a lot dirtier. So, that's this afternoon's job.

Right I'll leave you to it.

Special Guest Blogger

Wahey! After reading many blog entries I now get to have my very own - thanks Dad, I'm very privileged. Also very surprised I have been able to use your Mac as you're now an official Travian geek : )

I am having a very good time so far what with Dad embarrassing me in front of my friends on MSN. Pretending to be me and telling them he doesn't care if they are ill and feel like they're going to die. Also, trying to find out all my personal gossip - yeah whatever! :p
Have to admit it was funny talking to TOM though when he was rather tipsy from all that vino! "Ooh eck!''

Trying to concentrate my very hardest at the mo which is hard as I have rubbishy dance music blasting into my ear from one of Dads 50 million speakers.

Having a roast dinner tonight - yumyum : ) Looking very forward to that as they're always 'good egg'. Tomorrow morning will be having brie, bacon and onion on a french baguette. I challenge all you readers (aka TOM and Jovis) to try and make one just as good.

Anyway better go and help peel spuds and all that nonsense...

TTFN
B2 (Natalie/Tilly/Brilliant Daughter)
xxx

Another week.......

Yup, Saturday is here again and I find time for an update... with photos!

B2 is here this weekend and we may have a special "guest entry" later.

So house update.
The roofers have been taking bloody ages! Our builder reckoned it was about one & a half weeks for the whole roof. It's taken them nearer four!
Still, nearly finished now. We're very please with the quality of what they've done, just would have liked it sooner.
Also the sparkies have made a start, running some cables for the new section.

So here we go -

(incidentally, click on the photos to get a full size view)

This is what will be our new lounge. There's a woodburning stove that'll go in the fireplace.



B2 making an appearance up on the scaffold.








You can maybe see the lead work here. At least it shouldn't leak!







And one from the front. Still a little work to finish.

Update......... finally

Ok, as promised here we are.

To pick up where I left off.
You'll note that I said that the swelling hadn't subsided much. Well, Monday morning came and off to work. During the day, my arm swelled up more than before. It also started to hurt right in my shoulder joint. I thought best to phone the doctor and duly got an appointment later that day.

I explained to the doctor the situation, he took one look at my arm, said "I don't like the look of that" (helluva diagnosis), and promptly wrote a perscription for some strong anti-biotics.
He said that more and more, people are getting infections due to being stung. It seems that our little, friendly wasps are becoming more potent in their attacking.

So that's that, I've still got some tablets to go, but nearly run the course.


What else is happening?
We have a few things on Ebay at the moment.
My past experience of Ebay is predominantly buying things. Selling is a bit nerve-racking isn't it?
Our main item on there is our CD collection. We're hoping to get at least £250 for the lot. The auction ends in about two hours, and we haven't had any bids, BUT we do have six people watching. We're crossing our fingers for flurry of bids in the final ten minutes.

Travian is hotting up somewhat. We have our forum alliance which now consists of about 13 of us.It's getting fairly tricky for anyone who's been on there a while (like me). I'm currently having a big fall out with a group of fifteen year olds from Belgium! Only on the internet eh?



The house is coming along slowly. The roof seems to be taking an age. I'll get some photos when they've finished that part. Hopefully mid week.


Right, I guess I've bored you now with too much ramblings so I'll leave it there.

Lapse

I thought that I'd be able to keep up with this thing!

I must apologise for not keeping it more up to date.
This is only a quick hello, but I'll give you the week's update later today.

Ouch!

Sometimes you look at things and think "what's the point?"
I have thought this about wasps for quite sometime. I really don't think that they have a great purpose in life. They just exist to annoy other forms of life.
I think this especially at the moment and here's why.

Yesterday, we were due to have some relatives of WW visit for lunch. This being the case, I thought it best to take the beast for a walk myself.
The usual route follows a road for a few hundred yards, onto a private track and then a footpath. This was done without incident. It was a nice sunny day, so shorts, t-shirt and flipflops were in order.
Part of the path passes through some bushes; sloe & blackberries. Part way through these, I felt a slight stinging to my upper arm. Nettles, I thought and went to rub the spot. It was then that I felt quite a large insect. Sod it. I wasn't totally sure what it was, but no residual sting, so highly likely that a wasp was the culprit. Bugger things.

I've been stung by a wasp before and knew that I was in for an hour or two of discomfort. Never mind. Towards the end of the walk, about 15 mins later, I felt a bit odd but thought nothing of it.

By about 16:00, my arm had really swollen up. Very tight around the elbow. So off to Boots. The pharmacist recommended some anti-hystamines(sp?) and said the swelling should reduce in about 20 mins.

I had a fairly restless night, punctuated with bouts of waking up due to a painful arm.

08:30 we decided that hospital was the order of the day, as my arm bloody hurt and was still massively swollen.

On arrival, the waiting room seemed pretty quiet; a good sign.
Waiting rooms are fantastic for people watching. I wasn't really in the mood, but couldn't resist looking at the various characters.
Of most interest, I guess, were a pair of young-ish women, one of them with a toddler. Both were dressed similarly. Sovereign rings a plenty, not a wedding ring in sight mind.
All their time was being taken up with wild movements of their thumbs accross the keypads of their matching phones.
The child that they were with seemed quite poorly and was coughing and wheezing - possibly from being stuck in a lounge full of cigarette smoke?

Anyway, 20 minutes and I was called through, taken into a booth. A doctor showed up fairly quickly and we had a chat about the cause, symptoms etc.
All in all, we were there just over three hours. I had several blood tests and they also administered some intravenous drugs.

The swelling hasn't subsided much, but is a bit more comfortable.

So, it seems that I might have an allergic reaction to wasp stings (never before mind). We'll see when they get the other blood tests back.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that is why wasps are not at the top of my Christmas card list.

Quick Update

No pics, no funny stories!

Sorry about that, but I thought I had better put finger to keyboard so that you know I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth.
Very busy at work this week (both of us), but time is flying at the moment.

House is coming along...........slowly. A bit frustrating a the roof seems to be taking ages. Everyday when we come home, we hope to see it finished, and every day there seems to be about 20 more tiles fitted that yesterday. Very frustrating.

What of the weather? A bit on and off. Yesterday was bloomin' awful. It rained, then it rained some more, and then guess what? It rained again. We had seven bowls down in the bay of the living room to catch the drips! Nightmare.
It would be nice to think that this is the worst of it, but you never know.

TOM has been in touch quite frequently. Across the channel, all is well, including Wife Of TOM. Well on the mend. This is good news indeed.
Hopefully we shall be going out towards the end of Nov. Looking forward to that muchly.

That's all for now, but I'll leave you with this thought........... why are there so many of these strange, leggy spiders around this year. We've got them everywhere. Small little bodies, but really long legs. Bizarre.

TTFN

Where's The Time Going

As promised, here we are with a bang up to date posting.

House is coming along. Lots of roof things at the moment.
Last week was pretty good weather-wise, so they cracked on. Unfortunately it's being pouring down for the last 20 hours or so, so we've got leaks galore!!!

Last weekend saw WW and myself make the trek down the road to one of those forest destinations. Was great fun and most relaxing. Anneka Rice and his family joined us Sat morning. Great to see them. NHG is growing up very fast, and is quite possibly the cutest kid in the world..............



We weren't too active can't wait to go again!

What else? Well work-wise, I had organised a team building event at a place near Norwich (www.bramleylakes.co.uk). Again, great fun, but with a slant towards team development. Highlight for me was driving big V8 Rangerovers around a muddy old track at some very odd angles.

This is Wednesday evening.........



Here's the house ones........

Update

Many apologies for the lack in posting on here. Been very busy.

It's pouring with rain, nothing happening today, so expect an update later..............