But it looks like the loft conversion will be finished on schedule about the end of next week (hurrah!). Not that the builders haven’t been very lovely but it will be nice to not have to listen to all the banging and not come home to 2 hours worth of cleaning and mopping every night after an evening’s teaching.

Thank God for Henry ! The Henry in question is my wonderful vac who has done sterling work this week with all the black dust, wood shavings and bits of plasterboard.

I am posting extensive pics of the build for my Mum to see the progress not because I am a sad woman with nothing else to do.

I am now getting on to the fun bit which is the interior decorating – I love the design bit (hence my addiction to the Sims) and would happily move house and interior decorate constantly if it wasn’t for all the hassle that goes with it. My ideal would be to have enough money to do a bit of property development (preferably in Spain as it is nice and warm!) on houses I did not have to live in.

However it has not been too bad at all (she says after vast quantities of wine have been consumed this week to keep nerves steady in coping with cleaning and working all hours God sends as well) and it is nearly finished!

I am very pleased with the end results- Jake has a lovely big room with fantastic views out over the trees to the moors and a cute little shower room – which will look fab once finished  (I spent a very happy two hours in B and Q yesterday choosing fixtures and it will look very classy.) I am going for a contemporary look with a very nice sink and some fab dark metallic mosaic tiles. He has chosen a colour scheme of red,black, white and grey and I have just about got everything else sorted or ordered.

We will still have Jake’s old room which is going to be a study/guest room with just about enough room for a single bed (don’t worry Mum) and desk. Next step is to get painting and find some decorators to do hall, landing and stairs as I do not have time for that bit.

As a bit of light relief from pics of the messy stuff here are a couple of pics of my lovely new firepit/bar-b-que to replace the rusted through chiminea which we tested out last week and of the beautiful clematis that is in bloom in my garden. And of the lovely rose bush my students bought me last week when they left. Thank you very much all of you (and for the chocs and wine – they have come in very handy this week!). Rest assured I have been talking to it!

Will post some of the Rome pics when I get chance….. now off to play moving house on the Sims – so much easier!

We are now about half way through the build and so far so good. Despite everyone telling me horror stories about the amount of horrible black dust there has been little mess really apart from the bit where they took the  ceiling down which was only to be expected. However the builders have been fab and they sealed all of the rooms so there was very little mess anywhere but the hall, landing and stairs which I have spent most of the last three days mopping! However it is all looking very good – have not been up in the roof space yet but it looks like it is going to be a lovely big room for Jake and we will have an additional bathroom – (yay three toilets to clean!). The stairs are going in this week and then I will be able to go up and and see it and work out how much room we have for furniture etc. Jake has chosen his colour scheme and we have bought various bits this week like the bed and chosen tiles, flooring etc so it is all coming together. I was absolutely dreading the whole experience as I hate mess and am really obsessive about cleaning but it really has been remarkably stress free so far thanks to the lovely builders. I am so glad as things are still really busy at work and I would not have had the time for major clean ups.

Below is a little slide show to show you the build so far. 

This weekend was supposed to be the great garden fettling weekend (fettling is a Yorkshire term meaning mend/sort out etc.). That was before the builder phoned up to say he was putting up the scaffolding for our loft extension on Friday and it rained heavily all day Saturday.

So there was no painting of decking (as it was covered in lots of bits of stone dust and pointing (wet dust at that)) and no mowing of lawns or cutting of hedges. However we did manage to sort out the ongoing computer problems (by buying Ellie a new laptop as monitor is officially dead and would have cost 1/3 of price of laptop to replace it!). Ellie is very happy as the Sims game now works lots faster than on old crumbly computer and I am a bit poorer.

Have also cleared out Jake’s room in preparation for the build which starts properly tomorrow. This has been planned for a long time (well since we moved in 2 and a 1/2 years ago) but I am not really looking forward to it as anyone I mention it to just says ‘oh my God the dust!’ and not that I am obsessive (well not that bad!) but am not looking forward to the next month of upheaval. However it will all be over soon and my dear mother has promised me lots of R and R in her new hot tub when I finally get to Spain later in the year to make up for it. 

Have done virtually no embroidery this week as have been at work late three evenings and this coming week looks to be the same. We have new modules starting and I have loads of marking so it will be a very busy next two months. However come July 14th I finish my full time teaching so that is something to look forward to and come Sept I can start working on my portfolio for my City and Guilds embroidery course that I plan to start after Xmas.

All I have done is play on the Sims for a bit of light relief (extending their houses is so easy you just click and drag – no dust at all!) which my lovely daughter bought me the last three stuff packs for that I did not have as presents this week (thanks sweetie!) and generally maintain domestic harmony (well try to!)

Here are a couple of pics of the scaffolding showing the back of the house and the view from the back door – the roof starts coming off in the morning!

So if you do see me over the next month – pat me gently on the hand, offer me wine (or chocolate depending on time of day!) and don’t mention dust!

No I have not lost the plot (not quite anyway) as I do know it is not Xmas but for me this is the season to be jolly rather than Winter. Winter is just wet and cold and endless but this is Spring and it has been hot in Yorkshire for more than one day!

It has been sunny and we nearly had a barbecue last night (ok so it rained just as I was going to light it so we had an grill a cue instead but we were nearly there!). It has been lovely weather all week, the garden looks fab as I have had chance to work on it and  I am a very happy bunny. I feel so much better when I can be outdoors and get some sun – albeit I did have a lot of work and marking to do this week but I still got chance to potter. I am very proud of my garden as I designed it from scratch – when we moved into this house 2  1/2 years ago there was just a long boring stretch of grass as you can see from pic below.

We then had our very own Ground Force weekend in the rain with me starring as a very wet Charlie Dimmock and managed to get it to this stage.

Do we need more water or shall I just let the rain fill it?

The finished – if a little bare garden.

In true Ground Force style it has come on a treat now everything has bloomed (and I have added lots of bits to it) and now looks fab. I am very pleased with it as it has taken lots of work to get it to this stage but it looks wonderful now. I am at the age when I like nothing better than pottering of a summer evening talking to my plants and am looking forward to some lovely evenings again this summer when we entertain friends.

 

Have also tonight updated the Project Nepal page with a little slideshow of the building from last weekend so do visit that for an update. Have also changed the header image on the site – this is the Laton Jacket from the VA Musuem in London that the Embroiderer’s Story project are re-creating – go and visit their site for an update.

Today is my daughter Ellen’s 17th birthday so in honour of that here are a few pictures. We have had a quiet weekend at her request – we went to Nottingham yesterday to visit the Robin Hood exhibition then out for a meal at which this pic of her and Jake was taken.

Today we went for a girlie afternoon trip to the cinema to see ’27 Dresses’ which was very good. Here she is with her birthday cake and her favourite bear with its new outfit which was a birthday present from her friend Charlotte.

Ans I know she will probably hate me for this but I couldn’t resist showing you one of her looking cute at 1 day old to go with the rest of these lovely pics – so here she is!

How time flies! Happy birthday darling from all of us.