Kates Journal

Linky: This looks fun.

We had a positive progress day, most of the kitchen walls are clean; most of the ceiling is washed; a good chunk of the paint is stripped. Plan is, over the next week:

- Order topsoil tomorrow
- Strip the rest of the door frames tomorrow morning and give them a light sand
- Wash the rest of the walls and ceiling
- First coat of primer on the walls and ceiling tomorrow, first coat of vicious primer on the skirting and wood, hopefully

Then over the next week we need to do coats of paint on the ceiling (x2), coats of paint on the walls (x2, hopefully) and coats of paint on the skirting and the woodwork (x2, again, hopefully). We also need to clear some rubble, potentially build a little rockery, mount the metal gates that were once the drive way gates in front of the shed (if we can, ready for some climbing plants, which’ll cover the grotty old shed base).

Saturday my mum’s coming to do the garden, and Sunday is for restification.

And that is our week, in short form.

So, today is house day, we’re not quite up and running yet although we’ve had our pancakes :)

I attacked the garden a bit more yesterday, spending about an hour separating bricks and laying them next to the path, I even took the old concrete edging off the path, the only problem is that I can’t easily justify the cost of gravel to cover the path. I suppose it should wait until the decking’s done anyway.

I’ve also been looking at topsoil which is a bit more pricey than I imagined. We need approximately 1 cubic meter of topsoil, which is quite a lot, when it comes to it. And basically ends up being 70 quid; unfortunately the company that’s cheapest can only do 3-4 days delivery, and I’m being screened for allergies on the 4th day, so we can’t have it delivered that day. I’m going to ring them tomorrow, ‘cos if they say ‘we can do it on day 3, definately’, then that’ll do. Otherwise they cost the same as everyone else.

My other plan is to ring the dubious company that’s local, and used to have a big sign up saying ‘topsoil’. I’m sure it’s no-where near such a good quality of soil, but if it’s cheaper and they can do it tomorrow or tuesday, that’d be a lot more convenient.

That should give us the veggie patch, anyhow. A nice raised veggie patch (or two). I’m suddenly contemplating a little rock-garden, too. Essentially, the plan as I have it, is to use up as much of the rubble as I can.

Wondering about filling in that front garden with concrete, most of it, anyhow (not very environmentally friendly, better for parking tho’). Would probably sell the house better though, 2 parking spaces, even if they’re just plain concrete and would definately be better with Kathryn’s car, my bikes, and Jejy and Rebecca trying to squeeze in. No way we can afford the current brick drive way fad though, so it would just be plain concrete..

Now, today is a different day. Hot air gun and removing the paint from the trim around the kitchen and larder door, and perhaps remove the hardboard from the larder door. Anyway, it’s time to get on.

We’ve been very good of late, cooking most nights, and cooking new and exciting things. So much so that we’re running out of recipes in the Vegetarian cookbook of choice; which has proven to be a fairly reliable meal producer, while some of the meals have been not-great (usually a great deal of work for not a great deal of excitement on the eating front), they’ve all been quite edible (with one notable exception).

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to share some of these cooking adventures on here, but the near death of my camera’s batteries has put me off doing so, but today’s lunch was so yummy looking (at least to us) that I spent several minutes shuffling the near dead batteries until my camera gave in and took one photo.

And here it is; yesterday’s frittata rewarmed, with home made soda bread, home made jam, fruit, and quorn eggs. Num num:

It’s labelled on flickr, here :)

Anyway, it’s probably getting on for time to cook our Calzones :)

So, the Dell and the Apple are both now on ebay. Shinymac and Lapytopy will hopefully go to new owners, although to be honest, I doubt the Dell will sell. Added to the near 100 quid I got from the first auction I’m hoping that I’ll get enough from the Apple (starting bid 580 quid) that a MacBook (or ideally, a MacBook Pro) will be mine. I doubt the latter, but the former’s definately achievable. It’s a little weird to think that in a week I won’t actually have a ‘main’ computer. The RiscPC’s a bit past it, and the EntMac’s only connected to a TV (and not a HiDef one) so isn’t really useable in that way.

The DAF’s been ministered to, yesterday the throttle stuck open, the kink in the cable caught on the cable inner and it also seemed to possibly be unhooked at the pedal end. I’ve checked it over, and it shouldn’t happen again – but when the new inner arrives (it’s going to the new DAF) then I should hopefully be able to replace it without too much pain.

This time I shan’t kink it.

I went to pick up Kathryn after work yesterday, missed her junction and got to travel all the way into London before I could turn around. The traffic was awful and I ended up being around 40 minutes late :( But, it did mean that Kathryn had the opportunity to go out for more driving practice yesterday, and we pootled around Slough. Apart from the incident with the pedals (before we moved at all) there weren’t any problems, but the traffic was lousy, and it opted to snow, which was a little cruel. Today I’m hoping to put an hour or two into clearing the garden a bit. I’m just going to suck down my Chai.

I’ve been incredibly lazy today. Really, ridiculously lazy. Although, to be fair, it took me ages to get the Dell posted on e-bay. It’s taken days, actually, ‘cos the photo-upload wasn’t working last night.

As a side point, I’ve been listening to far too much VV Brown and The Ting Tings. The bloody VV Brown song (Crying blood) keeps getting stuck in my head. Too damn catchy.

And I keep wandering about going ‘Aaaaree yoooooooou caaaaaalling meeee darrrrrrlin(g)…’

I had something else to ramble about, but I’ve forgotten. I blame the Ting Tings.

Oh, no, I remember; I finally got around to entering Snapshot Hunter again. It’s not a great shot, some of the ones up there are way better (already, and we’re only on like the 6th photo), my excuse is that my camera dies after 8 photos now. Do I need new batteries? Yes I do. Not this month though, I think I’ve spent my money for this and next month.

Oh, and yes, my minimal bid is on the shite DAB adapter. I won the amplifier, so we’re all go for taking the Radiomobile to bits. Anyway. Chai. Garden. Collect Kathryn.

Worrying: We’re going to Ireland for Kathryn’s birthday (and as an anniversary present). The passports aren’t back from the Home Office yet. Having rung them, and listened to their message, and checked the website, they won’t give you any further information about a query until 70 working days (‘we aim to process 90% of applications in 70 working days’).

We’re at just over 50.

Those of you who know when my birthday is, and when Kathryn’s is, will know that there’s not a *huge* amount of time ’til we go on holiday. Reports from a forum on immigration suggest that at 70 working days they’re unlikely to be able to tell you a great deal more about your application than it’s “in progress”.

Asking for your passports back is, apparently == I’d like to withdraw our application. I’m not deeply concerned, yet. Hopefully we’ll fall within the 90%. Neither of us are interesting in an immigration sense, I would have thought. I’m gainfully employed as is Kathryn. We don’t claim any benefits, we pay our bills and taxes…

But still. One can’t help but be a little nervous. Can you still travel to Ireland on a Driving Licence?