A nights post that went unposted

As per usual it's been a while since I've posted. As I write this it's 3:30am, and I
am actually at work. Shan't post from here though; this is an e-mail to myself to be
checked and hopefully posted later in the day.

So, the entirity of last week was a battle to get the house to a state where when
Paramito and my mum came we could actually - y'know - decorate. It took an awful lot
of effort to get the walls plastered and the room sorted - but we managed. And on
Saturday morning we cleared the edges of the room, and spent a lot of time
plastering.

I can't say as my plastering will ever win any awards - and even after sanding it's
not like it's beautiful. But it's adequate - and it looks so much better than what
was there. I'm really quite proud of the curve under the window - that is quite,
well, curvey.

With much help and assistance, the cupboard doors have been painted - Kathryn and I
slapping more coats and the varnish on ('cos it's ordinary emulsion). The framing's
had one coat of paint too, needs at least one more and then varnish. Hopefully after
that we can hang the doors - which should be pretty spiffy. What has been really
nice though is that we finally painted the (newly plastered) walls. The whole room
is now a soothing shade of Green instead of bare, disintegrating walls.

Unfortunately, this weekend we also discovered that, and this is revolting, a rat
has discovered our compost pile. In response to that we've bought a proper compost
bin which we'll be erecting. We're also trying to organise a skip before we leave,
to clear the garden of the vast amounts of building rubble, which I suspect are
providing shelter for the evil little rodent. Well, not so little. Ick.

It looks like there's a few 'same day' delivery and collection skip hire places. We
only want it for a day or two...

...however, fitting in loading the skip around the rest of the work that needs doing
in preparation for the wedding is somewhat of a challenge.

The list we made is about a mile long; and virtually everything on it is
non-optional. Both Kathryn and I have been laid back about the marriage and the
USCeremony - perhaps slightly too laid back. And now it's come back to bite us a
little...

...still, Kathryn finished the drawings for the invite yesterday, and I spent the
afternoon laying it out. Set it printing and brought them in to work to use the
guilotine. Of course, it was manic until 4:30 - and then my lazyness with not
ensuring the crop marks were correctly aligned bit me - I had to spent quite a bit
of time working out where to crop them because the crop marks aren't lined up on the
two sides.

Still, having a double sided printer finally paid off :)

I hate to imagine how much our invites would have cost from a professional printing
firm - and while it might have been nicer to have proper printed quality as opposed
to inkjet - I have to say that I think they're *gorgeous* and Kathryn's concept was
(and is) beautiful.