Day 5 – end of part 1

We have reached the end of part 1, the part where the new units and appliances are in, and everything works. We can start moving things back into cupboards and stocking the updated freezer, as well as having a good old clear out of all those items that we put into storage that clearly we don’t use anyway.

Did you want to see a picture? No, I didn’t think you did.

Of course part 2 includes making good the walls and applying a suitable surface (which will be probably be tiles – more choices to be made), sorting out the lighting and the floor (decisions), some decorating, and waiting for the permanent worksurfaces to be installed (we have temporary ones at the mo).

The windows that should have been put in during February, before the kitchen installation started, will go in on Monday (hopefully).  There was a misunderstanding in which the fitter thought we meant middle of March when we said the end of February. Hmmmm. We’re lucky that the surfaces are temporary ones, but there will be instant and sudden death if the sink is harmed in any way during the window fitting.

I love my new sink. It was hand-picked from hundreds after intensive auditions.

Still not interested in photos? Oh well.

So windows, walls, lights, tiles, paint, floor, granite.

Ok then. Pictures.

It will look faberoony when the walls are done and we have the permanent worktops. in the meantime, I can’t wait to have our first meal prepared in our new kitchen. So excited! What shall we have?

Day 4

I’m exhausted. So much to think about. But things are starting to look very exciting.

We concluded today that the floor will need re-doing, something we hadn’t budgeted for, but it can’t be avoided. My brain is just frazzled.

Day 3 – it’s all happening

We moved on from rubble to sawdust, as the rather fabulously laid-back fitter assembles the units.

I got rather over-excited by the prospect of being able to move around slightly move freely in the living/dining room, where the flat-packed units have been stored for the last week and a bit. “Look, I can walk though here. And I can walk back again.” A bit like Eeyore putting  his damp rag of a burst balloon, a birthday gift given by Piglet, into the empty pot gifted by Pooh, and then taking it out again. And then putting it in, and then out again.*

And look! Shiny! And useful.

Can’t wait to bake.

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* In A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore has a birthday. Once Pooh discovers that no-one was aware of the momentous day, he rushes home to fetch a gift. The gift he chooses is, of course, is a pot of honey, the contents of which somehow get eaten before it reaches Eeyore. Piglet’s present, a red balloon, cushions Piglet as he trips in his hurry to deliver the present, and it bursts. Both of the kind-hearted, but slightly foolish creatures are mortified that their presents are flawed. However, Eeyore loves both the Useful Pot and the balloon that will fit into it.

Oh, it’s much better when you read it yourself. Beg, steal or borrow a copy of the original.

Books update – sort of

I’ve added some inane drivel to my Books for 2010 page, just here.

Day 2

This is what the kitchen looked like at the end of day 1.

Can you spot the difference? Well, quite. Unfotunately there was a problem for one of the members of the team and they had to put another team on the job, who couldn’t start until today.

So work started at about 9.45 today with the fitter coming in to take units out.

What a state. These are the worst stages, when there in nothing to show for the beauty that is to be created. It’s interesting to see this space so open and vulnerable.

It’s been a day of high emotion. The offers came out for secondary schools and I was surprised, and delighted, that Rosie had been offered a place at the her first preference school. Bless her, she’s such a star.

Day 1

We are in the middle of pre-kitchen revamp hell.

Blissfully, someone else’s hands will be installing our new kitchen starting today, but in the meantime, we are surrounded by flat-pack kitchen units, new kitchen appliances and a fine layer of tile dust that is spreading itself through the house as we remove the tiles one by one and stare, aghast at the state of the walls behind.

It will be lovely when it’s done.

The Reading List

Late last year, Rosie and I were visiting schools. She’s in the last year of primary school and will be moving up to senior school in September.  We did the usual visits to the state schools – open evenings with hundreds of other parents shuffling round the same corridors, trying to glean  their chances of their child being the catchment area for this sort-after school.

Having completed the application form for the state schools, I was left with a feeling of blind panic. Our choices were not choices, our preferences (the government’s term for a perplexing, often unsatisfactory system of place allocation) were pointless. I decided to start looking at independent schools.

We’d missed all the open days, but the independent schools have a policy of offering visits/tours for individuals at other times, so Rosie and I found ourselves being shown around a local girls’ independent school by two sixth-form girls with an enthusiasm for Geography and Biology. We were shown lessons in progress, and were greeted pleasantly by all the staff whose lessons we peeked in upon.

One such lesson was English Literature. I’m not sure what age the girls were, probably 15 year olds. The teacher welcomed us and explained that they were discussing Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

I nodded knowingly when he named the book. How very interesting. Imagine studying that book for GCSE (and not something like Pride and Prejudice, which I studied at the same level when i was at school), I thought .

In reality, I had no idea what that book was about. I’d heard of the title, but could not say who had written it, nor tell you what it was even vaguely about. I suddenly felt mis-informed, and out of touch.

Of course, I may be neither of those things. The fact that I can’t remember the last novel I read has something to do with it. Was it pre-children? Not quite, but the ability to hold focus or even stay awake when reading sometimes is definitely affected by parenthood and does rather progression rather slow.

I also have to admit that I haven’t felt robust enough to tackle anything wasn’t likely to have a happy(ish) ending.

I’m not sure whether it’s Mrs Chili’s fault, leading me to the agreeable, bottomless pit that is Goodreads, but I have suddenly felt more connected with literature, and perhaps it’s curiosity, at not knowing what I don’t know,  I found myself filling up my Amazon shopping basket with a variety of classic and contemporary novels.

Of course this is a rather backward step in the whole de-cluttering the house thing, where I have been steadily thinning the bookshelves of books that I had thought, maybe, one day, I would read (yeah, right!). But, of course, if I hadn’t done that thinning, there would be no room for these.

I haven’t started on any of them yet, having finally picked up the Sue Grafton that I’ve had on my borrowed-and-will-read-very-soon-I-promise pile for quite a while.

I’ll let you know when I start on my new books. I’ve started a separate page on this blog to show you how my reading is progressing.

The Ecological message gets through

Jenny, on watching as the Fairy Godmother transforms Cinderella (Disney version) and her hotch-potch of belongings into something rather splendid with succesive waves of her wand:

“I think using your wand a lot wastes a lot of magic.”

Come on. FG, get with the climate change crisis. Can you imagine how much CO2 that magic creates?

I’m with the band

Over the last few weeks, Mr Angelfeet has been missing for many hours from the family home, disappearing straight away in the car when he comes in from work and returning home late, worn out and ready for sleep.

Thankfully, I’ve known where he’s been and what he’s been doing. Having been a combined honours music graduate, he has always, for as long as I’ve known him, played the guitar. When we first got together, he was still at university, finishing his degree and in a blues band which got infrequent, but fun, paying gigs. After he graduated, even after we got married he continued to gig, but these dates became even less frequent as the members of the band dispersed to different parts of the country, or got different jobs.

In fact the last gig that he’d played was our wedding – while I was meeting and greeting our guests, who wondered where the groom had disappeared to, he was shaking his tail feather and rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ (they did a lot of Blues Brothers numbers).

16 years and two children later, Mr Angelfeet is in a new band and last night was the debut for Clarence Road, at a pub round the corner from where he grew up.

They are a four-piece band, although you can’t see the poor drummer hidden in the corner at the back. In this photo, Mr Angelfeet is playing a rather nice Westfield, with its humbucker pick-ups (I can tell you’re impressed by my technical knowledge) and even supplying some backing vocals.

It was a great night – lots of friends and family turned out to hear them – and much refreshment was taken, feet were tapped, tunes were sung along to and a good time was had by all.

Just waiting for the storm to blow over

Well, I know where that week went but still, it whizzed by.

Rosie continued to be poorly for the whole of last week. Fluctuating fever, stomach pains, loss of appetite, and general prostration (that’s such an excellent word). I hopefully sent her to school on Tuesday, but by lunchtime her teacher had called to ask me to take her home. Mr Angelfeet stayed home with her on Wednesday, so I escaped to work for a couple of hours, I stayed home on Thursday and Mr A again on Friday morning. We called the doctor, but couldn’t get an appointment for the doctor until tomorrow.

She finally perked up on Saturday. It’s such a relief when someone you love gets better, even it hadn’t not a serious malady. I’ve got my Rosie back.