Up The Farway Tree

The house that Jac built..

Another busy couple of weeks, so not much time for blogging!  We are having a last push on finishing off all the painting and decorating in the house, so over the past couple of weekends we have been trying to decorate the two spare rooms, which we had been leaving until last.  We have painted walls, ceilings, skirting boards, lifted and removed old laminate flooring and now laying new laminate.  One bedroom is finished and the floor is half down on the second one.  We are both exhausted!  My knees are covered in bruises and I am slightly hobbling after I tripped over a pile of laminate flooring yesterday and went clattering down, paint pot flying and brush in hand.  Luckily the pot of paint I practically threw at the wall in my effort not to fall over was the right colour for the wall, so that was handy :-)  I have managed not to fall off any ladders yet and am becoming rather adept at removing skirting boards, and filling nail holes, sanding skirting boards and all sorts.  My dad taught me well.   I was really offended at the weekend when in B+Q this assistant asked me if I was lost because I was in the joinery section on my own - he said "whenever I see a woman up here it's because she is lost!"  I politely told him I was not lost and knew exactly what I was looking for thank you :-)

The garden has improved massively since I last blogged  - the tree is finally all removed with roots dug out and the hole filled.  Apparently there was another set of deep roots under the earth so it took the guys a full day of digging.  The shed was then delivered and built last week and looks great, although it's massive.  Andrew said he couldn't downsize and got the nearest to what we had, but I am not sure I believe him.  You could easily live in there ;-)   I couldn't believe how quickly they built it though.  I offered the guys a cup of tea and by the time I take it out the shed was nearly built!  The greenhouse was built at the weekend and Andrew dug all the vegetable beds out, so the garden looks a lot tidier.   We need to build up the rockery where the tree was but there is no rush to get this done.   We are almost back to where we were in May before this happened!  Hopefully we will manage to get our patio finished this year after all.

shed - greenhouse is now built next to this

Seb has been very sad at the loss of his shed, however I am sure he will find something else to amuse himself with soon enough.   Today he managed to more or less smash through the fence trying to reach dad, who was painting the side of the extension from the neighbours garden.   There has been a little hole in the fence panel that Seb has been gradually making bigger by picking off bits of wood with his paws.  I kid you not.   He went a bit mental today though because he could see dad on the other side of the hedge, so now there is a large hole.  I was going to replace that bit of fence anyway...

Seb wonders where his tree has gone..

Seb lying on the floor of the old shed...somewhat mournfully

This weekend myself and Victoria had planned to visit Lu, as it's her birthday and transplant anniversary.  However poor Lu was admitted to hospital in Newcastle after her appointment last week so won't be home in time.  She is having some treatment so keep your fingers crossed it is effective.   Me and Victoria are going to go down to London anyway as we have our train tickets already and we are staying with Victoria's cousin so we don't have cost of accommodation.  I am looking forward to a lovely weekend that doesn't involve painting or flooring!!