Day 476

Day 476...

Well we have a mid-week blog post as we encounter another Wednesday, and a full day in work for me.

My work day consisted of lots of emails, a little banking, some usual admin along with arranging some open days to promote the pre-school. We are hoping to arrange these for the last week of our academic year once the restrictions are lifted on the 19th of the month. 

Back home mid-afternoon and I had some more work emails to deal with followed by a little research ready for podcast recording later on in the day. I also tried on and off to try and get our hotel booking for this weekend sorted as we need to get some new dates booked preferably...although with no success as yet. I also had a Facebook post to generate on our pre-school page as we had some fabulous photos to share from our Football Funday. The England team is playing tonight and there is a lot of excitement surrounding the match so we decided we would join in the fun with a football themed day which the children thoroughly enjoyed.

Then it was time to record the Disney Dream Girls podcast with my very good friend and co-host Michelle. We had lots of Disney news to chat about and it was lovely to chat all things Disney as well as catch-up with my friend.

Then as I was recording the rain came down really heavy which resulted in two windows leaking water and then flooding outside my front door. So once the recording was done it was wellies on to clear out a couple of blocked drains so that the water had somewhere to escape to. Such a glamorous life I lead!!

Whatever you are doing, take care and I'll see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 475

Day 475...

And we move onto Tuesday and the usual day of two halves for me.

My morning was spent in work and involved chatting with the team to bring them up to date with our plans for the next academic year starting in September. There was also the usual banking and numerous emails to send and respond to.

Back home at lunchtime and after a quick bite to eat I set about the ironing pile I'd been avoiding! I then had a butchers delivery arrive and had that to sort into meal sized portions to go in the freezer.

Halfway through the afternoon Simon received an email from the hotel we are booked to stay at this coming weekend to advise us that the restaurant, the bar and room service would be all closed and therefore unavailable but that they were happy to recommend local restaurants for us. Now I can only assume the lack of services available is potentially due to lack of staff because of self isolating...just a guess as this seems to be affecting hospitality at the moment. But to not have these facilities available at a hotel seems rather pointless, and never mind paying for something that would no longer be what we signed up for. So we have decided to re-schedule, although that is proving to be more difficult than it should be. The online booking site would not let us change the dates and so I then started a 'chat' with the hotel and despite an initial quick response the chat is now just sitting in limbo as I wait for someone to get back to us!

A quick home workout rounded out the day before cooking dinner and then prepping for tomorrow's lunch as I will be making keto pizza for the girls at work!

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 474

Day 474...

Monday has rolled around once again and it was another day when I wasn't feeling the greatest. I'm blaming hormones and the state of the world!

But we had the usual start to a Monday morning with collecting the weekly grocery shop but once that was done and all put away we decided to head off out to a local country park for a walk around.

We are very fortunate to have a couple of country parks within a twenty minute drive of where we live. Although we decided to avoid our first choice as the necessary parking had to be paid for via an app with no obvious other way to pay. Disappointed with the lack of options we decided to head elsewhere.

As we arrived at our park of choice, Elvaston Castle, the sun seemed to disappear and within a couple of minutes of leaving the car we had to put up the umbrella's. 

Thankfully the rain didn't last too long and we were able to take a gentle stroll around the grounds managing a couple of miles.

We have missed taking walks of late, as life has become more 'normal' we have been occupied with work and little projects around the house which has eaten into our time to go out for walks. Hopefully over the summer when I am away from work for a fair few weeks we will be able to get back into more of a routine again.

Over the course of the afternoon Simon took Molly out for a drive while I re-worked some of the cash-flow forecasting for pre-school as a few variables have changed and I wanted to start my working week tomorrow with the most up to date figures. It took me slightly longer than I would have liked but at least I know that I have all the information that I need to make more progress.

Molly took the driving seat once again this evening as she drove us over to her kickboxing class and she is doing really well. We are really seeing a much more intuitive driving style starting to emerge. She has a test date booked for October, because that was the earliest date she could get, but she is checking the system everyday to see if she can get one earlier. But it would appear that everyone is doing the same trying to make up for all the time lost over the last sixteen months or so.

So the powers that be have announced today that we will see restrictions being lifted from July 19th, providing the data allows. So all being well wearing face masks will be optional, no more social distancing, no more checking in at hospitality venues and the removal of limits on numbers of people at events. Fingers crossed this all happens as I am so over all the restrictions and just simply want to get back to what was a normal life. We just now need to get travel sorted as I am desperate to get to a Disney park...preferably Walt Disney World in Florida but to be honest any Disney park would do!!

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 473

Day 473...

Going to be a short post today because quite frankly it's been just one of those days where I've not felt in the mood for anything and consequently I've done very little.

There was the usual online grocery order to complete which generated more drama than I care to explain. Suffice to say the credit card security verification system decided it wanted to send me a text to confirm my identity...great not a problem except the phone number they were quoting was an old, a very old, phone number of mine. Consequently that meant I couldn't complete my online shop so on the phone I jumped to have words with my credit card company. In the meantime I checked my information held by the credit card company online and everything they had for me was correct and up to date. By the time I got through to a human being my grocery order had somehow been accepted and a confirmation email received without me having done anything other than the leave the screen open. Then I tried to explain what the problem was only to be told to call their fraud department?? Really?? It's not a fraud it's your system not holding the most up to date information - ARGH!

While I'd been battling the online retail system Simon had been in the garage putting the finishing touches to the section of garage storage we'd started late yesterday afternoon. He was also in a slightly annoyed mood by the time he'd finished as he'd caught his shirt on the work bench and ripped it!

After a coffee to calm us both down Simon, and Ethan, took Molly out for today's driving lesson which involved a stop at a local McDonalds!

But the rest of the day was quiet and very uneventful. I simply haven't know what I wanted to do and have felt very much 'out of sorts'.

But onwards and upwards and I will see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 472...Saturday Art

Day 472...

Well after a particularly rubbish nights sleep (thanks to night sweats!) Saturday morning fnally rolled around.

Before we headed out to get Molly to her guitar lesson Simon jumped online to source some brackets for the garage and to see if we could actually buy them from a DIY store near to where Molly's music school is.

Molly, once again, drove us over to her guitar lesson and once she was dropped off we headed to the aforementioned DIY store. We were able to buy the brackets we needed along with a piece of hardboard so that Simon can construct some storage for some long pieces of strip materials that we have.

We then grabbed a drive thru coffee and had a chat with one of the employees there who we have now become friends with through a need for coffee and a love of tattoos! Molly then drove us home and we took a different route to normal just to mix things up a bit for her and she did brilliantly.

After a quick bite for lunch the next task of the day was for me to collate together some images for my upcoming tattoo. I'd already gathered a few images but liked different parts of each image and wanted these to be 'mashed' together so to speak. So rather than try and explain what I wanted over email to my tattooist Simon offered to work up an idea for me. This meant a few hours sat with Simon at his computer and watching his amazing art skills take three of four different images, plus a little more googling, and create one complete cohesive piece.

Simon in his natural habitat

Can you guess what my next tattoo will be?

I was then able to send Simon's one image plus a few reference pieces over to my tatooist ready for a couple of weeks time...can't wait!

We then used the remainder of the afternoon to put up the brackets we had bought in the garage and were pretty pleased with the results. We just need to cut the hardboard to form a base for the storage and apart from waiting for a tool storage unit to arrive the garage I think is done!

It was then keto pizza time and just as we were cooking we were subject to a massive thunderstorm with extremely heavy rain...so heavy that we had water coming through a few of our windows. Thankfully Molly had the sense to check on a window that she'd opened earlier and in doing so discovered another window that was leaking and letting in a rather large amount of water onto our new wooden floor!! We now have a house covered in towels soaking up water and curtailing the amount of water being let in. At least this confirms that our decision to get new windows fitted in a week or so was is the right decision!

Well, I think that's it for today, time for wine, chocolate and TV.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 471..Friday...Finally!

Day 471...

Yay we have reached Friday and it's time for the weekend!

I ended the week with a full day in work and it was taken up with more forward planning for September. I was also able to generate and print off a special poem for those children leaving us this year. Each poem is personalised and has a photo of the child when they first started with us and a photo taken just this past week.

On my way home I had a slight detour as I needed to pick Molly up from one of her friends houses as she'd spent the afternoon there.

Back home and it was time for coffee in the sunshine while I composed and issued a couple of work emails.

And before I knew it Simon had finished work for the day. So we grabbed a coffee and sat outside for a short while as we discussed each of our days.

Before I cooked dinner we opted to partake of a martini and this weeks episode of 'Star Wars The Bad Batch'!

And with dinner consumed it is now time to stop for the evening and enjoy the weekend.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 470

Day 470...

Another busy day with the morning spent in work and we had decided to have a re-vamp of some of our resources to ensure that we are using everything that we have and to dispose of those we were not making good use of. Space for storing resources is a premium so we have to make sure that we making the best use of what we have and the space that we have.

The majority of my morning was then spent looking once again at cash flow forecasts. This time of year is always tricky as we try to plan and budget for the new school year starting in September. We have a number of children leaving us in a few weeks and then we need to get ourselves re-set for the group of children that will be with us in September.

I headed home at lunchtime via a local supermarket to pick up a few bits and bobs and then once I'd packed everything away it was time to take Molly out for a drive. We headed out over a route we've done the last few times which is a route she will be driving quite often as it takes her to where her kickboxing class is. The last few times driving this way we have had a couple of issues at a specific roundabout and we were determined to master it and we did...well Molly did! She had a fantastic drive today and she handled everything really well, even an ambulance coming towards us with sirens sounding!

Back home I decided to grab a coffee and some pre-school work and head outside to enjoy the sunshine while I worked. I had decided to continue with the planning work I had started this morning as there was a lot to get through and I wanted to be in a position to run through everything with my deputy manager tomorrow. Well a couple of coffee's later and I think I have done all I could do today.

By then Simon finished his work for the day and we headed off down the 'gym'. I am doing a mix of body-weight and kettle bell exercises and am determined to get back into a better routine than of late.

And that was Thursday all done...all done except for watching today's episode of RuPauls Drag Race All Stars season six!

See you tomorrow.
xx