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

Day 469...Mid-week Wednesday

Day 469...

And we have reached the middle of the working week and it was a full day in work for me.

My day was filled with the usual admin and banking with a little cash flow forecasting thrown in for good measure! The afternoon saw myself and my deputy catching up with the curriculum planning as well as analysing the aforementioned cash flow as we plan our way forward from September.

Once home it was time for a coffee and Simon had very kindly set the coffee machine brewing but when I came to pour out my coffee I noticed that the coffee pot wasn't very full and my coffee, while warm, was not the usual hot temperature. I then noticed that there was still a lot of water sitting in the machine and that although all the lights indicated it should be brewing nothing was actually happening. Well after deploying my diagnostic skills...pressing buttons randomly, switching it off and on again numerous times and of course unplugging it from the wall because that would make all the difference I pronounced the machine dead. Now this is a big deal in our house as the coffee machine seems to be 'on' a lot of the day, but crisis was averted with a little internet search as I found a replacement that was ordered online and then picked up from a local store later this evening.

I then had a little pre-school work to complete as I had an email that needed responding to and a video to watch about some upcoming changes to the curriculum that we follow along with changes to the online learning journal system that we use. 

And I have also been collating some ideas together for my next tattoo which is booked in for late July and I am just finalising the images I like before sending them over to my tattoist so he can work out what he can actually do for me! 

Before I knew it it was time to take Molly over to her kickboxing class and again she was able to drive us over there to get a little more driving practice completed.

And that was Wednesday and all that is left to do is to watch this week's episode of Marvel's Loki!

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 468

Day 468...

Well today was Tuesday and it was a fairly standard Tuesday.

My morning was spent in work and I had the usual amount of admin, emails, banking and data input to contend with. I also decided to start an application for a local council grant and almost straight away hit problems. 

The application form was available online as a 'word' document to download but it wasn't available to edit online and as I don't use 'Word' my laptop loaded the document up in 'Notepad' and half of it was missing. So I then uploaded it into my 'Google drive' and although there were a few discrepancies between the 'Word' version and the 'Google' one it looked good enough to complete but when I tried to add any information nothing happened. At this point I resigned to printing it out, hand writing it and scanning it in for emailing.

By then my morning in work had come to an end so I headed home just in time for a fresh coffee. I mentioned to Simon the trouble I'd been having with the application form so we tried another approach by loading the document into my 'One Drive' but alas we had the same results as before; a lovely form but completely unable to add anything to it.

I then decided to just start filling out a few boxes by hand...just the easy ones to get things moving and before I knew it I'd completed the whole form and I'd gathered together the other documents that I needed to send off with the application. I then scanned in the pages of the application form, popped them into a zip folder, emailed them all off to my local council and now await to see whether our application has been successful. The closing date is this Thursday but I'm guessing it will be a few weeks before we know whether or not we have been awarded anything or nothing.

Just as I finished all of that off Molly asked if she could go out for a drive. It was almost 4pm and we managed to find all the post school pick-up traffic along with the 'end of day' traffic. But Molly dealt with it all brilliantly; lots of queuing traffic; crawling along at 5 miles per hour; hill starts and numerous parked cars! But it is all good experience for her and will stand her in good stead when she passes and is out driving on her own.

Back home and there was just enough time for a coffee before getting changed for a home work-out in our 'new gym'...aka the re-vamped garage! Simon even managed to fix some more hooks into the walls during his workout for hanging some of the gym stuff!

Right time to sign off and see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 467

Day 467...

Well I have reached the end of another Monday and it has been a productive day.

First job of the day was to collect the grocery shop followed by a trip to a DIY store of our choice to pick up a few bits and pieces so that we could finish off our re-vamp of the garage. We needed some shelf brackets, mdf to make the shelves and some hooks for hanging things around the garage.

Back home and fueled with coffee and a quick protein lunch of scrambled eggs we set about the garage. We put up the new shelves, moved 'stuff' around to make best use of the space, installed a few hooks to get items stored properly, filled two bins with rubbish and even put a couple of hooks up outside next to the tap for our hose to live. Everywhere is much more spacious, it's tidy and even looks clean and more importantly the car can also live in there too!

Not only do we have a great space for storing all the garage 'stuff' and somewhere to park the car but we also have a much improved space for our 'gym'.

And by the time we had finished it was time to get Molly to her kickboxing class and this week it was Molly's turn to drive us there and back again when we picked her up later on. She is doing amazingly well and every chance we can get to let her get some more driving experience we are doing.

Take care out there and see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 466

Day 466...

Well I think it will be a short post today.

After a steady start to the day we headed out to the garage to continue what we had started yesterday and pretty much spent all day there! We have almost filled the three cupboards with 'stuff'; we have attached things to the wall; we have modified the work bench to store some tools and we have painted more walls. Well I say 'we' when really it was mainly Simon with a little assistance from yours truly!

Half way through the afternoon Molly asked if she could go out for a drive so I left Simon sorting all his tools out while I took Molly out. We managed just under an hour and once again she did really well, she even had an ambulance with sirens going to contend with!

Back home and I helped Simon with some more garage organisation although we still have more to finish off tomorrow. But I am hopeful that it will get finished tomorrow...fingers crossed!

Then it was time to head inside for this weeks Disney quiz via Zoom. It had been a couple of weeks since our last quiz so it was really good to see everyone and I loved the questions all about Pixar...although I didn't win. But that's okay as it's more about connecting with people than it is about winning a quiz.

And as I type I am cooking low carb naan bread to go with a chicken curry for dinner and after that it will be time to put my feet up!

See you tomorrow.

xx

Day 465

Day 465...

And we have reached the weekend and it's Happy Stitch Day...626...so it's  June the 26th and Stitch is experiment 626...make sense now?! Sorry just had to start with a bit of Disney geekness!

It was a simple day with a steady start and then it was time to take Molly to her guitar lesson, but today it was her turn to drive. We are making the most of whatever opportunities we get to let her drive and yet again she did amazingly, both there and back. While Molly 'rocked out' at her guitar lesson we partook of a drive thru' coffee and put the world to rights. We are currently reading the Laura Dodsworth book 'A State of Fear' which is both interesting and at the same time rather scary and disturbing.

After a quick spot of lunch Simon and I spent the rest of the day in the garage! We had a move around of the cupboards that we'd built and once we had settled on a position for them we attached them to the wall to keep them secure. We also put up some brackets ready for shelves as well as attaching a section of the old shelving unit to the wall as this makes an ideal work bench and somewhere for Simon to house his tools and vice. We were then able to start putting things 'away'; finding new ways to store things; housing things in boxes to keep them clean; making sure we prioritised where things went for ease of access and by 6pm we decided to stop. We still have lots to do and there was no way it was all going to get completed today...wonder what we will be doing tomorrow?!

And then the big news of the day is that the health secretary Matt Hancock has resigned following photos and video of him getting frisky with a colleague. He is a married man with three children, the woman he was caught with is also a married woman and to be honest what they get up to is their business...I don't agree with it but I accept that this is what happens and how they handle it is up to them. Personally, I think it's bang out of order and I hope his wife kicks him out and makes him pay for it. But to be caught up close and personal with a work colleague while telling the rest of the UK to keep your distance, don't hug anyone, don't even be in the same room as your loved ones is quite simply hypocritical and makes a mockery of what we were (and are) being asked to do. We were told hugging those we care about could kill them yet he was 'hugging' someone not in his household while we had people in care homes not able to see their relatives let alone hug them.

I remember going back to work last June and seeing my work colleagues for the first time in months and who I have known for a lot of years and are friends as much as they are colleagues and we could not give each other a hug or even a friendly pat on the shoulder. I remember trying to keep our distance from each other as much as possible and giving each other space as we went in and out of rooms. I remember inviting the children who were leaving us for big school to come and visit us. We had to meet them outdoors in small groups and each child and parent (we only allowed one parent) had to be sat 'socially distanced' from each other and from us as staff. The staff were all sat 'socially distanced' from each other and as we handed out leavers gifts and chatted with each child and parent we had to stand back and were not able to shake a parents hand or give a child a cuddle. These were children who we'd looked after for up to two years, who we had formed a bond with and we could not give them a cuddle to say goodbye...it was heartbreaking. Yet if you're someone in goverment you can snog your work colleague - double standards would be an understatement!

See you tomorrow.
xx