Day 567

Day 567...

So it was the middle of another week and another day split between work and home for me.

The plan at work this morning all revolved around our annual school photo morning. We have an outside company visit, they take lots of lovely photos for parents to buy and the preschool benefits with a little commission. But by 9am the photographer had not arrived and things were not looking good.

A phone call to our contact was met with a 'this phone is switched off' message which meant we then had to contact the head office. They couldn't tell us straight away what was happening but that they would refer the matter over to the local area management team and get back to us. About two hours later we received a call back...and it was not good news.

It transpired that the company had become victim to the impact of the last eighteen months or so. They had lost staff either through redundancy or simply by them leaving after months and months of not being able to work despite the furlough scheme being in place. This had left our local area without staff to look after us and consequently meant there was no-one to send out to us at all. And whilst they were very apologetic it did leave us rather annoyed that the company hadn't had the presence of mind to inform us that our photo session would not be happening. We then had to get in touch with all our parents to explain the situation and apologise! I appreciate the difficulties that they have faced over the last year or so but that does not excuse poor administration practices. I will now have the job of looking elsewhere and figuring out if, and when, we could possibly host another photo morning.

On the plus side the lack of hustle and bustle that comes with a photo morning meant I was able to get caught up on a few admin tasks of my own that I had not been expecting to do.

My afternoon at home consisted of the ever so exciting sorting of laundry along with the ironing of clothes...whoop! But around mid-afternoon I headed off out to the hairdressers as it was time for a new colour and cut! I hadn't got any firm plans of what I wanted doing today...so this happened!

#pinkhairdon'tcare

So while Simon helped Molly get to and from her kickboxing lesson...she drove of course...I enjoyed a little 'me time' and spruced up my hair colour.

Molly did really well with her driving again and had her first experience of driving in the dark which involved driving down some unlit country lanes. But as always she took it in her stride and coped admirably with it all.

So it's time to sign off for the day as it's late, I have a glass of wine that needs drinking and the final episode of Marvels' 'What If' to watch.

See you tomorrow.

xx

Day 566

Day 566...

And we have a Tuesday and a day of a morning in work and an afternoon at home.

The morning was relatively straight forward although I didn't get an awful lot of time doing 'my work' as I seemed to be helping out 'on the floor' with the children. As the end of the morning session rolled around I began to help with moving equipment ready for the afternoon session. As our afternoons are quieter than the mornings we adapt the equipment and the space to suit the needs of the children that we have in. I was happily moving things around when I moved a bench and inadvertently moved it a little more forcibly, and ultimately a little further, than I'd intended; the result was a trapped finger! Oops!

Then I realised that in trapping my finger I'd thankfully not really hurt my finger but the rings on my finger had gotten so squashed that they were no longer round but more oval shaped and squished onto my finger rather tightly. My first thought was that I needed to get them off in case they were now too tight for my finger, my second thought was 'how on earth am I going to do that without cutting them off?'. The rings were so distorted in shape I couldn't see how they were going to move let alone pass over my knuckle.

But with the application of cold water and a little washing up liquid the first ring, my engagement ring, came off my finger; it wasn't easy but it was off. 

However the next ring was a little more stubborn and no amount of lubrication could get it moving. I managed to move it towards my knuckle but I think a combination of its new shape plus my finger that was by now swelling in reaction to all the pushing and shoving meant it wasn't going any further. I really began to think the only way it was moving was if it was cut off, thankfully one of my staff suggested pliers! I was able to squeeze the pliers around the ring so that it was more of an amenable shape and would move over my knuckle.

My finger remains a little puffy but is otherwise okay and thankfully my wedding ring was undamaged. I now just have the job of finding somewhere that can, hopefully, repair them for me.

This afternoon I was able to take Molly out for a drive and we managed about an hour out and about and yet again she did really well. I had a little admin work for pre-school to catch-up on with some resources to order online and before I knew it Simon was finishing work for the day and it was time to head down 'the gym'. We are still using our homemade gym in our garage and can see no reason why we would want, or need, to go back to paying out a membership for an actual gym!

And there we have today, see you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 565

Day 565...

Monday once more and no work for me today.

Our first job pf the day was to head off to our local recycling centre with some large items that we needed to dispose of and once that was done we returned home to finish off a little DIY.

Simon has worked hard over the last few days re-plastering walls, filling in holes, re-positioning skirting boards and staining wood and today he was able to paint the last remaining bits. And with all the DIY bits done we were able to return our bathroom back to normal by moving everything into the new cupboards and having a little sort through and a bit of  a re-organise.

With all that done we decided to pop out for coffee and enjoy some quiet time away from home just for Simon and I, a chance to stop and chat without the distractions of home.

Returning home I decided to sort another cupboard; pulling out a couple of shelves worth of stuff, throwing away items we no longer have any use for, cleaning around and putting back only what we need in a much tidier and organised fashion.

With all that done the day had rolled around to getting Molly over to her first kickboxing class of the week and as is the norm she drove us over there. She had a driving instructor lesson this morning which was her penultimate before she has her physical test next week. We are all fingers crossed that she passes as she so deserves to pass with all the practice she has put in and the fact that her skills are now really good.

And as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have been down for a few hours as I type this I'm really not sure how we're all going to cope with life...perhaps we'll have to talk to each other!!

See you tomorrow when hopefully social media will have sorted itself out!
xx

Day 564

Day 564...

Another Sunday and I think a fairly short blog post today.

We had the usual grocery shop to go and fetch first thing and once we were home and everything packed away we didn't really have any plans for the remainder of the day.

We were still waiting for the wood that Simon had stained yesterday to dry so that was stopping us from re-organising the bathroom. So with no real plan in mind we thought we would take advantage of the bright, but blustery, day and go on a walk. An hour and 48 minutes later and we had completed one of our longest walks in a long while, a total of 5.6 miles and boy could I feel it in my legs. Although it did make my back feel loads better!

The remainder of the afternoon was spent rather quiet and in front of the telly watching the remaining episodes of the Disney + show 'Magic of Disney's Animal Kingdom'. And while I did that Simon finished his latest art commission.

And that was our Sunday...a very quiet day.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 563

Day 563...

And we have another weekend and today we...okay Simon...had an early start as he was booked in at the barbers for 7.45am!

I had two jobs that I wanted to get done before we did anything else today. First was to update our grocery shopping ahead of pick-up tomorrow morning and second was to find out where the delivery that I was expecting yesterday evening had gotten to.

The grocery shop was pretty straight forward although I am getting a little bored now of the same products not being in stock week after week. They also seem to have scaled back their choice of some ranges so suffice to say I have a second shopping list on the go ready for when I can make an in person visit to a different supermarket.

The items that I'd not received yesterday were not for me but for pre-school and were some new technology that we'd received a grant to buy so they were not cheap. According to the delivery company they had delivered the items yesterday evening and had a photo of said delivery that was very dark and simply showed someone's feet in dark stripy socks! Evidently they were not my feet.

As I didn't discover this till late yesterday evening I had to wait until this morning to be able to chat to someone online. The annoying thing was that neither the courier company not the company I'd ordered from had any obvious ways of getting in touch. But I started an online chat with the selling company and after about ten minutes of waiting and poking around their website looking for a phone number or an email I found a complaints email address. So while I waited to see if anyone would 'chat' online I sent a complaints email, to which I received an automated reply saying they would be in touch within 48 hours!

After waiting 20 minutes I finally managed to speak to someone online; they were actually very helpful and lovely to chat with and reassured me that they would get the matter sorted. They needed to get in touch with the delivery company and set up an investigation but said they would be in touch via email. The great thing was that about fifteen minutes later I received an email to confirm what they were doing and the timescales involved.

We had Molly at her guitar lesson later on this morning and she was able to drive us over there and practice her reverse parking when we arrived. We nipped over to a local Starbucks for coffee while she had her lesson and took advantage of the petrol station on site to fill up the car. We genuinely needed to fill up as we were almost out but the garage had quite sensibly put signs up asking customers to limit their purchases to £30 which we were more than happy to do...although Simon did manage to go over by 34 pence! This does now mean that we have enough petrol to get Molly out and about practicing over the next week as her test date is almost upon us!

On the way home we stopped by my dad's to see how he was and to help him re-set his i-pad as it had decided to just power off and didn't want to power back on. Not sure what had happened as Molly picked it up, held the power switch down and hey presto one working i-pad! The good thing is that the skin condition that my dad has been suffering with since his second vaccine seems to be clearing up. Back in May the condition had gotten so bad that his skin was constantly flaking and bleeding but an intensive course of steroids had cleared it up but only for a few weeks. He'd put up with it for a few more weeks before being able to see someone at his doctors which resulted in another course of steroids which so far seem to be doing the trick and he looks better than he has in a fair few months. He has an appointment with dermatology but not until late December...fingers crossed he's gotten over the worst of it.

Back home and discovered we had a voice mail from a house local to us; they had a parcel belonging to us. And sure enough after popping round we discovered that the delivery we were missing had in fact been given to one of our 'neighbours' who hadn't realised till this morning that it wasn't for them. 

I then had some pre-school work to complete while Simon spent some time working on another digital art piece. Simon then decided to get the wood stain out as yesterday he'd been able to reinstate a skirting board following the repairs to our water damaged wall which needed a little touch-up. And while he did that I had the exciting job of filing paperwork and sorting laundry - whoop!

Then as it was now quite late on in the afternoon we decided that while Simon continued on with his digital artwork we would watch another episode of the Disney + show 'Magic of Disney's Animal Kingdom' which is turning out to be rather fascinating.

So with all that done it is now time to stop, and perhaps find a movie to watch.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 562

Day 562...

And the end of the working week and we have a Friday and a full day in work for me. And it was a pretty standard Friday; the morning was spent working with the children and then a portion of the afternoon was spent catching up with some admin bits and bobs. I still have a little pre-school work to complete which I should be able to get done in the next day or so.

Once home it was time for a much needed coffee before dealing with the butchers order that had arrived earlier. Just a small matter of splitting 5kg of chicken, 5kg of steak mince, 4.5kg bacon, burgers, steak and 100 sausages into meal sized portions!

During the first lockdown back in March/April of 2020 when I was struggling to get delivery or collection slots at my local supermarket I'd looked into online butchers and discovered Rendalls in Scotland. Not only did they have a wide choice of exactly what I wanted but the prices were great too. During that initial period of lockdown their delivery timescales were quite lengthy but we thought we'd give them a try as it was something we'd never done before. Well eighteen months later and we are still using them and couldn't be happier; I placed today's order online on Wednesday afternoon and picked the first available delivery date of today...that's pretty good going. 

The great thing is that I am now stocked up on our meal time staples and know that we are all set for a fair few weeks. Living a low carb, almost carnivore, lifestyle means that this is an ideal way for us to order our food.

And before I knew it the day was done and it was time to settle back and get ready for whatever the weekend has in store.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 561

Day 561...

So ordinarily on a Thursday I only work the morning but today I had a message from one of my staff to say they were ill and couldn't work so this meant my half day turned into a full day.

But my day in work was pretty standard getting on top of banking, emails and a few admin bits.

I arrived home just as the last part of our bathroom re-fit was completed; the installation of our LED mirror. We had hoped to have fitted a recessed wall cabinet but when we discovered that the wall was in fact breeze block and not cavity we had to swap to just a mirror instead.

My next job was to speak to the company who will be installing a charging point for our new electric car. In the UK there is a grant scheme that means the installation of your first charging point is heavily discounted and with paperwork complete the next step was to arrange an installation. However, upon speaking with the installation team we encountered a small hiccup...well I'm hoping it's just a small hiccup. We want the charging point installed in our garage (pretty standard and obvious) but our garage is not attached to our house and is one of six garages that are associated with where our house is situated. So I have to prove that the garage is actually ours as otherwise we may not qualify for the grant scheme! This meant searching out the deeds to the house to prove that the garage, although remote from the house, is actually ours and ours alone! Documents have been scanned and submitted so I now await a phone call or email confirming that we can move ahead with the installation.

It was then time to hook-up online with my very good friend, and podcast co-host, Michelle to record this weeks Disney Dream Girls podcast. As always it was good just to catch-up with Michelle and share what's going on in our lives before getting down to the business of podcast recording. And with October 1st being the 50th anniversary of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World our show very much focused on the 50th celebrations which are set to take place over the next year (if not longer) and we did a little contemplation as to what we would do if we could actually be there on the 1st. All we can hope for at the moment is that things get back to normal and we get the chance to visit over the coming year or so. Not sure if that's going to happen or not as I think it will all depend on what sort of 'normal' we are living with!

While I was recording Simon and Molly hit the gym which I had no intention of doing as my back is still a little tender, although it is improving every day thank goodness.

And with that it must be time to stop typing and time to sit and watch this weeks RuPaul's Drag Race UK!

See you all tomorrow.
xx