Stuff

 I had written a post to publish last week and left it in drafts to get photos for it.  However, here we are a full week later and still no photographs!  The problem is that the photos I need are on my phone which lives for the most part downstairs, I don't carry it around with me in the house so when I go to get the photos it means a trip down to get my phone as I'm upstairs on my laptop.  Not a huge inconvenience you'd think, and no, it's not really, however I find I go downstairs and inevitably get distracted with something else and when I come back upstairs later, I still don't have the phone with me!!  Somehow when my photos were on my camera I downloaded them onto the computer more regularly.  I've no idea why this is not the case now!  Anyway, the post is way out of date now so I'll leave it in drafts with no photos.

Basically it said, we had a leak in my radiator upstairs which began to show up on the newly plastered and painted ceiling downstairs.  We were thankful it was the radiator leaking and not the roof and hubby replaced the valve (no easy task as my built in cupboards upstairs overlap the area where the valve fits on and had to be dismantled completely to allow him access - this meant me emptying said cupboards of all my craft stuff but the good news is I gave it all a good overhaul and less went back in once it was all fixed than came out!)  The wall is now drying nicely thank goodness and will get repainted once its completely dry.  The decorating is not yet complete though.  Hubby is having a terrible problem with the paint for the woodwork.  We wanted satin wood paint but it's showing up every brush stroke and looks more like undercoat than top coat.  He's been to the Crown paint shop today to get some adice and they reckon there might be a problem with it but they said to come back tomorrow and they will colour match it with their Crown satin wood.   The stuff we're using is Dulux.  We've got rid of the horrible desk hubby used to use for his computer etc and its amazing how much bigger the room seems now.  I've not decided yet what will and will not come back into the room, photos, paintings and ornaments wise.  I'm going to take my time to decide.  I got new curtains, William Morris ones and I absolutely love them which is just as well and they were not cheap but as I explained to hubby, we've not decorated that room for over 30 years and the curtains we had were that old and although I doubt either of us has another 30 years to go, I'm pretty sure these curtains will be up until we go anyway, so up they went and I love them, one decision made, several more to go!

My daughter and her family are visiting family in Texas just now so we have their dog.  We're well used to having him as we do doggy day care 4 days a week normally but having him overnight is a nightmare!  He sleeps on the bed and growls at our dog if he so much as looks like coming up so a lot of the night is spent telling him off!  Then when I get up for the loo at about 6.30am both the dogs decide it must be time to get up and run to the door to wait for it to open and by the time I let them back in again of course I'm wide awake!  When we only have our own dog he is well used to my habits and stays happily in his bed till later.  So I'm either falling asleep after lunch or just after dinner, neither of which I feel is good!  He's been with us a week now (hubby feels its been longer he says!) and another two to go.   I always go to their house to make sure they've emptied bins, fridge etc (they never do!) and I take their washing to do it.  Today I brought it here and hung it out as it was a beautiful sunny day.  It was almost dry when I checked it but I left it with the thought I'd have lunch first then bring it in.  Big mistake!  As we were eating lunch hubby said 'is that rain I can hear'  'No' said I, 'it will be the washing machine'.  It wasn't the washing machine!  If our back room door is open we can hear it raining on the conservatory roof and not only was is pouring down, it was huge hailstones.  The washing got soaked.  I'm leaving it out, I'm not bringing it in to drip indoors.  It's apparently to be lovely again tomorrow so it will dry - eventually!  This is the stuff I'm having to do to save money on electricity!  My mum is complaining bitterly about her house not being as warm as she's used to.  I've managed to get her heating down to coming on for two hours in the morning and for about three hours in the evening.  During the day she's been warned to put on jumpers first and if sitting to sit under a cover, I bought her a heated cover at christmas which she likes.  She doesn't seem to believe me about how much the cost is going to rise and frankly on pension credit, she can't afford the price to go up much more so she needs to use half the amount she used to.  It's very difficult to tell your 88 year old mum she can't heat her house too much but its a fact of life just now.  However, I know given whats happening elsewhere in the world it's not a big hardship.   I don't even want to talk about that. It's terrifying.