It’s funny how January was such a slow month and now, all of a sudden, it’s April and Easter weekend! Roll on chocolate & hot cross buns 😊 although I seem to have been eating both since Christmas 🤣

Thinking back over the past week…

25th March was our friend Jane’s Birthday… we are looking forward to hopefully catching up with her during our Viaje por carretera Español Número Dos (Spanish Road-trip II) in May – hope you had a fab day Jane!

That was also the day we thought we would be making our last trip to the tip for a while following our decision to not do any more work on the house until we get back from the aforementioned road-trip… however, in all the times we have visited the tip since we moved here, we never picked up that it was shut on a Wednesday – grrr 😡! It might not be so bad if the tip was just down the road but it’s a good 1hr plus journey to Hawick and back… still, we picked up some shopping whilst we were there so it wasn’t a completely wasted journey although it did mean we had to go back again earlier this week, which was a good thing as it turned out…

We were expecting the carpets to get laid last Friday but when carpet-man turned up, he took one look and said he couldn’t do that because the grippers had not been put down & that the glue used on the concrete floor would take at least 24 hours to dry- double-grrrr – 👿 ! I was not impressed as the carpet (and grippers) were ordered, and fitting arranged, back in January so it’s not like they didn’t know the job that needed doing… no one mentioned it being a two-day affair or thought to book a day for the grippers to get put in… triple-grrr – 😖!

It also meant we had to continue living in a building sight, confined mostly to our bedroom (made up into a lounge again as the spare room had to be emptied for its new carpet too, which also couldn’t be laid last Friday…), but with the added danger of stepping on them pesky grippers or tripping over the three rolls of carpet carpet-man left, over the weekend! What a palaver and how disappointing after we thought we’d be all done, dusted and nice and cosy in our newly decorated lounge by Friday night… 😤 Ho hum!

It wasn’t until after carpet-man left on Friday afternoon that we remembered we had a new bed for grandson’s room (the spare room) being delivered on Monday sometime, and we had paid for the delivery-man to assemble it… I spent the weekend worrying that carpet-man and delivery-man would clash and we’d end up having to assemble the bed ourselves… quadruple-grrr 🤬!

However, after spending a fair bit of the weekend praying to the delivery-Gods that our 2-hour delivery slot would be sometime in the afternoon, well after carpet-man had finished, we got the text informing us the delivery slot was between 11.15am and 1.15pm which we thought, as Carpet-man had promised to be with us just after 9am, would work perfectly… after all, him and his buddy only had three carpets to put down.

Of course carpet-man arrived late and then spent half the time he was here outside on his phone whilst his buddy was left to man-handle the carpets into place… they got the wee spare room (look at me getting more Scottish by the day! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿) done first which was good, and managed to get the living room completed too, before delivery-man arrived which was also good. It meant carpet-man and his buddy had to sit in their van whilst delivery-man assembled the bed, about 20 minutes max, before they could finished laying the wee entrance hall carpet…

Would you believe, as carpet-man was leaving, he had the cheek to say they would’ve been finished earlier if they hadn’t had to wait for the bed to go in! Cheeky wee b’stard (as the Scots would say! 🤣). He also left us with all the rubbish to get rid of which was kind of right as the carpet belongs to us – off-cuts, underlay and all – but omitted to tell us he’d also left a pile of rubbish outside the house on the pavement which we only found later when Pete went to put some of the aforementioned rubbish in the car to go, yep you guessed, to the tip! Quintuple-grrr 😫!

Well, I am glad that fiasco is over! The good news is that we now have all the furniture back where it should be and the house no longer looks like a building site but a proper home! It might not seem it, but this is a major achievement for us as Pete is not yet fully recovered from his chemo (oh, and we can’t forget he still has the big C even if it is under control for the time being…) and I’m a bit of a weakling – but we have got this part of the decorating job done, bit by bit and we are definitely getting there!

As carpet-man was gone earlier than expected last Friday, we went for a walk to alleviate the morning’s frustrations… it was windy but sunny and it was nice to get out for a bit before I did my first bedtime shift which was just 3-hours from 6pm where no one actually went to bed but were helped to get ready for bed with a wash & PJs on! I actually got home just after 8.30pm so it wasn’t a bad shift at all!

As everyone will know, the clocks went forward Saturday night into Sunday morning and so British Summer Time officially started. Of course as it did, in true British style, this was marked by it absolutely hammering it down for most of the day! This weekend, Storm Dave is on the way and Scotland is due to be getting a battering again… they also say snow may well be on the way too! 🥶🥶⛄️

Today, we are car-less as the Mini is in for it’s MOT and we still haven’t got the X-trail back… after visiting the garage in person last weekend as, if the boss John is not there, apparently no one else is able to pick up the phone (more grrrrs!), we found out that they hadn’t even started work on it as John was still trying to source a new turbo. Come Monday, Pete finally got to speak to John & told him we’re off to Spain in 3-weeks (we’re not going for another 5 or so, but thought it might push them along a bit! 🤣) and we know they have started on it now at least! Hopefully we will be back to being a two-car family next week, which would be good as the kids are coming on Easter Sunday for a few days!

We also had some good news about Pete’s PSA count following his blood test last week… it is now 0.9 (much better than the 50-plus he started on!) which is great news and suggests the cancer is nicely under control! A great relief which makes taking all them tablets worthwhile – long may it continue!

I only had two short shifts this week which are done now, so we are all ready for the Easter weekend and a family visit. A new gas bottle has been purchased for the BBQ and Pete has put new lights up in the garden just in time for the Easter snowstorm! Bring it on! Happy Easter 🐣 xxx