Although it was along drive home from Kent last week when I headed back to Scotland after visiting brother Chris for his birthday… it wasn’t as bad as I had feared as the threatened fuel protests didn’t materialise – well, not when I was on the road anyway!
Apart from the usual crappy traffic on the M25 first thing, the journey went pretty smoothly and, as planned, I broke it with a quick-ish visit to see Mum in Yorkshire two thirds of the way back. Yes, this diversion made a long journey that little bit longer but it was great to see her and have a video call with brother Chris so he could get to see her too, even if Mum was a bit confused by the whole thing! 🤣🤣🤣
It didn’t help that Chris’ phone camera was filthy and in need of a good clean – see the blurry photo! Funny how both Mum and Chris seem to have matching front teeth (or lack of them!) – as Mum couldn’t remember what she’d done with her denture (she has a habit of hiding these things!) & Chris’ seem to have all fallen out 😬🤣!
Whilst I was on my little trip down “sarf”, our neighbour Ian (a Carpenter) spent most of the week fitting our new doors and door knobs…
… A week on & he still hasn’t sent us the bill! Originally, he wouldn’t take payment as he said the job wasn’t finished as the back door was missing an escutcheon…
We ended up with a slightly different back door than originally planned as the wrong one was delivered. We decided to keep the one delivered as it was a better, more expensive one than what we chose – a nice bonus!
We are really happy with the job that Ian has done for us and hopefully, now the missing escutcheon has been put on, we will get to pay him! Would definitely recommend him & his work. Just got to get on with painting these new doors now, but that will have to wait for a rainy day as I am not doing it when the sun is shining!
We have the same knobs on all the doors now having had the old fashioned, brassy ones removed as
(a) they were horrible and (b) we both kept bashing ourselves on them causing numerous bruises / injuries! 🤣
On Friday 17th April, we finally got the X-Trail back from the garage… returning home a few grand poorer than when we went to get it, at least it is back to driving like a dream which is just as blumming well!
Work-wise, I have done a couple of lunch & “tea time” shifts over the last week or so… I’m still only working around 9-10 hours a week and no more than about 3.5 hours at a time. I have even been to my first team meeting this week where there were more people from the office in attendance that there were care staff workers (🤣 🤣) & completed some in-house medication training. I decided that, as I haven’t done hands-on care for such a long time, it’s probably best if I start from a position of it all being new to me and doing all the training that’s available… I think much of it is online anyway and done through the SSSC (Scottish Social Services Council – the Scottish equivalent to the English Care Quality Commission) so I might take a look at doing some when we are away…
Pete had a lone trip up to Hawick to get the air conditioning in the X-Trail re-gassed so at least that is done for our trip to Spain now… we just need to get it fully serviced and then at least, mechanically, it should be in good shape for the trip. I will of course be praying to the X-Trail Gods that the car behaves itself for the full journey to Spain and back 🤞
Of course, Pete has also been pottering in the garden as usual & working hard to remove unseen rocks from the ground so he can take my Dad’s old roses out of the pots they’ve been in since we left Yorkshire, and get them into the ground. It’s looking really nice out there and although the Daffs have now gone, they have been replaced by lots of lovely tulips:
And Niamh’s seeds have started growing…
Niamh’s seeds have started sticking their heads through!
It has been a beautiful couple of days here in the Scottish Borders.. beautiful blue sky and the first bit of warmth of the year – so much so, the shorts have finally come out for the first time this year!
Last evening, we went to get the Lottery from the Spar shop and after, decided to walk the long way around the village & back along the river to home just to get some steps in. We heard and then saw, a Cuckoo (or CooCoo as Pete calls them – 🤣), a Heron, a pair of Goosanders, lots of Grey Wagtails, Swifts, Swallows and Sandmartins and then, to top it all off, a Kingfisher darted up the river towards us – aren’t we lucky? We are loving it here!
So, that’s all our news… Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend & making the most of the nice weather.
Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law Sharon – hope you’ve had a fantastic day!
All the gubbins… 
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