Our New House–Progress Being Made

After my hospital appointment this morning, we went on to the new house. The scaffolding is up at the front now, and there were various other signs that work had been going on. Before I show you that, though, yesterday my new bath arrived on a pallet in a huge lorry – it is now in the garage here at home.

Not much to look at yet, I grant you, but very exciting to receive such a large parcel! Wait till you see what a gorgeous bath it is… Chris, who lives in our village, will take it over to the new house sometime soon.

Back to today. The internal sliding window in the back passageway/utility room has now gone – I am very sad to see it go as it was such an unusual original feature of the house, but not practical for our needs, unfortunately. This is what it looked like before:

and how it looks now:

I was amazed at how much space there is underneath our house! (I bet a lot of spiders live down there…) Andy said he could dig it out and create a wine cellar for us, but I turned down the idea. I’m glad my hubby wasn’t within earshot! Anyway, this now gives full access into what will be our airing cupboard. There will be a narrow door across this opening.

In the hall, I found that the laminate flooring for the kitchen had arrived. There were also some sheets of underlay in the entrance lobby, so before long, work will begin in the kitchen.

This is a scan of the sample piece that Andy got for me last week:

We are all thrilled with this choice, as it will look lovely with the kitchen units, as well as being hard-wearing.

Upstairs, some more work has been done in the bathroom, with the panelling around the bath having been removed.

Chris – The Bee’s Knees!

These fetching knee-pads caused a great deal of amusement today. Definitely the latest fashion accessory for the discerning man about town.

Outside, my hubby was very busy most of the day. He decided to fit another hand-rail at the bottom of the garden steps – not just good for me, but to help Mum too – he is worried about her tripping on these steps. He painted it with Cuprinol to match the rest, and also started working on the garden seat, and some of the fencing.

On our way home the last time we were here (Monday), we went to B&Q and my hubby bought some small fencing to replace the rotten pieces between the upper garden and the grass bank. Not only are they attractive, but they mark the beginning of the bank, and hopefully this will prevent Mum from tumbling down from a great height into her patio!

They aren’t terribly good quality so probably won’t last many years, but they do look better now he’s Cuprinoled them, and they are more attractive than the ones they replaced:

Before:

and after:

As you can see, my hubby has done quite a lot of cutting back, and it’s a lot neater now. All the Leylandii trees that ran along in front of the fence that you can just see in this picture have now been cut down, and the whole thing is much lighter. We had a chat with the lovely lady who lives next door (who is responsible for this boundary) and she readily agreed for us to replace these fence panels with some higher ones – even being higher, they won’t cut out the light half as much as those dreadful dreary trees! We need it to be higher in order to keep the cats from straying. We have got some special anti-cat spikes to go along the top – once they’ve experienced touching them once, they won’t try again, and they should be effective in keeping ours in, and others out.

He also put up some brackets for the hanging baskets he got yesterday to adorn Mum’s patio. He is keen to make it look as pretty and welcoming for her as possible when she arrives. They are hanging outside our front door for the time being. We can’t put anything at the new house yet because of the work still to be done on the roof. Eventually we will also put some bird feeders out for her, too. This evening my hubby’s brother came round with a whole lot of beautiful bedding plants to go in her tubs, and I think her patio will be gorgeous once my hubby has finished with it!

My next blog post will be about the exciting work going on in my new ARTHaven.

Health Update:

Today I had my preliminary appointment at the hospital to prepare me for my upcoming colonoscopy. This is now scheduled for 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday. The appointment was with a simply delightful nurse who explained everything to us, and gave us various forms and leaflets, and the dreaded medicine to clear me out completely before the event! There’s a diet list too – all lovely unhealthy low fibre stuff, and on the last day, jelly, jelly and more jelly – consommé or other clear soup, jelly, clear drinks, and lots and lots of JELLY BABIES!!! Really weird! My hubby said he’d stand in front of me while I sit endlessly on the loo, posting jelly babies into my mouth till I’m stuffed! After this I doubt I shall want to look a jelly baby in the face for a long time.

I have been warned that it is not a pleasant examination, and it may be painful, especially as I’ve had a hysterectomy and there may be adhesions, making the bowel less flexible and harder to pass the camera around, but they are going to dose me up with a strong painkiller and a sedative, so hopefully I shall be sufficiently away with the fairies not to notice too much. Since I last had one many years ago, things have improved; they no longer pump you full of air which used to cause a great deal of discomfort and take some time to dispel. Nowadays they use carbon dioxide, which is absorbed into the body and expelled on the breath, so I am relieved that that discomfort aspect has been removed. After the examination they will tell me straight away if they found any polyps or any abnormal appearance and if they did a biopsy, in which case the samples will be sent to the lab for analysis and I should hear pretty soon. I hope I am not kept waiting too long as it’s an anxious time.

However, the nurse did say that in view of my IBS, it is likely that the screen abnormalities were caused by this rather than anything more sinister, so I am hoping that this is the case. I’ll let you know how I get on, and how I survive the advance of monstrous battalions of jelly babies.