Vroom vroom

Mr Smith got a new car.  Just like you might buy potatoes or carrots, he just went to the shop and bought a car.  It is a very smart car, black and shiny and absolutely useless for my purposes of filling with garden waste and bits of wood.  It has a very elegant interior.

We did pick up our oak beams and the Apprentice put one up as a shelf for cookery books.  It looks very smart.  I love our house.

Artisan of the day: Window cleaner.  No more bird poo ...hooray, until they do more.

I joined a lovely health club and went swimming ... Twice.

My baby boy comes back from China today.  He reports no loo paper in China and chopsticks are mighty tricky.

Heave ho

They dutifully heaved and I now have a lovely art room and a sewing room which is still a bit full of junk but a work in progress.  I suddenly thought turning all these empty rooms into bedrooms is pointless.  When do I need nine bedrooms?  So we now have kids rooms, three spare rooms, a studio room for me and a general ironing/sewing/box room.

And now to attend to artisan of the day.  Large plumber - probably takes at least 36 sugars in his tea.
Then we are off to the car funeral - so sad as we undertake removal of the waitrose bags and the ancient maps, Lego men from down the seats, all those little parking thingies and money.   Then it is a toss up between oak beams or lighting.  We need both pretty urgently.  My little car holds not much more than a croissant so beams will have to be delivered.  They are to make shelves various.

I am excited about starting work in my new art room.  Far too busy for that.

George was ere

Tree man came with his mate Stump Man.  They removed the absolute eyesore of a dead apple tree from the lawn.  It looks far better.  Mr Smith had walked the chap round the garden wanting to fell every sprig of greenery with me making big No No No gestures behind him.  We have kept it to a minimum with just three fellings and a mighty pile of logs.  Now to use my new log splitter.  It is monstrously heavy and we don't know how to assemble it.

Today I am going to organise the upstairs rooms of our house.  I am going to get Mr Smith and the Apprentice to heave around heavy furniture.  Then I will change my mind and make them put it all back again.  Well, I would so like a work room.  I would also like to unpack the odd box.  Yesterday I packed flat all the boxes piled high to the ceiling and Freecycled them.  It took me many an hour.  Neither Mr Smith nor the Apprentice were the least bit appreciative.  We now have another lovely room.  Something has gone a bit wrong because it has a single bed and a double mattress.

Mr Smith's car is dead.  Funeral tomorrow.  Wear black.

School run

We couldn't work out how to turn on the heating and we were miserably cold.  I fortuitously ran into Eddie the Evident in the high street and he came over to see our house.  He is a plumber (rtd) and simply showed us the thermostat that we had completely overlooked and suggested we turn it on whereupon the house was instantly far too warm.  We turned it all off.

Mr Smith is going to commute for the first time today. What with his Californian golf trip, followed by his Canadian holiday and his new house paternity leave, he hasn't been to London Town for over a month.  Having blown up his car I am reluctant to lend him mine so I will have to chauffeur him to and from Ashford International station.  If he gets the wrong platform he will end up in France.

I am getting a bit porky these days.  It's all these lovely meals in my lovely kitchen in my lovely new house.  Country cooking is all very well but I am fast turning into a country bumpkin.  Time to take stock and formulate a regime.  Also I am going to investigate swimming; not in the sea but a swimming pool.

Artisan of the day: Can't remember.  We had two yesterday - curtain lady and gardener.  Then there is the resident electrician - the Apprentice.  He is doing great things.  We can now see in the kitchen with the addition of a little spot light and a light in the cupboard.  I love it when things work.
There are several more mendymen lined up - cleaner, plumber, tree stump man, alarm man, chimney sweep and damp proofer.  Add car mender and hairdresser to the list and you have an idea of my week.

And now it's driving gloves on.

Guardian Angels

We have been so well looked after since we arrived in Kent.  We not only have Glen the Good but can now add Stephen the Saviour to our list of wonderful heroes.

 Our car broke down yesterday.  There were clouds of smoke billowing out of the back.  We limped to a jaguar garage where the car did a big poo right outside their office.  A lovely young man called Stephen assured us it could be fixed even though it is not a jaguar.  They are quite familiar with BMWs too.  He drove us home and we were mightily relieved.  In the meantime I have to drive Mr Smith everywhere in my car - not an arrangement I am entirely happy about but needs must.

Artisan of the day was Burglar Alarm man.  We felt it was all too expensive to protect our pants what with insurance on top.  We will shop around.  I understand from Glen the Good everyone just tells their neighbours they are away and beady eyes are cast.  I like the country.

Lobster and laundry

Glen the Good sent round two enormous lobsters about four times the size of any lobster I have ever seen.  They were cooked so all I had to do was gut and shell them.  Messy.  Sledge hammers were required.  We thermidored about half of one and the remaining meat will be salad and sarnies and bisque and pasta until we scream "No more lobster" ... Which is a shame because there is another one in the freezer.

A very thorough plumber put our plumbing through its paces and explained it all to us.  To make water appear you turn on the tap.  Oh!  Well there were hidden switches in cupboards and other mysteries. I got a bit bored listening to all this plumb speak so left The Apprentice son inspecting boiler parts.

Mr Smith and I had a 29th Wedding Anniversary stroll round Rye.  We failed to find a chest of drawers but did find a paint shop.  I painted up loads of bits of canvas in different colours so we can do our colour combos on walls throughout the house rather than trying to select from a teeny weeny little chart.  Somehow they got a bit mixed up with flying lobster juice so now they smell.

We seem to have Artisan of the Day and today it is Burglar Alarm man.  This is the first person we have got by ourselves as all others have been sent by Glen the Good.  He would probably be frightfully upset that we should even consider having an alarm with him right next door.  This is not London.  You really can leave your house unlocked all the time.

It's a lovely day so I must get my laundry on the line.  Clean sheets for all.

Just in case

I have booked myself a little Caribbean holiday for when we are in the height of builders/decorators and the winter has set in.  I will have a week of winter sun to see me through the dark days til Christmas.  I have a couple of paintings to get done by then.

My sparky boy is working hard on our house changing plugs and lights.  He is a gem.

Mr Smith has gone to Sainsburys.  You can walk easily but I suspect he took the car.  Maybe he bought lots of lovely things.  Odd, because he only had three things on his list none of which were the least bit heavy.  I suspect he diverted!  Oh jolly good, donuts for tea.

Plumber tomorrow, soft furnishings lady on Tuesday and chimney sweep in October, damp man in two weeks, guttering chappie to be found.  I love it here.  Everyone is so nice.  Mind you, you don't want to be in a hurry.

In and out

Well, we are back from Canada and safely installed into Mulberry House, lovely lovely Mulberry House.  It's mulberry pie for dinner tonight.  Both Mr Smith and I have a feeling of slight euphoria as we take stock of our fabulous new home.  No mortgage.  Oh it is so beautiful.

There are a few issues such as rising damp but Glen the Great, our hospitable pub landlord, has sent people round to fix things.  We have damp man, plumbing man, plumber's mate, chimney sweep, dishwasher removal man, gardener, cleaner, window cleaner and drains bloke all lined up.  Glen the Great is amazing - he woke us up this morning to tell us we could use his skip for all our cardboard boxes.  I took them all to the tip.  I wish I hadn't as they make great fire lighters.   I am also using Glen the Great's Internet.  Due to BT's stupidity we are not on line.  We also have the wrong telephone number.

I love living in Kent although I do still feel like I am on holiday in someone else's house.  A load of furniture arrived from Yorkshire yesterday so it doesn't even look like our house.  My new sofa will come next week.  I am desperate to make one pretty room that isn't beige and brown.  I find all this dark wooden furniture a bit depressing.  I want to rush out and buy a bright pink plastic chaise longue   or orange plastic chairs.... just to annoy Mr Smith.

I have sent the boys and Mr Smith to London to buy a house. Mulberry House is a big house but wow it's nice without them all.  I want my boys to move out.  They seem to fill the whole house with themselves and all their clobber.  I am running around tidying up after them all and doing their endless washing.

Wonderful wedding

The Big Fat Canadian Wedding was quite wonderful with lots of dancing.  Actually, rather odd dancing as there were performances by the bride's parents which seemed most unnecessary and rather   embarrassing.  On the good side the bride was unutterably beautiful and we all had a fabulous time.

Unfortunately this fabulous time just hasn't stopped and every hour of the day is filled with more partying and more food and more booze until I am so tired and so full I might die but not before I have crammed in another donut, waffle, pancake, peach pie or Danish swirl.

After four days I have jumped ship and left Mr Smith and all the other Smiths to visit my friend Jonesy in Kingston, Ontario.  We are having fun though I am horribly tired and she has a ghastly cough.  I persuaded her to stay in tonight as I cannot face another restaurant meal and I don't want to drink.  At last an alcohol free day; liver will rejoice!  We have had a lovely evening together not having to do anything.  Heaven.

My boys are in Toronto with their cousins.  I am sure they are having a lovely mother free day.  I have handed them over to their father and disclaimed all responsibility for their behaviour.  They have not let me down - Mr Smith has been suitably aggrieved by their awfulness in running up an enormous hotel bill, smoking dope at the wedding, leaving half their luggage in our car and being of slobby demeanour and rude to me. That's his boys!  Sometimes they are very nice.

Canada Oh Canada

We are now in Canada.  The past few days have been diabolical.  The move was ghastly.  Things didn't go as well as I woud have liked.  Mr Smith is useful sometimes but not when he is in California and I am trying to find out if we can move in with no idea who to call.  I didn't even know where to collect the keys. The lack of info was pretty shoddy really.  I was definitely stretched to the point of breaking but the tether seems endless.

The boys range from being super lovely helpful to being totally vile and idle.

Our house is gorgeous.  The move nearly killed me.  Lynda, our house sitter, is heaven sent.  The moment she arrived everything suddenly became a lot easier.  She is unpacking boxes and sorting stuff out as I write.

By some miracle I managed to find a pant, a sock and a wedding outfit and get packed and to the airport in good time.  When I got to the plane I was having yet another panic about the boys missing the flight and the bags being taken off containing Mr Smith's wedding outfit.  Just as they appeared so did a nice air hostess who moved me to Business Class.  Oh it was amazing.  The bits of the flight that weren't sponsored by Cadbury's were full of delicious things to eat and smell and play with.  It was SO good.  I slept for a long time on my lovely flat bed.  No smelly monsters - they were at the back of the plane next to the loos!

And now I am in Toronto trying to find Mr Smith who has become the invisible man.  The hotel have never heard of Mr Smith.  I rather wish I hadn't either right now.  I don't want to be here.  I don't want to go to his stupid niece's wedding.  I want to be in my new house in England.