Life goes on and stuff needs to get done - and getting stuff done gives you a sense of purpose. Liz is still working 4 hours a day, supposedly in the mornings but it kind of flexes around with what comes in on e-mail and when Liz can/wants to put the time in. Whilst Liz is working and it's still a bit cold outside, John is getting on with some DIY - not major projects but stuff like increasing the insulation of the house. It's warm, comfortable and draft free, but when the central heating pipes under the floor have no lagging, there's room for improvement and it's a bit of fun. Realistically, by the time John has fully woken up, had breakfast, sorted himself and the breakfast pots he gets about 2 hours of DIY in a day before either getting distracted or doing something more fun.
We've been using the dark nights to make progress on plans for the house - including the kitchen, utility and guest loo - all of which we were going to do ourselves, but we will now get the bits and trades in to do the doing. So far we have managed to find electrician, plumber, tiler and plaster, so we are doing really well. Accidentally all the work seems to be about to happen all at once. The fuse board will be updated at the beginning of Feb, giving us capacity for an electric shower, the windows are due to be replaced at the beginning of March, the spare loo will soon be decommissioned to allow the tiler in to do his work before the plumber can install the new items in there, and once the windows are done the plasterer can then skim the room that currently has no purpose so that we can see about painting and removing and re-skirting that and tick off another room. The kitchen is due to be fitted mid-April. So exciting and also a little stressful!
Oh and we have also managed to plan a holiday to Italy, flying to Naples on the 16th April then heading to the East coast and exploring Puglia. It feels a long way off, but with having to plan it all around John's treatment we needed to get something organised. Now praying that everything goes to plan and treatment sticks to schedule and John stays well enough.
Neighbours (3 miles or so away) Colin and Sue were back (they also have family to visit and holidays that take them away a lot) and we had a lovely brunch in their indoor BBQ hut. John able to put away most things nowadays including sausages with skins on! What a treat, and such lovely company.
The cats have settled in well, although there is some 'crying' in the night which we never noticed at Erica Drive! Flo continues to keep the local mouse population in check and is now an expert at eating everything except the skin and intestines. Lucy has been to vet as she was being sick - £300 later, we apparently have a fairly healthy elderly cat. We have ended up at Lomond Vets as Dunoon didn't have space for us. So, it is a vomit inducing (for Lucy) 3 hr round trip, but the lovely vet we saw was thorough, kind and very reassuring. We singed Lucy up for a monthly payment plan just in case, but the long journey will make us think twice about going too often. Poor Lucy - she was foaming at the mouth when we arrived back home after and really didn't want to come out of her box, but she quickly recovered for a Licky-Lix later in the evening.
Due to leaving Lucy at the vets while they did some blood tests and monitoring our trip extended into an impromptu trip to Paisley where we got a load done - birthday present shopping, a high calorie TGI Friday's lunch, more DIY shopping and swapping the car back as it was 'fixed' (after a month!)
Escape to the Country's sister programme creatively called 'I Escaped to the Country' which follows up on folks like ourselves was aired - we'd filmed it with them in May 2023, when any thoughts of ill health were worries for far into the future. The programme was, to be honest, a bit dull - 80% of our content was lifted from the original (including the 2 houses we didn't buy) and only 20% was from May '23. They cut a huge amount, including all the filming of Adam and Emma, the previous owners, which they had gushed over when they filmed it. I felt terrible but Emma said they were quite relieved.
And before we knew it, it was February and the snowdrops were pushing their way into the sunlight.
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