So this is a first! When I started to write this post I awas sitting in the garage, with the roller door down, in the dark, with the dogs. Why? Because we are now moving on to phase 3 of our renovations, and RD was in the process of taking out a large chunk of wall between our kitchen and the stupid hallway that we had in our house.

The puppies and I were banished to the garden, with RD occasionally running out to get away from the bright red brick dust that was chasing him up the hall. It was so bad it looked like a huge red voluminous monster that puffed out after him, billowing in the breeze. By the end of the day he was very Irish…..ginger from head to foot. He looked just like a huge red leprechaun!

As has been the way all month, it started to rain, and RD kindly ensconced us in the garage. Me with my Ipad and Luna at my feet, and Elfie and Tinky Tiny (as is Pixies main name) chasing god knows what amongst the tip that is our garage. (Next job on the list) . I sat there on a camping chair bemused. ‘Well’ I thought. ‘This is different!

In May we had a busman’s holiday to start to remove the awful corner cooker and knock through into our useless narrow hallway. Phase 1 of our renovations, after RD had knocked through an old door into our bedroom, had gone well, but was so messy we had delayed phase 2 u til our holiday at the end of May. All was going well, the weather was baking hot, and the old doorway from the hall to the kitchen, which was hidden behind a tall cupboard was reopened pretty rapidly. The biggest part was taking out the ‘insulation’ that had been shoved in any old way.

By the Thursday of that week RD was busy moving the cooker around, from the really stupid angle it had been placed at. Taking up so much space, and creating the dark hole of Calcutta in the corner.

But when it came to the manky old cooker hood, it put up a fight, and RD foolishly put all his weight on already weakened worktops and fell through it! As is the way of men generally, he brushed off the cut to his leg, and the fact he was in pain and carried on working. By the Sunday he was in agony. His leg was hot all down the shinbone, and had started to swell. He was insistent he was going to work on the Tuesday! I however, was insistent he was not! Needless to say he was at the Doctors on the Monday. He had Cellulitis. By the Wednesday his foot had swollen and the redness down his shinbone was getting worse. To the point that he couldn’t get his shoe on. I took him back to the Doctors and he was given stronger antibiotics and threatened with hospitalisation if his leg didn’t respond. Thankfully it did, but not before he had to take a further course of antibiotics and was off work for three weeks.

It just reinforced to me how thankful I was that we have decided to do our renovations as we can afford it, and that we did not taken out a loan. We would have been in a tricky situation if we had.

For two people who have achieved 60 this year we did not do too badly. Since I wrote about our renovations we have achieved much. The hardest thing was moving the fridge, then we also moved the armoire, again! It now lives in the back room, after we made room when we moved the fridge. We also set up (or RD set up) a little mobile unit for the kitchen, a console table for our bedroom, and I have started to paint furniture. On top of working full time. It is fair to say we are knackered, but we started again this week.

Onwards and upwards. More to come…

Moisy