December 25 in pictures

Christmas was spent sleeping, eating, reading, chatting and computerifacting depending upon who you were. CK and I did most of the sleeping while the kids did most of the rest. They both got little tablet PCs and didn't seem to notice the dozing parents.

destructoBoy read two of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books on Christmas Day and had finished all six by the 28th.

Sadly no snow yet this year but having received a snow boogie board from Granma for Christmas my boy has his fingers crossed it arrives soon bc his practice surface is rubbish

Until then it performs admirable service as a reading cushion.

Back in the distant past of October CK had a Christmas plan - each of us would get a cookbook  from the other three and have to make something from it by the end of the holidays. d/Boy got 'The River Cottage Bread Book' and his effort was ace.

There was a lot of this while he was waiting for the dough to prove.

Princess C-W received 'The Hairy Biker's Pie Book' and she was ecstatic. Boxing Day dinner was a turkey and ham pie with cranberry topping. Except we didn't seem to have much in the way of loose cranberries so she improvised and decorated with pastry leaves. 

A quiet but fabulous Christmas at home.

Merry Christmas

The buggeredup kitchen

The man delivered my 'Kitchen in a van' this week.

 There were a lot of boxes arrayed around my kitchen arena, some were really long and skinny, some were quite dumpy and the piece of solid oak was 3m long by 1.2m across and fucking heavy.

The lovely kitchen-fitter Matt came around on Thursday evening, finished laying the floor and had a look at the boxes. He came back Friday night and started putting carcasses together. They looked very smart. Oak sides and back. We discussed the stability of the sink unit carcass if the internal struts were taken out to accomodate the U-shape drawer; this became moot when we discovered that said drawer was in fact the wrong one. I rang the kitchen " designer" ( a loose and self-applied title) and he said he couldn't understand what the problem was because the unit was meant to be used with/without horizontal strut and probably it would be ok to remove the vertical one as well.

Is anyone else seeing the issue here? I stomped my foot over the phone and he came up this morning to review the situation. Fortunately lovely kitchen-fitter Matt returned this morning with his friend Hugo, there was supposed to be a third man in the crew but he rang about 0830 to say he had been up all night being sick. Sheer coincidence the works do was the night before. He backed me up and Jimthekitchen man cancelled the whole idea of a u-shape drawer and went back off to work.

Half an hour later bacon sandwiches and coffees made I was called out to see that the carcass for the tall unit was wrong. And things fell apart from there. We then discovered
- there was no mechansim for pull-out larder at all.
- 6 out of 9 drawer fronts are not arriving until January. Maybe.
- one door is the wrong size by 10 cm and we are missing one that is the correct size.
- executing the island as per the plan means it is potentially unstable as it can't be screwed to the floor bc of the heating.
- an extraneous 15 cm gap that could have been some sort of cupboard if Jimthekitchenman was competent as a designer instead it is home to a filling panel and I HATE filling panels.
- that the units along one wall didn't match up to units on the another wall.
- all of the sockets are in the wrong place because according to Jimthekitchenman the 'computer printed out' incorrect measurements onto the layout plan.

I made three phone calls to Jimthekitchenman as each new issue was revealed and finally one visit  fuelled by cold rage, this resulted in a 15 minute phonecall to my clever joiner/carpenter men  back here at Trash Towers. I left there on the verge of frustrated tears but was holding it all together until CK rang  to ask how it was all going. At that point I had to pull the car off road and have a little cry. However I am all about the moving forward so headed home and went out with my boy to buy a Christmas Tree.

However because I am a 'Pollyanna' I should finish by telling you all that despite all the cock-ups and mismanagement I still love the units and worksurfaces.

Three lovely things happened today.

1. My kitchen was delivered in a van and the kitchen-making man says it should all be done by Saturday night.
2. My son sang a very cool solo during the school carol service. He did the first verse in Herod's song from the One Bright Star cantata. Imagine a really cool, swinging 1-2 beat - "There's one sovereign and that's me. The rules are made by my decree so what's this rubbish I hear today that baby's been born who will take my crown away?"
3. While sitting through the rest of the carol service after my boy's triumph my lovely friend Vicki turned to me and asked if I would help her carry out a family tradition. Now that Granny is knitting for God and the Angels Vicki was wondering if I would knit one for him. Yes! Yes! Yes! How exciting, I get to create Will' first ever school jumper.

All very lovely things.

Perspective.

This is my new sofa. Notice my 40th birthday quilt is sitting happily draped over the arm?

I quite like my sofa but with no reference it is tricksy to know scale. So....

... this is what my sofa looks like with a "psuedo" sleeping 13 year old on it.

and even greater example - couch with Assistant and 10 year old.

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I got kicked out of my house tonight. There was much rustling of plastic bags and conspiratorial giggling as I headed out into the dark, cold night.

This is what I found when I was allowed home.

Princess Curly Wurly had been out onto the icy flat roof to collect the lights CK had thrown up onto there. She then arranged them beautifully on top of the larger rooflight.

*sigh* I quite like my family.

OH! MY! STARS! Look! Look! Look!

Come see what is on the other side of my living room door.

Not quite 12 months ago, last Christmas Day,  I was given the present of a kitchen.And not just a kitchen but the getting rid of the the manky skanky horrible mouldy old lean-to kitchen that had been the bane of my life for the past 13 years.

See it really was icky, wasn't it?

But not anymore. The flooring went in this weekend, most of the painting is done and the kitchen units are being put up on Friday.

 

It is a little different, huh? The view out the window in the first picture was taken roughly from the edge of the laundry door there back near to the wall. 

Laramie: the travels of a well-educated bunny.

Just recently I received an email from Julie inviting me to purchase one of her fabulous Little Cotton Rabbits. In fact I had been drawn out of the Bunny Raffle Hat to give Laramie a whole new adventure. I can't describe how excited I was.

 Within days Smiley Carol's replacement had delivered a box. A box that was the perfect fit for a Little Cotton Rabbit. Especially a Little Cotton Rabbit that was wearing green tights and pale green shoes. A Little Cotton Rabbit that was wearing green tights, pale green shoes and a cream dress with green fennel heads dancing across it. *sigh*

"Doubtless God could have made better berry than a strawberry, but doubtless never did." quoth she. "William Allen Butler, don't you know?" Julie was obviously aware of Laramie's tatstes as this ENORMOUS strawberry accompanied her in case there was a hold up due to a pre-Christmas rush in the Royal Mail.

 "To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat."

And in that 'defeated' mode Laramie and I went and joined Maria for a cup of tea while enjoying views of the gorgeous English countryside.

Oh Laramie, I am so pleased you have come to live here at Trash Towers up here on The Hill.