It has been a while since the last diary post. Life is starting to get a little nearer to normal. It has only been 14 months but it’s hard to remember when we weren’t having the think about Covid. As I am sure I have said before I don’t really understand the “need” to get back to the pub. We go out, obviously but rarely just for a drink. We would be more likely to have people over or to go to their place. If we go to a pub it’s for a meal. Sue can drink me under the table and I’d rather pay supermarket prices.

Our daughter and son in law moved into their new house last week. We went over there on Saturday. I had only seen photos. It will be a great family home when its all finished. They have been renovating it for the last 8 months. They have quite a big garden but there are no proper fences between the neighbours on both sides. They have used up all the money from the sale of their old house so I said we’d pay for the fences. They were chuffed to bits as the kids and the dog can’t play out there just yet. There is also something that looks like a grave down at the bottom of the garden. I’m sure it isn’t a grave. Well, actually I’m not. None of the neighbours know where the old guy who lived there buried his wife.

A couple of days later Sue called her cousin who does some garden landscaping as a side job. She seemed to think he would help the kids out for free with tidying up the garden. I told her that he was probably fed up with all the family asking him to do jobs on the cheap but she said he would be fine. He asked her how much she thought it was going to be and she told him about £500. He asked her what year it was and did she think it was the 1950’s. She told him to sort out with our daughter what they wanted done in the garden and get back to us with the quote. Hang on. “Us”? We’ve just paid a grand for fencing. I knew there was no point arguing as our daughter wouldn’t accept us paying for it. They were more than happy with the fences. The quote came in at over 4K. I think not.

The next week or so are going to be a mess at home. We are having a new kitchen fitted, starting on Monday. Obviously everything has to come out of the kitchen by Monday morning. Sue was getting herself stressed about everything being in a mess.

“All our things are going to be in boxes.”

“Well, yes. there is no other way to do it.”

“But they’ll smash all the tiles!”

“Do you want to keep the tiles?”

“No.”

“Exactly. If they try to take them off carefully they will be here a lot longer.”

“I hate things being messed up!!”

I knew this. I mainly knew this as she has said it a couple of hundred times in the last few days. So, if you’re stressed about everything being a mess and everything from the kitchen is going into boxes, what’s the best thing to do? You guessed it! Empty the bloody kitchen 5 days early! She says she just wants it over and done with. So the living room (which is smaller than the kitchen) is now stacked up with boxes of stuff from the cupboards and drawers.

It’s going to be a long week.