One of those weekends...

Well it has been one of those weekends. We were trying to get the house looking reasonable for the surveyor (we are remortaging with a new company for a better deal).

Neither of us has laid tiles before so we HUGELY underestimated the time it would take... I forgot to take a piccy of what it looked like before as in a fit of grrrrritude I had taken the lino up during the week , but saturday morning we basically had this:

So we set off, me applying the adehesive to the floor and John laying the tile behind me.

For the first row we cut all the edge bits, but soon decided that took too long so would lay all of the complete tiles and then go back and fill in the gaps.

Mid-afternoonish we had something that was beginning to look floor like and were very proud of ourselves.

Then began the long and arduous task of cutting all the bits, mostly done by JJ I will admit.

About 6ish John popped to sainsburys to get us something for tea, however he sat at the traffic lights and watched the aftermath of an accident that had obviously just occured and, when the lights turned green, pulled away. However, a guy coming the other way that was also staring at the accident, didn't notice the lights had changed and went through them at speed and JJ adn he had a "coming together". There isn't a huge amount of damage to the volvo (the other guys car was trashed) but we think, as the volvo is so old, it is likely that the insurance company will write it off, which is exactly what we don't need right now but never mind. Both men were unhurt except John sprained his thumb getting it caught in the steering wheel as it span round on impact.


By about 10pm Saturday night we had finished laying all of the whole tiles and had cut all of the off cuts (the off cuts being a swearing fiesta in itself!). I had blisters on the tips of all the fingers on my right hand and a couple on the palm. JJ began planning the ultimate bank job so to take advantage of the fact that I had now completely worn away my finger prints. He couldn't have helped in the hiest however as he had done in his back and leg muscles.

Sunday was fathers day and, when he rang to let us know his plans for the day, he then stupidly allowed himself to be suckered into helping us for the day instead! Mum and Dad appeared about lunch time - we had just finished gluing down the last of the cut off tiles and re gluing two of the tiles which were loose - and after a quick breakie of KFC (hmmmmmm) we got to it.

However, Dad insisted on doing the floor properly (Dads are so bad annoying sometimes) and leaving the floor to dry completely before grouting - I was going to grout the whole tiles and leave the rest til later. (What is more the whole "quick drying" adehsive ("ready to grout in 3 hours") wasn't so even the whole tiles weren't quite dry yet. Instead, we blitz tidied the rest of the house and Mum and I attemped to get in the door of my study and clean it. All in all, we got loads done and it made life a whole lot easier (thanks Mum and Dad!)

The next day Mum and JJ threw a sickie and Mum popped over to fold washing and do washing up while I grouted and JJ went to Oxford (where I was supposed to be) and was generally helpful. We finally finished grouting at around 7.30pm and we are really pleased with the effect.

So all in all, despite the fact that it took WAY longer than we had hoped and resulted in writing off the car, I am a happy bunny, as are the dogs who have been either shut in the garden or the lounge for the last 3 days and have been extreamely put out, as you can see:

JJ's disgrace...

I am SO very angry at JJ, he was so MEAN last night (in my dream) that I woke up FURIOUS at him and I can't shake it!

Basically I dreamt we were still living in our house but we were both back at University. JJ was studying in the US and I was studying somewhere round here. It was the summer holidays and, although he was housesitting in the US, he decided he needed something here so flew over and turned up on our doorstep. We spent a pleasant day together and then his dad and his german uncle (whom I have never met) turned up and after an hour or two, they headed off as John had to get to the aiport. However, by this time he was back in bed and refused to get up until the last minute. Add in the fact that the sat nav we were using was going haywire and he missed his plane. After discussing it, JJ said seeing his Dad had made him homesick and he wold go to Germany for a few days and see his Dad and his German family and then fly back here and then on to the US. I was a bit annoyed as we couldn't afford it but agreed, after all it is his Dad. I dropped him at a hotel for the night, slightly miffed but not too annoyed.

Next morning he turns up in a stretch mercedes in a white tuxedo. What is more the car is full of beautiful women and one giant of a man that sat with his head out of the roof. I was more than a little miffed now but JJ talked me round, convincing me that they were just friends. Until, that is, he told me that he had decided that, rather than see his Dad, him and the girls were going on a tour of Germany, staying in five star hotels etc. I was FURIOUS! THERE WAS NO WAY we coud afford that, but JJ couldn't seem to see anything wrong with it and just left. I decided that I was going to fly to the carribean for a two week holiday to spite him. However, in my dream I never got to enjoy that bit as, before i knew it JJ was back from his tour and, annoyed that I wasn't there to greet him, went on a murderous rampage across London, killing everyone in sight.

And I woke up to find myself on my side, looking directly at JJ and still feeling absolutely FURIOUS with him! It is still lingering too - how werid is that?

Anyway, yesterday we went out to buy tiles for the floor in the kitchen - Sherb ripped up the lino years ago and we have put off replacing it, trying to decide if he is out of that stage, but every now and again he would do it again. However, we have a mortgage surveyor coming this week so want the house to look as good as possible. We made sure that we didn't leave the dogs any water overnight (cruel I know but one night won't hurt them) so that they couldn't spill it everywhere and stop us being able to lay the flooring. So of course this morning I get up and Thai has peed on the floor! ARGH! She hasn't done that in MONTHS and today is the day she decides to get to it?! It is SO frustrating but still we will have to start at the other end of the kitchen and hope it is dried by the time we get there. If not, we will have to finish the floor off tomorrow. I shall take piccies to show our progress...

Footballed For Hope

Well the tournament was today. The boys hit their original target of £400 of sponsors, upped it to £600 and, hit that and went up again to £635 and finally upped it to £650. This made them the team that had raised the most (and John raised a good chunk of that himself) HOWEVER we then find out that Accenture (the contracting company that most of the team work for) are willing to match any sponsership that the team raised so the guys have raised a huge amount as a team.

The tournament itself was good fun - the first game was pretty evenly matched and quite rightly resulted in a 0-0 draw. The second match was different - they so should have won but Jubril was denied goals three times by the skin of the goal keepers teeth but again it resulted in a draw. But in game three, disaster struck. The other team was winning with two or three goals and they were about 10 minutes from the end of the game when Richard decided to take one for the team and dislocated his knee to save them futher embarrassment. Poor thing ended up going off in an ambulance in much pain so, after a quick conflab, the boys decided that it was't fair to continue when one for their number was off to casualty. They did however quite rightly get participation medals and, though a disappointing (and painful for poor Richard) end, I think they all enjoyed themselves.

I didn't take many photos as I was filming but here are what I took:

Sculpturally aging...

Well it was my birthday today and, after a snuggle with the dogs and JJ first thing, we set off far to early for JJ's tastes to go and meet Mum, Dad and K for the day. They had recently been to a sculpture park and really enjoyed it so I decided that I quite fancied it too so we were going to the Hannah Peshar Sculpture Gardens. The weather was beautiful - it has been unseasonably warm this year and it was more like July than April.

When we arrived at the gardens (after a very winding and picturesque route) we realised that it didn't open for another hour and a half so we headed off to Cranleigh for a second breakfast. Mum and the others weren't far behind us so we took over a coffee shop with our noisy raucous ways and John and I had a delicious breakky while th others looked on in envy. Once we had eaten and exchanged pressies, we headed back to the gardens, only to find out that they were open by appointment only until May! Luckily another group had made an appointment so the owner was there and was happy for us to go round too.

The gardens themselves were gorgeous with the blue bells in full bloom and primoses peeking out from every crevice (and thank goodness we managed to persuade mum NOT to roll naked in the blue bells) and the sculptures just added an additional beauty to the place. We were all particularly partial to the angel stood at the top of the slope and the croissant shaped "Moon Swing", the bobbing fountains that were activated by movement and the superman garb stood in a tree. I think JJ was quite inspired by the sculpture that he dubbed "Beef Curtains". We also agreed that the many torsos scattered around the place were very uninspiring as was "infinity", which was instantly dubbed "Turds on sticks".

I could write all day about the pieces but it is possibly easier to just have a look at the pictures that I took below.



Having wandered round the gardens for about 3 hours we decided to head off for a pub lunch - the first place that we stopped at hadn't had its vegetable delivery for the day so we went on to another place whos name completely escapes me but it was ideal. It had a large and uncrowded garden at the back and, as it wasn't on a busy road anyway, all you could really hear was bird song and the mumble of other customers. Mum and Dad has fillet steak which I am told was gorgeous, K had rump steak, I had a cheeseburger which was way too big but delicious and JJ had eggs benedict which he hadn't had before but he really liked. We then chased it with treacle tart (cos it would be rude not to) and were bloated beyond belief.

Having stuffed ourselves we headed to Guildford to hire some row boats and go messing baout on the river but it was 1/2 hour before they closed so they weren't hiring out at that time. Instead we headed to Mums and, after wandering around the garden and admiring the neighbours new chickens, K, JJ and I decided to go to see Blades of Glory.

This was a very funny film and I think better than the hilarious Talledega Nights, but whereas we came out of Talledega Nights saying "And what about that bit when...." and "o and you remember when...", with this film I found that I didn't.

Having droppped K home we then headed home ourselves only to find that Sherbs Houdini impression had confused the pet visitor as he shut the back door wen he left for the first visit but for the second found that Sherb had let them out into the back garden.

After a quick check of the email we headed upstairs relatively early so JJ could get his beauty sleep in preperation for the big day tomorrow.

Football for Hope (that's soccer to all you Americans out there)

Added this to digg in the hope that we will get more sponsors so the boys hit their targets. We can only HOPE! (Did you see what I did there?)AND I up the ante and promise not only photos but possibly video!



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