Fire and water

Feeling somewhat frazzled after the whirlwind events of the last two days, compared with the realtively boring weekend, which mainly consisted of staying in as Jem was feeling a bit poorly. Although we were visited by some friends and relations. We managed to get out of the house on Sunday an walk down to have another look at the Quentin blake exhibition with the Ilkley cousins, who kindly brought rather nice cast off clothing for Jem. I also cleaned out and moved the fish, in anticipation of the choas that was to follow...
Monday we got the new dishwasher-horray! and it works! We also got visted by the man from the gas board threatening the cut off the gas (boo!). I said good job we are getting a new soild fuel stove then-ha ha! It was totally their fault as they has sent back the payment twice. I hate British gas. I hate those adverts that say wave goodbye to our engineers. They dont have engineers- they're contracted out to cowboys and won't come back and fix dodgy workmanship.
Anyway, I must have found all that pretty tiring as I was in bed by 9 o'clock, but was awoken at 10.30pm to move the stuff out of the room ready for the fireplace work. I shouldn't have got up as I wasn't in any fit state and managed to get into a horrible row and went back to bed after not moving anything except a couple of sticklebricks. By 8.30am, when I came down for my porridge, it was mostly done. The workmen arrived at 11am and took out the gas fire and knocked out an inglenook fireplace. It was madness to stay in as things were getting covered in dark grey dust, especially the soles of the children's feet, but it was all very interesting for them. We ate out lunch on the patio in the light drizzle to avoid eating soot, and retired to the office for a bit (btw, that is a room in the house that should be called the study or something, but we're not posh enough to have a study...drawing room, perhaps?). I finally snapped and decided to go shopping for a new skirt for Jem for her friend's party and because she hasnt really got a skirt and I thought it would be nice if she did. This bit went very well, as we went straight to New Look and found exactly the right kind of skirt in the sale. Then Allie did a poo, and I remembered what it was like to go shopping with young children.
so he's woken up, now, so I'l have to finish off tomorrow.