Speed Shopping For Carpet

We headed off to Lakeside at Doncaster on Saturday, hitting the Next Clearance sales and loading the car boot full of bargains. The planned crashing on the sofa did materialize but not until tea time after we'd gone through all the new clothes and used a crowbar to get them into the wardrobe.

Debbie heard an advert for a carpet shop on the radio during the week so we looked it up and set off on Sunday morning. Ten minutes after entering the shop we were leaving again, carpet chosen, ordered and booked to be fitted next weekend. Onwards to B&Q to get all the bits we needed to get the bathroom sorted out before the carpet arrives, paint, brushes, skirting board, no more nails, new light fittings...

We got started as soon as we got back, replacing a couple of sections of skirting board and then got a coat of white paint on the walls, ceiling and door. It's that pink paint that dries white and I must say it looks better than it smells, it absolutely stinks! We've got another coat to get on tonight, we'll be glad when it's done, dried and fumigated!

Paul.

Seaside & Casualty

Following a visit to the dentist, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather on Saturday last week to visit Ingoldmells, we didn't know what to expect, certainly not acres of caravans with an amusement park in the middle. I think we stopped about 10 minutes before we'd had enough of trying to make our way through the crowds and made a hasty escape to Mablethorpe.

The great thing about Mablethope is the beautiful beach that runs for miles and miles in both directions and for the most part is dog friendly with just a small section out of bounds. It's such a peaceful place with hardly a soul on the beach, I'm sure the donkeys outnumber the people most of the time!

It was a beautiful sunny day with white clouds littering the sky making for great photo opportunities. We walked for over an hour in one direction before turning round and heading back. Debbie wasn't feeling too cleaver and half way back had to stop and rest, her cold realy digging in and refusing to subside. We made it back to the car and headed off home having had a fantastic afternoon at the coast.

On Sunday we pursued our other favourite pass time, shopping! I've got a new camera, a Panasonic TZ1, which with the TZ3 just coming out was on offer with over £100 off the usual price. I love my Nikon D50 but there are times when a bulky SLR with a long lens isn't practical or appropriate when we're out and about.

Dad took ill on Tuesday night, we had barely walked through the door when we were on our way to hospital to find out how he was. He was suffering from double vision which came on suddenly late in the afternoon, after being checked out at Barnsley hospital he was referred to Rotherham so we all made our way over there in our little black car. Not being totally sure what was causing the problem except that it might be linked to his diabetes, he was given another appointment on Thursday to see a specialist. By the time we got home, it was almost midnight and we've been catching up with our sleep since.

The result of the visit to the hospital on Thursday was that Dad can't drive for a whole month, he's got to wait for things to settle down and see how things are when he has his next appointment. It's going to be hard, although he's retired now, he's just a busy as he's ever been and he'll be biting at the bit to get out and about, especially for a spot of fishing which he loves.

We're having a bit off a chill out this weekend, crashing out on the sofa watching the rain tumble down.

Paul

Colourful Garden

Well, after getting over the toothache a couple of weeks ago, Debbie is now suffering from a really bad cold. It never rains but it pours!

So, we've not been out and about so much lately, although with the weather we've been having, I doubt we would have got far anyway.

We've spent some time in the garden, even spotting a UFO one day...

It's been that long since we've seen the sun we'd forgotten what it looked like!

With all that rain over the last few months and now finally some sunshine, our garden has been transformed in to an oasis of colour.

We've got flowers popping up all over the place, I'm not sure we planted all these, I'm sure some have sneaked in from somewhere.

We definitely planted these though, lilly's, looking beautiful against a lovely blue sky.

While Debbie took pictures of flowers, I took over 200 snaps of a police helicopter...

I just wonder how many pictures they took of me!



Paul

Uncle Paul & Auntie Debbie

It's been a mad week! On Sunday we took Dad out for a birthday dinner at a local pub and when we got back to his house he had a message to say that my brother and his expecting wife had gone to hospital for a check up.

The heavens opened in the early hours of Monday morning, giving us 10mm of rain by 6am. We set off to work and the rain just kept coming and coming. Debbie was sent home early with the situation getting quite serious all around us. Given the horrendous traffic, Debbie just came straight to me rather struggle home and back again. When we did eventually get home, the rain gauge now read 80mm! We watched the news in amazement at the extent of the flooding in Sheffield just down the road.

On Tuesday morning at 6:30am the text message came through that we were waiting for, our neice had arrived, born at 4.05am weighing in at 7lb 12oz!

Dad managed to get to the hospital to see his Granddaughter and filled us in when he got home that evening. We were hoping to visit the hospital ourselves on Wednesday but the traffic around here was bonkers with all the main routes into Sheffield still closed through fear of a dam bursting.

As it happens, Mother and Daughter were allowed home on Wednesday night and after a day of adjusting to their new world on Thursday, we went to visit last night.

She's absolutely gorgeous, she slept the whole time we were there, just stirring now an again waving her tiny arms about.

Can't wait to see her again!

Paul

Back To The Coast

Debbie finished her course of antibiotics on Friday and with her mouth still sore on Friday morning we still weren't sure about going out for the day on Saturday. Thankfully, by Friday night the pain had eased enough and we decided to go for it.

We invited my brother along who stayed over on Friday so we could get away early and head off to Robin Hoods Bay.

We had a blast on the beach, Debbie celebrated the passing of toothache by climbing up the cliffs and hopping across the rocks while my brother and I tried less risky routes around the pools and streams. There was more water about than normal despite the tide being right out because of all the rain water still flowing from the hills following the heavy rain on Thursday and Friday.

Lucy had a ball too, she's getting better and better with water, she was speeding round the rocks, diving in to numerous rock pools head first.

After exploring every corner of the beach and with Lucy looking like a drowned rat, we called in at Whitby for a tray of chips and a look round the shops. The rain finally caught up with us late in the afternoon so we headed off home having had a brilliant day but we were all totally and utterly knackered!

Paul

Flamingo Land

We finally got around to loading some pictures from our day out at Flamingo Land back in May.

Debbie took 133 pictures of the Sea lions, thank goodness for digital photography! You can see the best shots of the day here.

Paul

Achey Breaky Tooth

Debbie's been having a rough time with toothache recently which has been getting worse over the last few weeks. It started out as nothing more than a sensitive tooth, so we booked ourselves into the dentist for a checkup. The required treatment wasn't to be until July as our new dentist was off on holiday for a month.

Last week the sensitive tooth turned into excruciatingly painful tooth and I tried to get Debbie into the dentist earlier. They still couldn't offer us anything earlier than 3 weeks and by Friday Debbie could take no more so we rang NHS Direct. They promised an appointment somewhere that day and would call Debbie on her mobile to let her know.

Thing is, Debbie's phone has been playing up a bit and when they rang it didn't and went straight to answerphone. They didn't leave a number and Debbie hadn't got the NHS Direct number with her so called me.

I called our dentist to get the NHS Direct number but after explaining why I wanted it, Debbie had an appoint that afternoon!

I got a phone call late on Friday from a very tearful Debbie who just wanted to go home. It turned out that the offending tooth was cracked inside, this is what was causing all the pain. There wasn't any option but to have the tooth extracted, so out it came, but not without an almighty struggle.

After the anesthetic wore off the pain started to return but we hoped that would subside by morning.

Morning came but the pain was still there, pain killers seemed to do the trick so we set off to the coast as planned. Poor Debbie struggled through the day, popping pills and putting on a brave face as we explored Mablethorpe and Cleethorpes.

The pain was worse than ever on Sunday morning so we called NHS Direct again and after going through everything were instructed to go immediately to Accident & Emergency.

The hole where the tooth used to be was now sporting an abscess, Debbie had two options, go to see a specialist for more drilling or take antibiotics and a new cocktail of pain killers. Debbie opted for option 2, we left with 2 kinds of pain killers, antibiotics and a mouth wash.

The new drugs seemed to do the trick and the swelling and pain has been subsiding over the last couple of days. The course of antibiotics lasts until Friday by which time the hole formerly known as tooth will hopefully have healed completely.

Paul

Back To Work

We've been back at work for 4 whole days and it already feels like we've never been away, roll on next holiday!

We did have a great time last week though, Debbie took over 300 pictures while we were at Flamingo Land, we'll have to find some time to post a few of them.

It wasn't until later in the week that we discovered that Debbie's new camera was rather good at doing movies too or we could have got some great action shots of those mental rides.

We we're lucky with the weather while we were off, our garden became the favourite hang out for the local Starling population, tucking into free snap and cooling down in the new bird bath.

The weather seems to be picking up again, it's been freezing this week but I think the shorts will be coming out again tomorrow. We can't complain though, it's done wonders for the garden, there is green everywhere now with the odd hint of the colours that are just around the corner.

Paul

OLD

Sorry for the lack of post! It's been a bit of a sad time at the mo, we lost Grandma who is now resting with Grandad and causing havock up there sorting out our guardian angels.......

We just had a week off work and got some much needed jobs done around the house, the bathroom has been redesigned and is looking pretty good, all we need to do in there is pick a suitable floor covering to which we can not make our minds up at all, so hence its bare floorboards, I have acheived something that I thought I would never do and that is tiling part of the bathroom!

We spent a day at Flamingo Land and got burnt to a crisp, the rides were fantastic and even Paulie went on all the fast ones (this aint the norm), but all in all it was fantastic and just what we needed, we giggled all day and came home on a very high.

Thursday was my 36th birthday (boy Im feeling old), we had an appointment at the hospital to see the professor, who was chuffed with how much weight Ive lost and Im now off the tablets but sticking with my change of life, Im not going back to the old Debbie!!

Friday was a day of shopping making sure we had everything for our BBQ on Saturday.

Saturday was a pure delight, I woke up and Paulie had booked me a surprise, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 at the cinema, after a chill it was back home to arrange the seating plan and get all the fatty food on the BBQ (Hence I had my food set to one side no FAT in mine Please).

My twin brother Mark and his girlfriend Kath arrived and so did my sister Tracy and her husband Ray, next was Paulie's Dad and his brother David then some very close friends Lisa & Dan with their two Children Beth & Charlie (Our adopted niece & Nephew) and last another close friend Claire with her husband Alec & son James!

We even had a birthday cake and candles to blow out, all in all it was a fantastic night and too much Champagne and no food does wonders for a Sunday wake up!!

Debbie .x.

Grandma

Fascinated that you were a welder during World War II, making aeroplane wings for Spitfires, treasuring the memories of those week long summer stay overs when I was growing up and having a chuckle thinking back to how animated you got during grappling time on Saturday afternoons.

Grandma, we'll miss you...