Fri 15 April - A Pregnant Theme

Luckily Florin didn't turn this the morning, but not luckily our tin remained in a pile in the drive.

We took the opportunity of being up and about early to go on a sofa hunt.  Lucky us.  Think I'd rather be doing dodgy deals with pikeys.  But we didn't, instead we visited a number of furniture stores, tried out a wonderful array of sofas, all very splendid but each one not quite right.  And they all had a two month delivery time. 

We eventually went back to the original burgundy sofa.  It still ticked all the right boxes (ie long enough for KP's lanky legs), apart from the colour.  I still couldn't quite get my head around a burgundy sofa.  The solution came when the very nice shop assistant produced a great big folder with a huge selection of fabrics.  Yes!  The answer.  A dark red flecked tweedy look became the compromise.  Something my Gran would have, mumbled KP but he conceded nonetheless.  Granny's sofa was ordered with a promised delivery at the end of May in time for Sian's visit.

And so it was back home for more painting for me and some work on the electrics for KP.  My washing machine still being live, as I found out when I emptied the drum in bare feet the other day, KP set up an earth for it.  He also moved all the electrics from the upstairs bathroom to the outside and sealed up all those on the inside.  We can now have a shower without having to keep our wellies on.

We were joined towards the end of the afternoon by four of our neighbours.  A very nice English couple from Devon who bought a house up the lane about 4 years ago and who have recently sold a share to the equally nice American couple who were with them.  We certainly do have a real international community up here in our little hamlet.  So far we've met English, Swiss, Italians (of course), Romanians, a Ukranian, and now the Americans too.  Fascinating.

And then Florin finally turned up just as we were turning in.  Problems with his truck this morning he said.  

He loaded up the last of the tin, and then his blasted truck wouldn't start.  So there we were, covered in paint and ready to finish for the day, trying jump start a pikey's truck full of tin.  There was me, KP, Florin's heavily pregnant wife and two kids.  Failing badly due to the uphill incline, KP got the old climbing rope out and attached it to poor old Rosemary to pull him up the hill.  Having none of it, she had a right old hissy fit (good girl!), so we swapped her for the beastie.  Success at last and Florin was on his way, but not before he asked to jump on our Internet and use KP as an interpreter for his negotiations.  Bugger off, said a tired and hungry KP.  Nicely put thought I.

Shower, supper, bed.

But bed was neatly scuppered by finding a heavily pregnant cat under the bed in KP's guitar case, looking suspiciously as though said guitar case was about to become a labour ward.  Not wanting to (a) have a bunch of kittens born under our bed or (b) create too much dependency on us from our feral friend, we set about trying to move her on.  What a joke.  She had the pair of us chasing her round the house like lunatics, me wielding a broom as being the only way to remove her from the nooks and crannies she tried to escape into.  

Eventually the hissing, spitting ball of fury was 'encouraged' out the door.  

I hope she's OK.