Saturday 17 August 2013

Catching up

Well, we're nine weeks in and doing grand! Amelie has settled beautifully into our family, and everyone just adores her.
It's nearly the end of the summer holidays here, and it's actually gone pretty well. The kids have been good at entertaining themselves when we've been busy doing housey things/baby care, and in between, we've made a good effort to spend quality time with all of them.

Last week, we went on a family holiday to Craig Tara holiday park in Ayrshire, and it was lovely to spend some chilled out time just having fun together. There were loads of things to do, but being the outdoorsy, camping types that we are, the highlights included walking along the beach and playing cards in the caravan!
Oh, and the sunsets...
Isn't that stunning? Who needs flashy entertainment and arcades when you can sit outside and look at this!

Anyway, we're back home and Steve had another week off, so the past week has been spent trying to catch up around the house. I love it when he's home, not only do we get to spend lots of family time together, he always seems to find himself a project so that when he goes back to work, the house is always better than it was.
This time, it's the garden. One half of our garden had become a bit of a dumping ground. It was full of uneven slabs, recycling boxes, storage bunkers, the wheelie bin and some big overgrown trees. Often we would fill the wheelie bin within a week, so would end up with bin bags cluttering up the area as well.
Steve has worked wonders this week, trimming and cutting down the trees, moving the bunkers, bin and boxes, and doing endless skip runs to get rid of unwanted bits and bobs. 
Here's how it looks so far...
Those trees at the back were completely overgrown, you culdn't even see that back wall! The rest of that slabbed area was rammed full of bunkers and boxes and bins, he's done a grand job!
The next step is to flatten it all, put down grass and hopefully build a little summerhouse at the back for the kids to play in, and we will also build a stone bbq and domed bread oven, I've always wanted one of those! It'll be a beautiful place to sit on a nice evening, and perfect for Amelie to toddle about in once she's bigger.
I love how Steve takes it upon himself to think of these projects and turn our house into a home.

Before I met Steve, I'd just moved back into this house, and apart from the extension being built, there had been no major renovation work done in the house for over 20 years. The past year has been spent planning (and paying for!) our wedding and the arrival of Amelie, so now we're getting stuck into making the house the way we want it.
This will mean a lot of decluttering, a lot of decorating and a lot of building work, so we will have loads of upheaval but it'll be worth it in the end.
On monday, we have a joiner coming to make some huge changes in our living room, kitchen and hallway, so I'll blog about those as they happen.

Another big change here is the fact that I'm still dairy free, so I've discovered the world of vegan cooking, using this book...
It's by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who runs the website Post Punk Kitchen, a truly inspirational vegan way of life! I'll be blogging plenty about this as well, it's bringing a much more xciting way of cooking and eating veggies into my life, and everything I've made so far is delicious!

Anyway, I think that's enough catching up for one day. I have a hungry baby shouting at me, so best go and feed her. Have a great day!

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