I've seen the light!

I'm now two weeks into the kitchen refurb, and with probably only one week to go. I'm really happy with the progress, though it has been quite stressful (for me) at times. I have to say that my lovely Builder shows no signs of stress at all, maybe because he is doing this all the time and knows the drill. I find making decisions for my house incredibly difficult, whereas when I was doing this sort of thing for clients, back in Cambridge, I had no doubts about choosing colours, fabrics or furniture. Choosing for someone else, especially when you have worked out a complete design scheme, is really easy. Choosing for yourself isn't and come to think of it, that's probably why so many people hired me to do their Interior Design for them!

Anyway, after painful deliberations I have now settled on a colour to paint the tongue and groove walls and on the colour for the ceiling and woodwork. This weekend I have also bought four castors for the small trolley, a classic ceiling rose, two fabulous over-the-top chandeliers, one for the kitchen and one for the entrance hall, in the special lighting event at BHS (and they were amazing bargains) and a lovely stainless steel pedal bin (a luxury item for me). Next I need a trip to Ikea to collect my chosen kitchen tap, some curtains and a curtain pole for the Dining
Room and a couple of their grey woven wicker baskets to try out on my new shelves.
So far, so good.

Christmas is galloping up now, and I'm doing pretty well with shopping and presents. I'm off on a flying visit to my ABF on Thursday as she is having her pre-Christmas lunch for a dozen or so friends. I'm planning to drive there on Thursday morning and back here on Friday morning - Daughter has promised to look in on the Builders to make sure all is OK. On Tuesday it's Grandson's Christmas Play which is being held in the local village church this year. He is very excited about this, as he is the one to introduce it. I'm so looking forward to seeing it, and singing carols with them. His end of term is Friday, so I'll collect him from school and have him here overnight while Daughter celebrates her Birthday with friends. She is going to be 29 on Sunday and is planning a whole weekend of celebrations. We're going to have lunch somewhere on Sunday and then she is having champagne with more friends in the evening. I'm hoping Son might come down for the weekend too, but that might not happen. We'll see.

I must say that, idle as I am, I'm really looking forward to being able to get up when I want and trundle around in my dressing gown again. At the moment I'm up with
the lark (or robin) and throwing any old thing on to welcome the Builder and make tea. Roll on my lovely new kitchen. You'll be happy to know that I'm keeping up my daily diary on the progress, and taking at least one photo a day, so when it's finished I'll be able to show you.

By the way, we had the funnniest snow here - very heavy and thick (at least 6 inches of lovely fluffy stuff) for a couple of days - with blue skies, freezing cold. Then it disappeared with the overnight rain on Friday and was completely vanished by Saturday morning. Grandson was terribly disappointed, but I can't say I minded too much...