Getting things done!

I had several items on my to-do list to tick off today, and most of them involved work on the outside of the house!

The day dawned cloudy and dull, but this was probably for the best as it wasn't too hot, and I was cleaning windows so I didn't want the sunlight streaming through and highlighting all the smears I'd no doubt made!

Keith and I started at 9am, and we worked right up until about 4pm so a full day of cleaning, gardening and getting long-overdue chores completed! After I'd cleaned the front windows, I washed all the soffits on the porch and then noticed a whole bunch of weeds in the front garden!

Keith trimmed the verge while I pulled up the weeds, hoed the soil and then swept up everything. Vince and Sue were also out in their garden so it was lovely to chat with them as well.

As well as cleaning and gardening we sorted out a collection from the council for some old furniture stored in our garage, did the weekly shopping list and meal plan, and I hoovered the garage which was in a real mess! While I was doing that, Wilby Tree arrived to look at the ivy that's growing on the side of the house and needs to be removed. It has reached the eaves of the house but more importantly, it's on the sidewall where our new window will be. We also spoke to him about the Silver Birch that is really tall, but he said cutting a lot off the top would badly affect the tree. As for the branches hanging over our side and affecting the light, that's down to us to sort out!

We had a brief respite from all the chores when we picked up Mike from work! He was out earlier than usual and the school traffic was still about, making it difficult to get through! Roll on July 20th when they break up for the summer holidays!

When we returned we cut the grass in the back garden and chopped down some of the offending branches. Everything looked so much better when we'd finished, and I was extremely pleased that we'd done as much as we could today.

When Sophie returned from work, I went and had a gorgeous deep and bubbly bath and then I prepared dinner of breaded pork escalopes. It was bliss to finally relax after we'd eaten, and watch Andy Murray play a German player in the second round at Wimbledon. There was a real danger he was going to lose halfway through - how ironic would that have been! - but he won in the end! Phew!