The good... and the bad!

Day 3 of kitchen renovation.

We had no builders turning up early this morning, thank goodness so it was nice to ease into the day without the fear of being caught out!

I left for work early and called into the garage at Moulton to buy myself a coffee and pastry. It was easier than making a coffee at home! I have asked Keith to try and fill our cool box with ice blocks so we can keep the milk there during the day! He is also trying to get the washing machine connected again, and if he does, that will be a huge help!

At work, Sheila had also brought in pastries so I had another one... delicious! It held me in good stead for a busy shift, and I managed to do the box office returns in between phone calls. Sara and Sheila were helping out and I have to say it was a particularly pleasant few hours!

At 4pm I sped off to see what developments had been made in the kitchen while I was at work. Keith and Mike were at home, but just about to leave for Abbie's house. Mike is now off work for a week and they're going to be driving down to Southampton to look at flats. I was absolutely delighted to see the washing machine working and a load in progress! It stood forlornly in the middle of the kitchen and reminded me of the machines you get when you rent a villa in Spain and it's situated down in the basement or a scruffy garage! We had also been lent an oven and dual plate hob from the electrician which was wonderful! We now (almost) have a kitchen again! As well as all this, the lights had been fitted in the ceiling and they looked great.

Our makeshift kitchen!

Keith and Mike left and I went out into the garage to put the load of washing into the tumble dryer. However, it wouldn't work... Both fridges were also switched off so I went back inside and had a look at our fuse box. The cooker switch was down, so I put it back up and went into the garage but nothing was working, not even the light. I even tried putting the fuses in the garage down, and then back up again, but nothing helped.

I called Keith who said he would try and find the problem when he got home. I couldn't believe it - it was great about the washing machine and the oven, but here we were with another set of problems to solve! When Keith arrived home he checked everything but nothing worked so we think maybe the electrician had isolated something in the kitchen which had affected the power in the garage. All we could do was rig up an extension lead from the conservatory so we had power to the electrics in the garage, and then leave it and try and sort it out on Monday.

I gave Keith a lift to the pub and returned home where Sophie and I opened a beautiful bottle of Rose Malbec from Argentina, poured some popcorn into a bowl and relaxed for an hour. Our dinner was simmering away in the slow cooker, and we had mashed potatoes and veggies to go with it, which were microwave friendly.

Dinner was a success and the new lights looked beautiful - they are very bright, but we're going to have dimmer switches on the pendant lights to soften the effect at night. After dinner, we listened to music on Sophie's Echo Dot and looked forward to the weekend!