Changes afoot!

Sophie was in at uni at 10am this morning and before heading home, Keith and I drove over to Wellingborough to find the office where I was going for an interview next week. I found it easily (thank goodness for Google maps!) and we headed home for breakfast of coffee and toast.

It's been another lovely day today with a frost this morning and plenty of sunshine and blue skies. I finished my assignment and emailed it off to my tutor so that's it! I will await the comments and hope that it's all OK. I won't actually use this qualification (if I get it) and I do sometimes think that I've wasted time on the course, but at least I can say I've done it and it's another string to my bow! Having completed the course I've come to the conclusion that the profession is not for me and doing this certificate would not have guaranteed me a job anyway. But I've learnt a lot so I don't think it's all been a waste of time.

Mid-morning I received an email from Peter from the franchise company and he sent me the agreement. It stretched to 38 pages and it was scarily similar to the one we had to read when we sold the business. It's all getting very real now and important decisions will have to be made over the next few weeks. At the moment I feel like diving into a warm burrow and hiding!

We picked Sophie up from uni and once home, Sophie resumed her revision for a forthcoming test and I had a good look at the agreement I'd received. The general opinion was to ensure a proper Franchise Lawyer looked at it, but they charge around £400-£700!

Mike was out in the evening for a meal at Pizza Hut with some friends (oh, yes...it's Valentine's Day!) so Keith decided to take Sophie and me out as well and we went to The Lamplighter. I imagined it would be really busy there, but there were hardly any people in so it was great to sit and have a good talk over their delicious food accompanied by some good beer. We had garlic bread to start followed by a BBQ burger for Sophie, steak and ale pie for Keith and a Piri Piri chicken burger for me.

Mike called before we had even started our main course as his meal was over! We asked him to wait for us in McDonald's and by 8.15pm we were on our way home. Sophie and I settled down to watch The Moorside and very good it was, too!

A chill wind blows.

Even though we have seen a welcome return of the sunshine today, it has still been bitterly cold because of the chilly wind.

We had a lazy start to the day (I always seem to wake up late on Mondays!) and took Sophie to uni at midday. I managed to write a fair amount of my assignment before we went so that's a weight off my mind. I just have one more question to do and I'm finished. It's been a hard slog, I have to admit, and I just hope that I have passed the entire course. I really don't fancy doing it again!

After we dropped Sophie off at uni, we went to Lidl to do some shopping. Miraculously we had Mike with us and he picked out some foods that he wanted although, sadly, the supermarket didn't stock Poptarts! I always feel like I'm in a European supermarket when we go to Lidl and I enjoyed looking at all the different cold meats and cheeses on offer.

After Lidl we popped into Homesense as I still had a £20 voucher to spend. I picked out a new cafetiere and some coffee, as well as a bar of luxury chocolate and a box of biscuits! Mike and I ate the chocolate on the way to pick up Sophie!

We dropped our son off in Brixworth on the way home and both Sophie and I settled down to do some work. I received an email from a recruitment agency in Wellingborough regarding a job I'd applied for about two weeks ago and was asked if I could attend an interview next week. This was a bit of a shock as I'd resigned myself to the thought that I hadn't been successful!

Outside, the sun was still shining so we decided to walk Monty around the estate for half an hour, just to get some fresh air. We went to see the horses, but they were far off in the distance so we walked back and did a circuit of the estate. Half way around we saw Keith coming towards us and he asked us the time...we'd missed a telephone appointment with Sophie's doctor! I felt awful as I was the one who had suggested going for a walk, but Keith said the doctor had told him Sophie's results and they were normal, which was great.

We did another circuit and then went back inside and tried the swim nappy on Monty again. He was having none of it so he is still out in the garage but seemed happy enough curled up on his cosy bed!

Monty and the nappy saga, part 2...

Yet another day has dawned miserable, grey and wet with the temperature hovering around 1c. Today has been windy as well, though, and the promised snow never arrived.

After a lazy start Sophie and I went down to Riverside to buy some pull-up pants for Monty. We don't know what else we can do to alleviate the problem and I was hoping that Pets At Home would stock something suitable. We headed to Costa first and had a welcome cup of coffee and a sandwich. The cafe was heaving with people and the retail park itself was busy. I should think that soft play centres and indoor leisure parks are having a field day at the moment!

The range of products at Pets At Home was remarkable - I've never seen so much stuff for animals in my life and I did eye up some of the dog paraphernalia with new interest! If the franchise takes off and I get to walk dogs regularly there will be no end of stuff I will need, poopy bags in particular!

The store did have some doggy diapers in stock ( the same ones we bought from Amazon last time) but we were after pull-up pants as the nappies wouldn't stay on. After having a look at lots of things (and marvelling at the prices!) we went to Boots and I bought a pack of baby swim nappies!

Back home we attempted to put them on the cat but again, with no success. The only other thing we can think of is to get some cat pants and see if they work!

A grey and dismal day...

Today, the weather has been truly horrible - we've had sleet and rain all day, it's cold (1c) and there has been no sunshine at all. It's enough to drive you mad!

I hadn't planned anything for today which was a mistake as I was cooped up in the house with no plans. I really should have decided to do some decorating or even carried on with some research for my family tree. Getting out into the garden or going for a walk would have been a horrible experience! We've had this awful grey gloom for a week now, with only the merest hint of sunshine last Tuesday afternoon. No wonder people feel so fed up at this time of year!

Sophie has been at work all day and Mike went out to Brixworth in the early afternoon. Keith went to see a football match so I was on my own and ordinarily I would have enjoyed the peace and quiet but with the dark skies and the constant rain I felt like I was going mad!

I did have a lovely bath, though, and then watched a programme called Escape to the Wild about a couple from London who had moved to the Yukon area of Canada, which, although the same size as the UK, has only 34,000 inhabitants! That's less than Northampton which has over 200,000 people!

Jimmy Doherty went out to visit them (obviously copying Ben Fogle and Kevin McCloud) and arrived just before the winter set in. I cannot imagine living in such a remote place over the winter with no television and very little internet connection!

Sophie finished work at 6.30pm and I went to collect her as Keith was glued to the television watching Newcastle play. On the way home I bought a bottle of wine and some popcorn and Sophie and I sat and played a game of cards in the conservatory. It was the highlight of my day!

A day of paperwork...

It has snowed all day today but it never settled at all, which was a shame. It would have been lovely to see a covering of snow before the weekend!

I took Mike and Sophie to college and uni as Keith had to wait in for the tumble drier technician to come out and rectify some fault that has affected Hotpoint and Indesit machines - the one where it causes the drier to burst into flames! I always clean the filter of fluff and since we bought it two years ago we've never had a problem.

Of course, he arrived just as we were sitting down to eat our breakfast toast but after asking where the light was in the garage he was happy on his own. His presence freaked Monty out who stood at the conservatory door and cried to come in but thankfully he wasn't long and Monty was able to go back to his bed.

Keith and I spent the day grappling with finances - we looked at travel insurance for him as we need to get something sorted out before we pay the balance of our holiday in May. I also looked at the private medical insurance I have and decided I may need to cancel it until I get the franchise up and running. I looked at comparison sites and saw one policy that was £50 a month cheaper than I'm paying now! It galls me to think I've been paying for this policy for years now and have only ever needed to use it once. I dread to think how much I've paid over the years.

We picked Mike up at 3pm and as soon as we were home Sophie sent me a message to say that she would need picking up earlier than normal from uni. Outside the sky was a dark grey and I really thought we were going to have a heavy snowfall...no such luck!

Annoying habits!

Today, like every morning so far this week, has dawned grey and misty with not a hint of sunshine at all. It does make it a bit depressing, I have to say. How I long for sunshine and blue skies!

We took the kids to college and uni and came back to get showered before heading over to Kettering to do our shopping. Once that was done it was home for a late breakfast/early lunch...no Christmas do for us this week!

The next few days are supposed to be very cold, with winds coming from the East bringing snow showers. Whether we will get any decent snow remains to be seen!

Unfortunately, Monty is banned from the house yet again because the other afternoon he sprayed in the kitchen. After getting back in from collecting Sophie and Mike, I went into the conservatory and all he did was yowl to be let in, even though his warm beds are outside in the garage. It really is a problem for us at the moment and I'm at my wits' end as to how to resolve it. Looking at the internet it says that cats spray because of territorial issues or when they feel threatened. Seeing as Monty lives a lovely life of warm beds, plentiful food and lots of attention, I can't see how that can be. He has sprayed all other the house, from our bedrooms, in the living room on the chairs and sofa and once, all over my wine rack. The nappies didn't work, so maybe I can get some kind of pull-on pant for him to wear!

Back again!

We had another early start this morning and I left home before 8am as we have roadworks going on in the village which are causing delays. As I made my way down to a particularly tricky bridge I saw there'd been an accident, which must have just happened. There was a pick-up kind of car embedded in the hedge with a smaller car right next to the bridge itself. How it happened, I don't know, but obviously speed and an ignorance of other road users were factors in the collision.

There were also long queues of cars waiting to get through the four-way traffic lights and it took me a good 10-15 minutes to make it through. Keith and Mike were following later so I knew they'd be stuck as well and I'd warned them after experiencing the delays yesterday!

I was very early (despite the hold-ups) so I treated myself to a Flat White and a muffin in Costa and took them into the office with me. Frank arrived shortly after I did so we set up the laptops and waited for the advisers to come in. Gill arrived but Priya was off sick again so we had Jon come in to help out.

Again, we had a busy session and I saw a couple of people who I knew which was strange. One of the ladies I saw used to work for my parents and she asked after them, which was lovely. She hadn't changed a bit!

We all got away on time and it was great to get home and relax. I answered an email from one of the CAB managers who wants me to attend a meeting later in February about proposed changes where we work, so that should be interesting. There are rumours that the service is going to revert back to how it used to be so I will be pleased to give my input. Frank has asked me to try and get them to re-install our Q-Flow system and I will try! I also took a call from Peter, the franchise owner, about meeting at a half-way point so we could get introduced and have a chat. It looks like things are moving, which is great!

Before going to get Mike from college at the much later time of 6pm, we called to see my parents as Sophie had bought a bottle of wine and a thank-you card for them after they had given her some money for her New York trip. We had a very pleasant hour chatting over a glass of wine and some cheesy biscuits before heading out into the dark to pick up Mike.

Back home we had time for a couple of games of cards and some more wine before dinner!