Dream a little dream...

I have been keeping Stephen in stiches for the past few days when I wake and tell him about my weird and wacky dreams. There have been bizarre ones this week...the first (that I can remember bits of) was about going with friends to view a house which was on the market. It was a huge manor house and very run down. The ground floor was a bit grubby, but upstairs there were mushrooms growing on the walls and...wait for it...monkeys running around. Yes. I said monkeys!! I can see that this dream might be about moving back, and maybe wanting to make some changes to the house...but the monkeys??

The night after I dreamt that I was in a house somewhere and had to make lots of things out of wood and canvas, then I had to go somewhere else to see someone and was told to use the transporter (a bit like Harry Potter and the flue system!), then I was told I couldn't use it and had to get a taxi. I went out and flagged down a cab, which proceeded to drive through the drive-through Whole Foods supermarket - right through the middle of the aisles. (Will that idea take off I wonder?) At that point the alarm went off, so I could remember enough to recount it to a hysterical hubby.

I think Stephen is preparing the straitjacket for me....

Lactating latte

One of my office-mates caught up with me as I was heading back down from the canteen with my coffee and commented that I looked like I was carrying the Olympic Torch. I explained I was holding it out and to the side as I had spilt some down my leg the day before. What I didn't mention was that I had also spilt some down my top...it wasn't a lot of coffee but it was where it landed that was a tad embarrassing. I looked like I had "leaked"! I had to spend the entire afternoon with my jacket on (and the office was boiling) as, even with the application of Tide pen, there was a visible mark when it dried. I will never be chic and elegant!!

Ever the lawyer, he made a joke (I think!) about suing the canteen and we talked about the woman who sued MaccyD's. Apparently she lost on appeal as it was deemed to be...well, not very sensible...to drive with a container of scalding coffee clamped between your thighs. I explained that it wouldn't be proper driving in America if you didn't have a coffee between your thighs and were texting on your phone with one hand whilst applying your make up with the other!!

Fast tracked through customs

Our ground freight arrived in the UK on Saturday - right on schedule! We were told that it would take 5 - 7 working days for it to clear customs before it could be delivered to us. So can you imagine my surprise when I got a call from the girl at the relocation company at 11am this morning saying that the shipment had been cleared by customs?! ALREADY?? A half a day is not 5 days!! This was a whole week ahead of schedule...and meant that we had to have a mild panic and then move a lot faster to move Mum's furniture into storage than we had been. Mum's stuff is being picked up on Thursday and our stuff is being delivered on Friday. Hopefully there will be no snarl ups or I'll be needing PG therapy by the end of the week!!!!

T.I.M.B.E.R.......

I've spent a lot of time in the garden today. I have savagely pruned a couple of the shrubs most requiring attention. Both had seriously outgrown their space and were swamping the things around them. Both are looking considerably better now they've had a short, back and sides! There are a few more things requiring a haircut, but my shoulders and arms are aching from wielding the loppers...so more tomorrow if the weather holds.

Some bits of the garden are looking picture perfect. At long last the peony has come into its own. They are notorious for taking years to settle in when planted, and true to form I've only ever had one or two flowers per year. Until now. This year it is absolutely covered in beautiful flowers.

Briggs and Briggs Tree Surgeons came round this afternoon to help us cut down a eucalyptus tree which had got too tall and was upsetting a neighbour. It quickly turned into Briggs and Spark Tree Surgeons as Julie and I went off to have a wander round the garden whilst Andy and Stephen actually did the work. There is something quite satisfying about watching other people work...and they did a very excellent job. No expensive plants were squashed, the fence panel is still intact and there were no trips to A&E!

They were doing such a fabulous job that Julie, Louise and I felt able to quit supervising them and pop back to their garden to dig up some geraniums for my garden. I returned the favour by offering up my red hot pokers. This plant sharing business could be a great idea!

The peony in bloom.

The Bleeding Hearts are also looking lovely

Before...the tree to come out

Andy hard at work - lopping off branches

T.I.M.B.E.R.... down it comes!

Sawing it up into managable sections

Two men working in harmony

A job well done! Andy after his exertions - taken by Louise

Didn't we have a lov-er-ly time the day we went to Evesham...

I had a lovely day on Friday. I took a day off work and Julie and I headed off to go plant shopping. Julie knew about a nursery near Evesham and we both had our shopping lists prepared. We stopped off en-route at Morrisons for a coffee. What a palarver! Would you believe that they had run out of cups? We had to wait quite a while whilst they washed them. The queue of hungry builders behind us was getting pretty long...

The nursery was great! We stopped in by the office on the way in and said "Hello, we're here" to the monosyllabic man behind the counter, then grabbed a basket each and went in search of the items on the list. There were about 6 polytunnels to look around and there wasn't much of a clue as to what was in each one. It was good fun searching through the ranks of pots for the correct 'flavour' of plant. Thankfully they were really well labelled. I was doing really well finding plants from Julies list, but not so well finding ones from mine!! When we had quartered the polytunnels and found all we could we headed back to the office to ask for help from monosyllabic man. Several of my choices were sold out, but he found a few of the things we were looking for and dashed off to get them for us. I asked him for a suggestion for something tall, white flowered and smelly as a substitute for the items that were sold out and he dashed off to get that too.

Julie was loading her plants into the boot when he was counting up my purchases. He explained that one of my irises was 3 quid because it had been sitting for 6 years in the mail order section. I laughed and said I was obviously drawn to it as it needed to be taken away and given a change of scene and a lovely new home. From that point on Mr Monosyllabic became Mr Garrulous!! He was chatting away like he hadn't spoken in years (perhaps he hadn't!) and even offered to carry my tray of plants out to the car! So I (or it could maybe have been the Twins) made a new friend!

We stopped in at Evesham Country Park as well. It has a nice collection of shops and a garden centre. Garden Centres here are no longer so much about plants and doing the garden - more about gift centres and outdoor living. Saying that, it was a really nice selection of things for the home...and we managed to pick up a few more plants at reasonable prices too. We had a nice lunch when we were there too - us as the coach loads of pensioners there for the lunchtime OAP special!

Speed it up people!

Stephen has been recounting to me people's reaction when he tells them he is having trouble getting used to the pace of life over here. It seems the reaction is usually "Oh, so the pace of life is much faster over here then?" Erm. No!

We have a car!!!!

We have finally got our mitts on our new car! We have jumped through all the necessary hoops, found all the necessary bits of paper and gone through the handover process at the dealership. The salesman was probably driven to distraction today. He needed Stephen to phone to arrange the insurance, but Stephen was being elusive and then ran out of time. So I had to step in and make the calls - just as well my desk phone in work was finally connected today! When we got to the dealership Stephen chose that moment to forget about being in the UK and tried to turn into the forecourt on the right - into the path of the car trying to exit. Thankfully we all stopped with loads of space, but I did have a little shriek at Stephen! We then had to sign all the paperwork, before the very patient salesman (it HAS taken weeks to shift this car off the forecourt) could take me through all the features (automatic wipers and lights and things - v. swish!) and I could, very gingerly, drive off.

'Wow, the brakes are quite bitey' was my first thought as I gently touched them and then peeled my face off the windshield. My thought from then onward was basically "drive on the left...drive on the left...oh this is nice...drive on the left...drive on the left...f'ing cyclists...drive on the left...oopsie bit fast...drive on the left...drive on the left...".

This is where we should unveil the new car with a leggy lovely draped across the hood...but in the absence of a leggy lovely you'll have to make do with me!

Here it is - our Audi A3
For you petrolheads I should give you some technical details...
it has 4 wheels, a steering wheel and and no clutch pedal.