My Week — August 10th

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My week this week has been much quieter.  Thankfully.   In fact there is nothing in the diary at all.   That’s not to say we didn’t do anything, it has still been a bit bonkers but mostly involving me dropping off youngest teen to various social engagements.  And sorting out the house.   It struck this week that my mood is directly related to the state of the house.   For the past couple of weeks it has been chaos with mess in every room and the garden looking like we have abandoned it.  Well we had.     So this week I have resolved to tidy at least one room at a time so I don’t feel like I am drowning in a sea of mess.   Our house will never be a show home but at least it doesn’t feel quite so much like a squat.

We have this week experienced the NHS at its very best though.   We take our health service for granted and I do truly believe that it is one of things that makes Britain great, that we have access to free health care.   In Hampshire we are incredibly lucky to have a service called 111.   A non emergency medical service where you can be triaged and if necessary referred to an out of hours doctor.  We have used it twice this week, and both times it has resulted in us seeing a GP at 10pm, a prescription written and drugs administered within an hour.     I think it’s unforgivable that the NHS is being targeted for budget cuts, we should be doing all we can to invest and protect it.

Anyway, I don’t want to get political so early in the morning.

We ended the week in the best way possible, with all the teens here (I have to stop calling them that, Caity is no longer a teen and next month Jonnie won’t be either), and with our good friends the Cookes coming over for a barbecue.    We love spending time with them and despite them only living a few miles away we don’t get to do it often enough so nights like that are always great fun, with lots of catching up.

 There was food, way too much food (do let me know if you need eight cooked burgers or 24 sausages today) and plenty of wine.   I don’t quite know how but we ended the night watching a Sing-a-long version of Frozen.  Much to the disgust of the boys.

We did also get to try this wine.  Made by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, dontcha know.

It seems that whilst we have found some time to put our feet up so did Mr and Mrs B senior who have finally finished this 1000 piece jigsaw.   We were asked if we would like to review a jigsaw from Gibsons a couple of months ago, in fact right after we had spent the day at Buckingham Palace.   So it seemed appropriate that we chose this one and send it to them as a bit of a reminder of our day:

Fab isnt it?  And for under £13 a bit of a bargain.  You can buy it on Amazon or in John Lewis

Oh and we also have two new members of the family.   Who arrived with a bit of a story, as you would expect of BB Towers.   So…. I promised Ellie that if she got great GCSE results she could have a present and she wanted a chinchilla.  I don’t do rodents but chinchillas are much bigger (think squirrel sized) so it didn’t seem to bad.    But results day is August 20th and yesterday was clearly, well, not.   However, this happened in the afternoon:

I thought Ellie had gone to Next with her BFF Becky but apparently it also involved a trip to Pets at Home.   And chinchillas.   And me then going along, accompanied by Caity and Jonnie.  Caity under strict instructions from her boyfriend that she was not to buy anything, and Jonnie thinking he quite fancied having a chinchilla too.

An hour later Chuck and Chester were in the back of the car

Along with a cage, bedding, food, a hammock, a sand bath and I have no idea how many toys.

I have told Ellie though that if she gets a D hers is going back.

Seems reasonable, right?