22 Foxhole East

smallholdingsister

That's the only thing gets me sorting my house out too (only problem is when the one remaining dumping ground is my bedroom).

f0xh0les

Oh dear!
DH rang to get a firm date for when they will be coming.
One of them has been stung by a wasp and therefore the whole thing may be off (!!!!!!?) I swear they are just doing this to wind me up. Next it will be - oh it would be so much easier for you to come to us....

Still, the countdown to half term is on.

Today the hot water cylinder jacket went on, all bedding changed (two doubles, two singles - mine was done last week), laundered, replaced and clean stuff put into the airing cupboard, one blind put up, went to gym for an hour, bought 4 new pillows and a replacement frame for some photos PiL gave DS2 but he broke the frame slamming his door repeatedly when he was having a silly tantrum over nothing. The tantrum stopped as soon as the frame fell off the wall. He got over himself pretty quickly after that. Will cut to size and replace tomorrow while he is at school.

Filled the car with petrol, and the top shelf with GF bits and packets. Wish I hadn't bothered now, but still it is handy to have them in if they descend unexpectedly.
I am thinking of it as prepping for calamity.

DH had a nice birthday. DS1 gave him life size hamster salt and pepper shakers. They were suitably bizarre and I think he likes them quite a lot. He went shopping for clothes yesterday. Came back with lots of bags. I went to Aldi and bought a pair of £7,99 Autumn jeans (not sure how they differ from Spring jeans, or Summer jeans) and a £2.99 pair of capri pants for the gym. - Change from £11.

Peanut butter flapjacks all mysteriously disappeared since yesterday, as did the sponge with tayberry filling and water icing with rose petals. All gone. !!!!!!! There must be a black hole somewhere. They will just have to put up with yogurt for the lunchboxes tomorrow.

The wind is rising here. Might get a little blustery tonight.

I am at the dentist tomorrow morning. That'll be fun.
Kids have already started asking how many days until Advent calenders.

Night all.

smallholdingsister

Enjoy the dentist. They are gluten free as well? The PILs not the dentist.

f0xh0les

MiL is GF DF and has been told not to eat a million other things just in case. Not sure about the dentist.

He got his xrays and notes mixed up and tried to drill the wrong tooth. V not impressed. Had huge adrenaline reaction to the anaesthetic when I got upright, managed to make it down the stairs and heading toward the door when the palpitations and tears came. So wandered down the street in floods, so annoying, but after 20 minutes hiding behind clothes rails in charity shops, and a lot of deep breaths, I felt ok to drive home. Where there was NO COFFEE so could not properly flush out the numbness with caffeine. Numbness finally wore off after 5 and a half hours.

DS4 came home with school ransom demand for swimming lessons. The letter states it costs the school over £150 a week to take the 2 classes, and that the school subsidises the lessons, Not sure how, if 60 kids are paying £3 each a week, then the school is not paying for any of it. Besides, weren't PE budgets devolved so that the schools could buy in whatever sports specialists they wanted so they could choose the sports the kids wanted do? It seems the parents always end up paying.

Then DS3 wants to go on the residential for 4 days -£250, in April so paid another £50 off that one -all via the schoolpay website. £150 left to go

DS 2 is on his 2nd detention this term (30 minutes after school), and we are only 4 weeks in!! Hopefully he will catch himself on soon. It is big school now and they expect more in yr 8.

DH is of to Manchester tomorrow for a lecture, which will be nice for him to see all his old collegues and chums he studied with. Will be a late night home for him though.

And the mortgage has been updated to.......... (drumroll please)......£109.495.00

wishingthemortgaheaway

Is said swimming demand from s primary school?
(I don't know about secondary, but do know about Primary)

They are not allowed to charge for swimming lessons in key stage 2 - its a national curriculum activity therefore it must be provided as part of your free education. (Actually, I'm hoping this still applies in academies- not entirely sure there, but if it's not an academy they definitely can't charge)
There is a loop hole where they can ask for 'voluntary contributions' towards the transport costs to get them there and back in a coach.

Sometimes the coaches are organised through the local authority sports service. So the school is given money into their budget and it's taken straight back out again - in this case it's hard for the school to split the cost of tuition (non chargeable) and transport (voluntary contributions allowed) which makes asking parents for any money dodgy to me.


School's do get additional sport premium money but they are not allowed to spend it on core curriculum activities (of which swimming is one).

The other thing to cHeck is the school's charging policy, make sure what they've said they will do/not do is what is actually happening.

It makes me so cross that some schools do things that are not allowed, and get away with it, where as others are trying to do the right thing and end up in a worse position. Funding in schools is rubbish at the moment, but that doesn't mean they should bend or break the rules.

f0xh0les

Thursday was very productive. Did 4 loads of laundry and dried and folded and returned to owners.

Put up a blind and measured all the other windows that need blinds. Will order blinds when I have found what I want. Know what 2 kids are getting but still looking for the ones for my bedroom.

Fixed a photo frame DS2 broke during a tantrum.. He now knows slamming doors makes things fall off walls.

Decanted half empty boxes of ‘stuff’ and fabric and computer cables in with other similar bits. Threw away 3 broken plastic crates. Now down to one 6 foot x 6 foot metal shelving unit full of boxes! We have too much fabric. We need to make stuff out of it or get rid.

Put DH’s camping stuff away in the cupboard under the stairs. He has it all packed in rigid plastic crates, which is rotten for storing as a lot of it is squishy and blankets and rugs, but not my stuff and not worth the agro of changing it and him not being able to find anything. So, all out of sight and packed away.

Lunch was leftovers

Waited in for DS1’s mattress topper to be delivered, had to get the kids from school, was out of the house less than 3 minutes before I had a text tosay they had tried to deliver but I was out. Grrr.
Getting a redelivery on Saturday.

Moved the tumble dryer through 3 rooms, having to unpack all the boxes from the shelving unit, move the unit, put all the boxes back, move the tumble through, move the shelf back, put all the boxes back on. But it all works much better now. The tumble is in the kitchen, near the washer with a wall inbetween. So that should work better too. Freed up two shelving units. Will have to take them down and find somewhere to store them. Or sell them.

Did after school cross country competition - 66th this time with about 20 kids behind him. He was annoyed as his friends were in the first 10 kids. But he beat someone, and he liked that. I have taught him the idea of being a sniper, and picking them off from behind, rather than trying to be a front runner and getting tired out too quickly.

It was so funny seeing the very very competitive dads, and the very competitive sports teachers (male). They were getting their kids to put their football boots on as the grou nd was very soft and the studs would ‘give them an advantage’. They set off to fast at the start line and all fell over each other. Nobody was hurt.

As I didn’t get back home until just after 5 it was ‘something on toast’ for supper and ice cream cones. Not gourmet but once a week won’t kill them.

DS2 has another hour long detention – he is turning up to lessons without the correct equipment, which is odd, as he has the right equipment in his bag. He is just too lazy to look for it. So he gets a behaviour point. 3 behaviour points is a 30 min detention, 6 points is another 30 minutes, 9 points is a 60 minute detention. Hopefully he will stop it soon. He has had 3 detentions in a week.

f0xh0les

DH has announced he will be looking for a new job, he has reactivated his job search profile. Cue me running around like a headless chicken (inside my head). I was working on a timescale of making the house look good for the surveyor for the remortgage in Feb. Now I may be looking at a re-sale over summer.

So after dropping that bombshell, and DS2 acting like The Child from Hull all weekend, he has calmed down quite a lot, but is still majorly stressed, DS2 came home with the news he is on the 'gifted and talented' list. Which is great as DS1 was on it and I know he was miffed he was not. Even though he wants to be seen as the funny one, not the clever one. Kids eh? Anyway, it opens up a new list of activities and away days for him to be involved in. Well done DS2.

Bought two blinds for the top floor bedrooms, so that is 2 rooms completely finished except a bit of wood filling on the doors.

Bought two more blinds for my bedroom, so now I have the blinds and the wallpaper, I just need a plasterer.

Had to lend DH £200 of the plastering budget as he feared he would be left short after buying DS1 his birthday present, so basically I bought the present. He just thinks he did.

Filled the pantry, should not need to buy another single food item for at least a week, only 4 days until half term so shan't have to bother with expensive lunchbox tat next week either. Need to do a proper inventory and meal plan.

The YS fairy waved her magic wand at me yesterday. 3p loaves of bread and doughnuts and rolls and all sort of lovely things. No excuses for further food spends.

Spent the day cleaning and hoovering from the top of the house, putting up two coat racks and getting rid of a freestanding clothes rail, it all looks much neater. Didn't make it all the way through the back room (where the kids congregate to play on the computer and to lie on the sofa bed playing multiplayer interactive games on their DS. So the tat tends to accumulate on every single surface in that room. I will atttack the back room and the kitchen and dining room tomorrow. So that is the entire back of the house.

Also need to order the kids school photos. Where do they get off charging the money they do for a photo?? The cheapest one is £12 and it is a very small photo. Still, it will do as part of some Xmas presents.

Oh dear, poor Wales!!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Oh Fox, what a bombshell to be dropped..

How long have you been where you are?

I think I would castrate my hubby if he did that with no discussion.
Well done for your self restraint.

greenbee

I hope your DH appreciates you... and the fact that you didn't turn him around and tell him to come back when he'd thought about it. (or castrate him!).

Has he thought about the potential impact on the kids schooling for one thing? As well as all the work you're going to need to do on the house.

I hope the situation resolves itself soon. In the meantime, I guess at least you've got a deadline, and a plan...

f0xh0les

As the world of higher education is a strange and incomprehensible beast, and that he has teaching commitments until Easter, and that he would never leave the students or the Uni in the lurch, I have at least until end of term June-ish. I know him, and can usually tell when he is complaining and when he has actually had enough. This one surprised me as I thought he would be ok sticking it out for the next 2 years. But he has worked at 5 Universities over the last 6 years, and knows what is usually put on to the academics, and what is taken off them so that they are able to write the lectures and deliver them and give the kids the best education, and his workload is massive as he is teaching the compulsory modules, some of which have 250 plus students on, and he is being drowned in admin.

The Uni has been remiss in hiring lecturers/teaching assistants over the summer to cover lecturers going off on study /book writing leave, and DH can teach practically everything. But there is no point in making himself sick, and he loves his job.

Luckily the whole Uni recruitment process is ridiculously painfully slow.
Good job as I can't afford to get the place sorted at a drop of a hat. I am looking at saving £500, getting a workman in, saving £400 getting carpet put down... etc. I It will be pretty unrecognisable by Christmas though, my aim is having the house totally sorted from the top floor to the bottom step. Watch this space!

Selling the Salford house taught me a lot. But my more importantly I am now not going to get rid of the metal shelving units. They are going to go live in the shed.

We have been here since May 2016 Wishing so he has really given me a 10 months heads up. 10 months!!!!! We were only going to stay here for another 2 or 4 years, as we were thinking GCSE schedules.

It is now no longer Operation Making a Home, it is now Operation Tart Up to sell.