It's quiet here - 13/7/24

They made it!

My son Michael and Grandson Vinny made it to Boston on Thursday and got through immigration so quickly they had to wait for Mummy to arrive to drive them home to Vermont!  And so their new adventure begins with the family reunited after what has been a difficult couple of months.

And now my house seems so quiet!

These last few weeks have been hard - physically and emotionally.  But somehow we got everything done in Michael's flat and it's now ready for tenants and on the letting agents website.

We had a lovely day on Monday - we took Vinny to a Zoo and Dinosaur Park.  He's a bit big for the buggy now but we were glad we took it as he got tired from all the walking and he's much too heavy to carry far.

Hertfordshire Zoo has an animal section but it also has a Dinosaur Park with huge (and loud) animated model dinosaurs.

Vinny loves dinosaurs but he was a little unsure about all the noise and how close they seemed to be at times lol.

The zoo is only about 40 minutes away from us and we got there soon after it opened so it wasn't too busy at first although several school groups arrived mid morning.

Wednesday was Vinny's last day at his nursery and they had a leaving party for him and the children that will be starting school in September.

Looks so grown up in this photo!

And then VERY early on Thursday morning they left and many tears have been shed.

I've been trying to keep myself busy and therefore distracted and there is plenty to do in my house now - it has been sorely neglected over the past couple of months.  My vacuum cleaner was at the flat more than it was here and dust on wooden floors seems to multiply overnight!

I need to get back to walking too - I haven't done much of that lately as the scales show.  But we did get a couple of things done this week that have needed doing for.....AGES!  (Yes we did move here over 3 years ago as regular readers will know lol.)

A new toilet roll holder in the downstairs bathroom - the old one sloped down slightly and the toilet roll was often falling off onto the floor.

A new shower head in the upstairs bathroom - that doesn't spray water EVERYWHERE except where you want it.

An outdoor clothes airer finally in use.  In an ideal world the holder for this would be concreted into the ground - but neither of us are confident about doing that so I bought a long spike thing that was supposed to just push into the ground and keep the airer secure.  Sounds simple but not if your ground is very stony under the grass and you can't get the spike far enough into the ground!  I then had the brainwave of using our old parasol stand to put the supporting pole into.  Except it's so old and the  screws are rusted so it's unusable.  No problem - I'll order a new one.  Which came quickly and seemed perfect.  Except, despite the fact that it's heavy, the side of our garden can be a bit of a wind tunnel - perfect for drying the washing but not so great for keeping the airer upright!  Yes, it toppled over!  Thankfully I was only drying some very wet dirty towels at the time before I washed them properly so no harm done.  But, having got that far I was not going to be defeated.  Now the old parasol stand is on top of the new parasol stand and together they kept the airer upright yesterday and my bedding dried in no time.  It doesn't look pretty - in fact it looks pretty daft but it can easily be stored away when the grandkids are here and it works for me.  (Also there is no photographic evidence of this madness.)

It will it save on some of the tumble drying now that summer is here.  Oh,  summer seems to have been and gone!  Hopefully it will put in another appearance soon.

One of the advantages (disadvantage?) of having a little one in the house for so long is that my body clock seems to have adjusted to waking up around 6 am each day.  It hasn't had that effect on Hubby though so I'm enjoying having an hour (or 2) in the mornings when I can savour my first cup of tea, watch the birds in the garden and work out how to fill the void that my son and his family have left.

People talk about their glass being either half full or half empty and I'm often more of a half empty person but I'm really 2/3 full because my daughter and her family are close by and my other son and his family are only a car journey away.

Actually my son Matthew and his wife Amy are coming down today and staying overnight as they have tickets for Wimbledon tomorrow!  Which reminds me the bed needs making up so I'd better get a move on.

I didn't post this as a Friday's Fave Five post but I'm sure there are more than 5 things in here that I'm grateful for so I'll still be linking up with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story with other like minded bloggers.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.