Living and Learning...: Cars, Fires and Sunshine!!

It's been a funny kind of week.... Not 'ha, ha' funny most of the time but just weird and stressy on occasions. Firstly our beloved Subaru Forester (which was due to be sold on as it's getting on a bit and starting to cost money) suddenly started making very odd noises from the engine area and died an untimely death. As we live out of town and Dave needs a car for his work we were now stuck without any transport (his van is also off the road!!) My lovely MIL stepped in and offered to buy us a new (to us) one so after spending a couple of days trying to find one nearby we are now the proud (well relieved, more than proud!) owners of a little Citreon Saxo.

The day after getting the car Dave then had a phone call from the people he was working for (he's a self-employed Handyman) saying that they had lost confidence that he would finish the job to their time-scale and they would find someone else. Not quite sure how the guy thought we could have got a car any quicker but hey lets hope he doesn't have to wait weeks for someone else to take the job and charge him twice as much (said with a slightly bitter and sarcastic tone!!)

Then to top it all off we merrily lit the fire one evening to then have the whole chimney roar (literally!) and find we had a chimney fire....GRRRRRREAT!! After slightly minor panic with big clouds of black smoke, flames leaping out of the top and the cowl melting the Fire Brigade turned up just as the flames went out!! Fortunately the chimney in our house must be rock solid as no smoke managed to get in the house at all and the kids carried on sleeping without the alarms going off! Even a houseful of firemen (and one firewoman) didn't wake Ben who was most miffed the next morning to find he had missed all the drama!

Still......on the bright side we have had lovely sunshine for the last few days and we have spent a nice few days at home in the garden. This doesn't usually happen as I get fed up with our garden looking like Steptoe and Sons back yard and run away at any possible moment, but it's been remarkably relaxing pottering about actually getting some things done instead of trying to ignore it!!