Country Life: I got a cowd

We've been out of the house in Bushwillow Park for 3 months and this is the first time I've got a case of the sniffums ... considering we were sick almost every three weeks when we lived in Edenvale, I don't think that's too bad. No, not been to the NHS yet and don't intend to at this point in time.

Well snow is upon us - although we haven't had any so far this weekend to speak of but the wind has picked up and weather reports are threatening that we should get more snow between now and middle of next week.

The water pipes in the utility room froze (well it is generally about minus 2 in that room, even when the sun is shining) and then broke, so we ended up with a leak. Let me rephrase that. The utility room floor was a water bed ... the vinyl covering the concrete floor was all squishy and floating on top of a lake. We got hold of the managing agents (Nige ... he's a *%$# legend), said legend called the plumbers and they came this morning at 8am (when they said they would). About an hour later, all was fixed. So now we can do washing, which Hayzel is busy doing with a vengeance, as I type up this blog post from my sick bed in ward 1. (Send donations in lieu of flowers)

Allyson has moved into her new flat/apartment with Ronnie and judging by the pictures she's sent me on Whatsapp it looks really cute - you are spoiled missy :) Good luck and congratulations on having your own place to play housey housey. After living on the balcony at our house in Kingfisher Crescent for years and dossing on sofas since we left for the UK ... you deserve it Sweetie, so make the most of your new pozzy - now you can try your hand at some unbelievable chuckun in your new oven!

Sorry you didn't get to play cricket today, Dave. Sounds like you have a hell of a strenuous time of it ahead of you next weekend though, dude. How can you play 4 games in two days? God, even the pros wouldn't be able to do that! Anyway, I look forward to updates and seeing your ranking rise on Last Man Stands website.

I took some pictures the other day but couldn't post them as the Nikon battery (not batteries, duh) died. Of course, it's rechargeable and me like a twit went and bought a line of A++ batteries from Tescos ... duh again. So four hours later and voila! camera is charged and ready to go again. (I'm such a tosser sometimes). Tesco's delivered the monopod, I have used it with the Fuji camera and it seems like a cool toy but I agree, Toni - think that I may need to bow down and buy a real tripod at some stage, as I doubt the monopod will be up to the challenge. It's a nifty walking stick and it has a compass ...

I also bought some lickle bookcases for our office and thanks to our Handyman, these were assembled in no time and seem reasonably sturdy. I'm finding that buying stuff online is the bees armpits - it's so cool to press 'send' after checking out at the till and a couple of days later a nice chap arrives with your parcel right to your door. Hayzel isn't finding it so easy - she also ordered some stuff from Tesco's but I think we have to go and collect it from the superstore next week.

On Monday I'm supposed to be going to JobCentrePlus to apply for my National Insurance number. Kevin, who applied after Hayzel and me, got his number on Saturday morning with the mail.

We don't know, at this stage, whether the schools will be closed again tomorrow - I hope not but will keep you updated if this is the case.

Same as previous, if you click on the photo it will take you to the full size image/s: