I have to apologise for my absence the last few days. . . weeks? Time is doing a funny thing at the moment.

But I wanted to reassure my wee following that I have not forgotten you and have replied to all of your fabulous comments- thank you!

I have so much to update you all with that I need to have some time to sit down and properly organise myself!!

Some snaps

Husband and I took a trip to Jupiter Art Land, just outside Edinburgh literally a stones throw from my old home and I got a bit happy with the snappy. 

It's definitely worth a visit if your a bit of an art geek and even if you're not they have a wicked cafe and the staff are wonderful. I am not such an art geek but I like this stuff a lot!

Flowers don't answer back I think that's why I love taking pictures of them. That and they don't move much so perfect subject for an amateur photographer! Especially loved these black tulips.

 That is a drive in the between these two Jinx's . . . or is it Jinxsi when there are multiples. . .?

Husband being dwarfed by a giant orchid

 Love this one

 I call shot gun

This is the best looking Hen House going!!

Start rolling little ball. . .

o.k so it is done.

The flat is just about it reach the market, it is official the ball is rolling and we might not been too sure which direction it is going to take us but it has now been nudged and is starting to roll.

Hopefully into a quick sale.

Having never sold a property before we have tried to think of absolutely everything you could possibly imagine and we have been planning our sale strategy for a few months now, possibly even a year. Our lovely first home as a married couple would have to be stripped of us!

The to do list looked a bit like this:

• Painting

We recruited Iain on the basis of his business card- taped to the side of a local hardware store till. 

It read:

Retired & Bored.

Reasonable Rates.

His rates truly were reasonable and he did such a fantastic job we got him to do the bathroom ceiling, kitchen cupboard doors and skirting. He would leave the receipts and left over paints to make sure that we knew he wasn't "at it".

The thing we still can't work out is exactly how he did it. Now I should probably explain we have a small ground floor two bedroom flat and when we covered the walls in purple, cream, blue and caramel it took us days and days. Each time we took on a room there would be plenty of time in between rooms to get over the trauma that moving furniture.

Iain painted our flat in a week.  Our entire flat in 5 days. All in a shade called Timeless. It was another word for white. Not just one coat either, a couple of coats of paint were required. 

All done in 5 days.

I am convinced that he has an Inspector Gadget type body and as soon as he arrived underneath the overalls were another set of arms and he was capable of painting with extendable legs so he didn't need to bother with ladders and such nonsense!

• Rug Doctoring

Once the walls were all sorted it was the floors that were next on the hit list. 

We have cream carpets. Well, we thought they were cream.

Turns out spending your weekend driving a heavy Rug Doctor across our hall, living room and main bed room will not only have you shouting at each other through temporary deafness but it will also teach you the true colour of your carpets. 

A dirty shade of brown it would appear. Now our carpets are gleaming and it could be a shoes off at the door policy until we get prospective buyers through the door.

• Thin, Thin and Thin Some More

If it hadn't been for my fabulous Grandparents I am not sure quite how we would have managed it but 3 (or slightly more) trips through to them has seen our flat empty, empty some more and empty a bit further and there is still plenty of "stuff" still in our little flat.

It begs the question where on earth were we keeping it all?!?! A selection of items that are now out of reach include a set of wine glasses (we still have another set in the flat), 2 mountain bikes, a set of inherited wedding china, wedding dress, fur coat and a set of book shelves (including contents). 

And it's now nearly in the hands of the estate agent. We hand over some of our hard earned cash tomorrow to get it on the market- where it will hopefully be making its debut next week. 

We saw the pictures tonight and I have to say that our little pad looks amazing. All our hard work feels like it had paid off, I hope it has paid off, I pray it has paid off. 

I am going to be sorry to see it go, we've had some excellent times here.

Got married here.

Started and finished our MSc's here.

Had a couple of Christmas' here.

Had a few of arguments here.

Had plenty of laughs, cuddles and snogs here. 

Fingers and toes crossed for lots of viewings by genuinely lovely people who want to buy our fabulous wee flat. 

The next question is . . .

Where will our little rolling ball take us?

Swim fishy swim

8 Sleeps to go before I climb into a wet suit for the 2nd time with the express purpose of swimming in it!

Yes that's right out door swimming.

One mile.

In the out doors.

Did I mention that I'll be in a wet suit?




For plenty of people the idea of swimming doesn't really present any level of anxiety but I have always been a bit nervous about the whole thing. Don't get me wrong I can swim but to the untrained eye it appears more like a fight against the water that results in a very gradual forward momentum. In other words it doesn't really come all that naturally to me!!

                                              






When I was little I remember being held under the water for a fraction too long and feeling that my lungs were about to explode right out my tiny chest. I came up like a bullet out of a gun with tears and snot pouring from my face.


I can breast stroke like the best of them and it is my favourite- there is no questioning the bobbing up, out of the water that leads to lung fulls of fresh air. It is front crawl that I struggle with.

It's optional as to when you tilt your head to one side and gasp that breath of all essential air.

2 strokes.

breathe

3 strokes.

breathe.

4 strokes.

BREATHE.

Then the water slides into my ear and with each tilt to breathe it moves further in towards my brain. Like I am being punished for breathing. 

I hate it when stuff gets in my ears- I once had a perforated ear drum and I can't stand it when I get water in them. 

It reminds me of standing in my Granny's kitchen feeling small and in a lot of invisible pain. Mum standing soothing and reassuring telling me to be a brave little girl for a little while longer as Granny poured warm oil into my ears. 

Not a good time. The scars are still clearly there in writing this!!

So, swimming front stroke with water going into my ears and struggling to breathe is no easy challenge. I only ended up in this position because I can talk a good game. A really good game. Too good!

Last year I was signed up for the Great Scottish Swim, that was taking place in Strathclyde Country Park and thankfully in the 11th hour it was cancelled (blue green algae). I had however talked a REALLY good game. So good in fact that one of my friends, who had listened to me witter on about this huge swim, suggested we go for the Great North Swim instead.

Less likely to be called off for blue green algae. . .

. . .

I found out last night when 3 months ago we were logging on separately to register for this swim. We were both having the same thoughts:

1. Please let all the spaces be filled.

2. I can't let my friend down.

Pretty much being repeated over and over as the login details were first registered and then as the payment details were taken and then as the payments left our accounts. 

And now, as my information pack still hasn't arrived*, the thoughts are still repeating themselves. 

My friends pack has arrived. 

Our hotel is booked and paid for. 

I am still getting into the pool on virtually a daily basis.

And I am still quietly hoping for blue green to appear. 

8 sleeps to go!!

* the day after this post was written my pack arrived!

[there will be pictures]

Sleeping Beauty

Or Tired and Cranky Witch?!



I have been very tired of late and have taken a new approach to dealing with it. As opposed to keeping awake and keeping complaining about how tired I am; I am getting some sleeps.

Friday night was a personal best, from my head hitting the pillow at 6:30pm through until 9:30am.

14 hours of solid, uninterrupted sleeps.

Amazing.

Delicious.

Saturday was a later night making it to 11pm I slept into 10am on Sunday.  .  .

11 hours of solid, uninterrupted sleeps.

Sunday included a power nap session of 2 hours from 4pm until 6.30pm.

I am wondering just how long I could go sleeping? Days and weeks of solid and uninterrupted sleeps.

I am going to experiment this week and see if I can make it to bed for 9.30pm for 5 days running and see what effect that has on my tiredness and general disposition!!!