Getting The Hang Of Things

Now that the major part of the work is complete it's time to start getting used to actually living here as opposed to managing a building project. Having said that, the landscaping of the garden is still ongoing and today Chris of DeakinLock (www.deakinlock.co.uk) called in with his planting layout for both the front and back gardens. It's an impressive design and should guarantee a brilliant array of colour throughout the year. He even thinks that we'll get some colour this year.

Garden apart, we've now got free time on our hands and Marion has been trying out a few of the local keep fit classes. We went to look at the college gym but, although it's very well equipped, being a college gym, the public hours are limited to early mornings and evenings and I prefer to exercise in the day. Marion was interested in their classes and may well give them a try. We've joined the college run local society FramSoc and are going to see The Brandreth Papers on Friday evening. Benet Brandreth is Gyles' son and this one man show got great reviews when he performed it at The Edinburgh Fringe in 2011 so it promises to be a good night. FramSoc also run a book club and are reading Ayn Rand this month - that promises to be a challenge.

I'm learning to work in the new kitchen and was quite adventurous tonight. I bought some Sea Bream from Darren the fishmonger at the local market on his special Tweet offer and steamed it in the steam oven with some fresh veg from the greengrocers and served it with my first attempt at home made tagliatelle. Apart from over-facing both of us by making too much, the meal was quite a success and I think we're going to get a lot out of both the steam oven and the pasta maker.

We're getting a lot out of using Skype on the Smart TV. I always thought Skype would be big and when it first came out in 2006 we rushed out and bought a load of webcams for Instanta and waited for all the customers to beam themselves into the office. Unfortunately we were ahead of our time and it didn't take off as quickly as expected. But today it is so simple to set up and, with a built in camera in the TV, we can see the family in full screen if we want.

 

My mum pops in regularly using her iPad.

We even get a good picture when son Paul uses his phone.

And it's just fantastic to have the grandchildren beamed into the kitchen. It will never be as good as seeing them face to face but when we are hundreds of miles apart it's the next best thing.