Exchanged! Balls! Insomnia!

We finally exchanged two days ago with a completion date that we could work to, yay!

The last few days have been a bit strained - what with buyers wanting to complete in less than five days, FBB getting a mysterious but rather painful and scary infection1, work getting increasingly pressured as we approach the end of month frenzy and to top it all off, Plate has now decided that bedtime is 10pm. Oh, I have been a bit stressed lately.

Let's start with our pesky buyers. Aside from boiler challenges which were quickly resolved, on Monday I got an email saying, oh by the way, your buyers would like to exchange on Friday. Er... no. How about August 3rd... and they started piling on the guilt - well, you know to be fair, your buyer came in to do this that and the other, she's already ordered furniture, you know, two weeks between exchange and completion is quite normal, etc etc. I just couldn't deal with it: I was under a fair amount of pressure at work, I really did not need this. So I passed it on to FBB. And boy, did he rise to the challenge. He resolutely stuck to his guns - we are completing on August 15th and that's that. Even if it means risking the sale? Yes, even that2. And it paid off! Exchange and completion in our favour!

The rental is still available, double-yay! and now it's ours. Come mid-August, we shall be living it up in the bright lights of Ely city (stop sniggering in the back, you!).

I'm going to skip the scary infection bit. It's better now but he still needs to go to a specialist clinic at the hospital on Monday. Fingers crossed it's nothing serious.

Not going to talk about work either.

Plate - bless her little cotton socks - is sleepless in Mepal. I think it's the heat. The last few days have been muggy and horrible3. She just would not go down at her usual time of 8 and will only start winding down around 9.30, 10pm. Tonight, she didn't drop off till past 10.30pm. Even daddy was asleep by then! But she's been a bundle of joy nonetheless. She can now say 'teeth', 'ha (hug)', 'kiss', 'cup', 'juice', 'boob', 'book', 'what this?', 'tractor' and from about a week ago, my goodness, 'mummy'! She can just about jump and can do forward rolls with a little help. I haven't actually seen her do it, but she somehow has managed to learn how to put her boots on herself too. Clever girl.


But clever isn't always good. Heart attack time: I was in the front room stuffing nappies and she was running around as she does, when I suddenly became aware that I couldn't hear her. I leapt up and found that the front door was open! Heart pounding, I dashed out into the drive, that the little girl in China who got run over repeatedly looping through my head, hoping that she was on the pavement... and saw her across the road, smiling at me like she'd won a prize4! Luckily this is an extremely quiet one way street and she'd escaped being roadkill. I scooped her up, held her tight, smothered her in kisses then told her off sternly. She did get that she had done a bad thing but it didn't stop her from trying it again. The little monkey had opened the front door and let herself out! Lesson learned. We don't just keep the door shut now, we keep it locked.


Highlight of the fortnight: FBB's dream of being a martial arts teacher becomes a little more real. Last week, he asked his teacher how long he needed to train for before he could teach. The answer: "You already are." He was utterly chuffed and is still floating on that5.

1 Bollock - that's all I'm going to say on the subject.
2 It was physically impossible for us to move sooner than that. Remember Dead Car Dilemma? It's still there.
3 Not to FBB - he loves it!
4 The smile did falter and turn into "uh-oh" when I went charging across the road at her.
5 Well, the thing with the bollock has deflated him somewhat but he's still pretty buoyant about it. Size of a nectarine. Maybe a bit bigger. *shudder*.

A little bit closer...

Today, I had the news that we are *this* close to exchanging contracts. So I am going to risk it for a biscuit1, and talk about the house we are going to rent.

It's a brisk 20 to 30 minute walk to work and a two minute walk to the pub, corner shop, laundromat and, oddly, the gun and hunting shop. It's a 10 minute walk to Plate's 'minder and probably 20 minutes to the high street. It also has plenty of room for the car and for cars of friends on the main road, so the front door opens straight out onto the street.

The house itself has two bedrooms, a reasonably sized kitchen2, utility room, living room, a bathroom that two of us could stand in at the same time, a garden big enough to require a lawnmower and a shed to store it in. I think it even had a little paved area for a couple of chairs.

It has all mod-cons in that it has gas central heating, electricity and running water - sadly, no solar or wind or rainwater catchment, not that modern - and seems like a cosy little home. We liked it at once and saw ourselves living there quite happily.

Let's hope it all goes swimmingly and we'll be sipping our favourite tipples in the garden for our wedding anniversary3.


In other news, I finally captured Plate's inhaler, here in two bits: the actual inhaler and a tube thing to make it easier, ha ha, for her to breathe the stuff in.

Here it is being modelled by Bad Teddy4 because Plate simply will not have it over her face. She'd play with it but as soon as you put the bits together she pushes it away and attempts escape. Our brilliant childminder has given us tips on how to get her used to it, but so far, we've not had much joy. So it spends most of its time in the nappy bag.

Ayah.






We've also started the Big Clearout, by listing some of our bigger possessions on eBay. I'm a bit sad about losing the chair, having spent so many hours in it nursing Plate and rocking her to sleep. I was looking forward to reading to her in it as well. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/dreamGenii-Nursing-Breastfeeding-Pillow-/320941108328?pt=UK_Baby_Baby_Feeding_Breast_Pads_Pumps_LE&hash=item4ab994ac68#ht_500wt_949

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Classic-Hauck-Nursing-Chair-Glider-with-footstool-/320941147264?pt=UK_Baby_Nursery_Furniture_ET&hash=item4ab9954480#ht_500wt_949

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-Mini-HI-FI-CD-MP3-tape-digital-FM-tuner-with-subwoofer-remote-/320941210456?pt=UK_Sound_Vision_Compact_Shelf_Stereos&hash=item4ab9963b58#ht_500wt_949

1 There was a young man from Nepal
Who went to a fancy dress ball.
He thought it would risk it
and go as a biscuit
But a dog ate him up in the hall

2 By which we mean, FBB's fridge will fit!

3 August 18 and it will be our 17th!

4 Because he looks like a gangster bear! Well, to me anyway.

Baby's first inhaler

When I find the camera, I will take a snapshot of the baby inhaler Plate's been prescribed. Oh yes, plague is once more visiting our house.

FBB is bunged up and exploring the different decongestion remedies out there and my poor little Plate has a dribbly nose and a rattly chest.