A busy week.

Last week I had some "unused annual leave" to take off from work. I had BIG plans! Lots of riding, some gardening and a little decorating.

The first few days were spent in the garden. A little weeding turned into a gargantuan task of heavily pruning three monster fuschia bushes and then the complete removal of a tall cordyline-type thing, that was over 7feet high and very wide. I'm pretty chuffed with the result as the garden is looking much bigger and the removal of the large cordyline from in front of the patio doors gives the dining room much more light. The best thing is that we can now see all the garden birds from the dining room, not just the upstairs window.

Finches in our garden

The rest of the week was spent decorating. Since moving here 2 years ago we have done very little to the house. Only ever decorating the living room and the bedroom. So the plan was to finally decorate the dining room and possibly the spare bedroom. However, before I could start there were a few little "touches up" to do in the living room. Firstly, the skirting boards needed a coat of Gloss (thanks to the rubbish "One-Coat" gloss we had originally put on) and the windowsill needed some cosmetic work - some condensation had penetrated into the paint and it had peeled off.  Unfortunately, it took a little more than the couple of hours I'd predicted, as the whole windowsill needed stripping back and resealing.  Eeek! ... Also after moving the furniture away from in front of the window I found that the paint had also peeled where the damp had settled in.  So in a nutshell the little "cosmetic jobs" ended in days of re-decorating and the front room had a complete overhaul.  Whilst I was at it, I also decided that the stairs that come off the lounge also needed glossing - something which I should have really done last time, but couldn't be bothered as it was too much of a mammoth task as they needed stripping and re-doing; something which would have been simpler if the previous owners hadn't glossed over varnish and then emulsioned over gloss and then re-glossed.

Unfortunately all this meant that, despite the glorious sunshine, my best intentions of riding lots were scuppered - all the hard-labour left me too weary to do any big rides,  the dining room remains untouched and the garden looks like someone has driven through with a bulldozer (as I never really had time to do anything in the space where the Cordyline-thing once lived!)

Ah well, at least the front room is COMPLETELY finished and now it's back to work- which I'm glad about, I need to go back for a break. =D