Not quite such an expensive weekend

Just as well, really.  The credit card and current account cards are still reeling from the pasting they got last weekend!  And in fact we spent very little, really.  A quick trip to the supermarket and to the petrol station to feed the car.

Aside from that it was a fairly quiet weekend.  Yet again, I didn't get done all the things I had hoped to do.  The weekends are simply never quite long enough :-(  But we have made a start on tidying up the spare room, now that The Builder has finished decorating it.  We have bought it some new curtains, and I'm in the process of putting some "sticker" tiles on the wardrobe doors.  Alas, two I put on the bottom door on the left are very wonky and I fear will have to come off and be replaced.  I have an uneasy feeling that this is going to take the paint off as well.  However, we can't leave them looking wonky!  I shall do better with the other doors.  The plan is to start on our room once we have made the spare room habitable again.  Then the lounge room needs re-plastering and painting and that's the house pretty much done.  Well, apart from sprucing up the bathroom and maybe considering the cellar and the porch.

We are very much enjoying our new fire place.  It's remarkably effective in heating the lounge room and the upstairs. The central heating is only on now for a couple of hours in the morning, when we get up. Then we light the fire when I get home from work in the evenings.  I'm not sure what we'll do when winter really sets in. We don't want the cat to go mouldy or The Builder to freeze in the snow and ice :-D  We've been getting kiln dried wood from one of the DIY stores, but that will get expensive in the longer term.  So I've ordered some seasoned, dried wood from a local wood merchant.  Much more economical.  We are waiting patiently for it to arrive. Then we can maybe have the fire going during the day in very cold weather.

I have now come to the end of my Three Busy Weeks in October.  In the end they weren't too bad. Daunting when looked at in advance, it's true.  But the classes mostly went well and the students were friendly and amenable and nothing was quite as bad as it looked as though it might be.  Even my Busiest Day of the Year went OK.  So that's done for another year.

My Three Busy Weeks in October are usually the first three weeks of October. Then the last week in October just sort of drifts by.  Then from the start of November the next Three Busy Weeks in October start waving gently at me from the future.  Just occasionally.  Just enough to remind me that they are there.  This year, they can wave all they like. We are in the middle of a huge restructure at work and it seems unlikely that I will be doing these things in this way at these times ever again.  Of course, we don't know what the future will bring, but it will definitely be bringing changes!

Our clocks went back to GMT very early on Sunday morning.  And the Sun Dog rewarded our very early start on Sunday morning with a spectacular Sun Show

Sunrise over Bridge Street

Looking up towards Grassmoor