Cheese Rolling, 665.5 Miles and Montana

The last Bank Holiday of May plays host to the Cheese Rolling Festival. It's an event held outside Gloucester. The organisers roll a Gloucester cheese wheel down a very steep hill. In some places it's a 1:1 gradient. Then, the 'chasers' go running (read tumbling) down after it. First person to lay hands on it wins. Yep, nuts. It's an event that's been held for some 200 years. Why it was started? No idea. It's quite a dangerous event, and the paramedics are always inundated with injuries ranging from minor scratches and bruises to more serious sprains and broken bones. Yes, I'm probably insane for wanting to do this. But it sounded like fun, too. Christy and I had been talking about going to it for months. So we made plans to meet up in Gloucester. The weather, however, conspired against us. I got stuck in some torrential downpours that meant we didn't meet up on time, and by the time we arrived at the hill, it had finished. Very sad. But next year I'm totally doing it!

So, I ended up in Gloucestershire, the far side of England from where I live, with Christy and 3 of her friends from the States who are over visiting.







We went over to Bath and had a very fun afternoon. We went through the Roman Baths, which I'd never done before, funnily enough! And I've been to Bath 3 prior times. But something has always prevented me from visiting. I'd seen the main pool, which is still standing, but I'd never been through the museum and seen the ruins of the temple, etc. And of course the water from the spring is supposed to have all sorts of healing remedies. Unfortunately, they have to treat it, which I'm sure renders it the same as all city water. Oh well. Still a fun fountain!

So, I had a car full of people staying in York. It worked out to be much cheaper for me to drive them back to York, and them pay the petrol. So, I ended up driving from Colchester to Gloucester (182 miles), to Bath (35.5 miles), to York (235 miles), and back to Colchester (213 miles) = 665.5 Miles Round Trip. Got home at 5.00 am today. Christy offered to let me stay the night at hers, but I just decided I had too much to get done today, and I'd sleep better if I was in my own house. And I wouldn't be worried about messing up their plans with mine.

My Dad got a new job! In Montana. He found out about this job at the end of April. He flew to Montana on Monday, last week. Had his interview with them on Tuesday. Got offered the Job on Wednesday. Saw houses on Thursday. Bought a house on Friday. Flew back to Mississippi yesterday. Starts his new job on 16th of June. Pretty nuts!

Haa Haa Ha!!

This made me laugh. Sometimes Laughing is very important!

Endure to The End

After an entire week of having no kitchen, I'm nearing the finish line. In fact, I'm so close that unless you're really observant, you won't know what hasn't been done. Remember the door trauma? Well, they got all but 2 doors in on Friday. Those two were not in stock, and should be fitted Monday afternoon. Hooray! But, everything else is in and done, so I got to reload the kitchen. I actually have more room than I know what to do with (at the moment). It's great! All in all, it's beautiful:









So, that's what it looks like left to right. This is what it looks like if you stand at the sink and look back, or the door and look up:

Regress

Well, the damage is not too bad. The doors will all be replaced, eventually. I find out tomorrow when the warehouse will be able to deliver them. The problem turned out to be that the designer had not put the order in for the doors I wanted. He'd put it in for the colour, but not the style I requested. The regional manager said, 'If it's not what you wanted, it's not what you wanted. We'll get it right.' Yeay. The fitter said that if the doors cannot be delivered this week, he'll drill the holes for the handles on these ones, and I can go ahead and use the cupboards as normal. Then, when the new ones do arrive, he'll come back and swap them out. So, at least I'm not going to be stuck without a kitchen for longer! But hopefully the warehouse will be able to deliver them quickly, and we'll finish on time (ha ha ha. I'm not holding my breath). These look good, though. I just didn't want the ledge to collect dust and grime. Otherwise I'd be quite happy with them. I'm just ignoring the issue of the sink, more or less. I'm going to put in a mild complaint, meaning, I'm going to tell the store that the designer ordered the wrong sink, but I'm not going to do anything about it. It's not that important.

Congress

As in, the opposite of Progress.

The supply company, who I bought my cupboards etc . . . through? Sent the wrong doors and the wrong sink. Now, I couldn't tell before they got them up because they were all in boxes. The fitter couldn't tell, because the colour does match. Just not the style I ordered. See thing is . . . I ordered the colour because of the style. The doors I ordered had no little ledges to be catching dust and grime. These do. At the time I was ordering, the only colour that they made in that style was the walnut. Otherwise I'd have gone with the (lighter) cherry! So now I've got the style I didn't want with the disprefered colour. My fitter's having a word with them.

The sink's less of an issue. It was supposed to be a textured stainless steel. The one they sent is smooth. I'm not really fussed about it being textured or not, except that the reason I ordered the textured was because it hides scratches and waterspots. The bigger issue is, it's not what I ordered!

Progress

This is what the kitchen looks like at the end of the working day today:

Mississippi Adventures

My folks live in Mississippi. They've been there for about 6 years. Every so often they send me a story about something that happened that wouldn't have happened anywhere else. We call these 'Mississippi Adventures'.

One day I got this photo in my email inbox:Yes, my dad's hilarious. (Actually, that's true.) They often get green little lizards in the house, and they have to catch them and kick them outside. This one got confused, and thought Dad was a threat. I've had the same thing happen, it doesn't hurt. In fact, you can barely feel it at all.

But SOMEONE out there obviously lives in Mississippi, too. And has far too much time on their hands. This is their version of the same sort of thing:


Most worryingly? I thought it was even funnier this way! (For those of you who don't know, Geico is an car insurance company in the states. For years they've used a gecko in their -- very funny -- advertisements.)