Yesterday Fidget was 3 weeks old...can you see any difference from last week?

Today has been a very succesful day with our first outing as the family Challis, we went into Bristol, managed to have lunch, feed and change her, have a nice time and come home without drama! Hurrah, here's to many more expeditions ahead, and many thanks to the nice people at Pizza Express.

I know that with the arrival of Fidget, the updates on the kitchen are not really of much interest, but last weekend M and his dad got the extractor fan and lights in, and then on Wednesday and Thursday the kitchen and bathroom floors went in...

This evening Fidget has been having a workout, we put her on her front and she has been lifting her head up, unfortunately my camera work was not quick enough to capture the impressiveness of her press-ups, but hopefully you get the idea!

Fidget is two weeks old today! The midwife has just been and says that she has put on a pound already! Well done Fidget!!

well there has been a bit of a break in posts, this is because mini-challis was born on Friday 13th at 5:01am weighing 7lb 1oz. she is perfect and doing very well. She now feeds well and is a very calm baby, not making a fuss over bathtimes, being changed and is really rather polite when making it known she needs feeding (as long as i respond quick enough!). Her dad calls her Fidget, which is very appropriate especially when it comes to feeding.

Little Fidget would like to thank everyone for all the cards presents and flowers.

No sign of mini-Challis as yet, so I have been busying myself. We have quite a glut of blackcurrents and gooseberries (in addition to the bowlfull of blueberries available every other day). I have made a gooseberry jam, M has made two delicious gooseberry crumbles. We have tried a gooseberry smoothie which was delicious, and a blackcurrent and blueberry smoothie which was less succesful (wow it was tart!).

So a further endeavour was made to use the blackcurrents yesterday when i made a blackcurrent cheesecake (+ some little cheesecake and blueberry blobs with the leftover cheese-mix). Perhaps a rather extravagent requirement for additional ingredients over and above the blackcurrents, but it is indeed delicious!!

just wanted to post up this unnessasary bit of extra detail, a comparison of our old mouldy fridge (in which we found an elk sausage from 2004 and lard from 2003!!!!!) and our new spanky fridge with lovely nutricious stuff in it.... can you spot the difference...

Hope this works - trying out the new webcam today for some entertainment - boy it's a tough life on maternity leave.

More progress in the kitchen, M plumbed in the sinks and the gas man came to connect up the hob. So we have been able to get rid of the grubby sink unit and gas cooker, it was almost a pleasure to do the washing up in the utility sink with hot and cold water available! (Still a bit more work needed to support the main sink).

M was able to cook us up a nice meal on the new hob, and I contributed by bringing in the first crop of peas from the garden.

I also brought in the first crop of blueberries and redcurrants, which was scrummy with our breakfast.

OK, the chaps have now finished, so I have been able to take some more detailed shots of how the worktop is looking...

It is really exciting, it looks so neat and clean, should be getting the hob in tomorrow and the sinks plumbed in at the weekend. We should get the rest of the appliances next week which will mean the kitchen will be done bar the splashbacks and floor!!

Today the worktops are going in, the work is currently in progress as I type...

more updates to come I am sure...

I have now had my new laundry station in place for a few days...

which is marvellous, just in time for the arrival of mini-Challis. We have also just got a new camera in readyness to record mini-Challis moments, so it has taken a few days of playing before being ready to download these pictures.

Hot off the press....

The oven and microwave are now in place, M was keen for me to post a picture as he is at work but can't wait to see his lovely cooking station. He can't wait to bake me lots of cakes and buns when he wont have to crawl about on his hands and knees to see into the oven.

Oh almost forgot! I wanted to post up a picture of our lovely guest room...

We just have to hang the curtains (we now have a curtain pole, but no hooks!) and a few other little finishing touches and it will be perfect, but we really like it, it's so nice to have a finished room and nice to be able to offer guests some comfort after months of guests having to endure cold, cramped, dusty and exposed (lack of curtains has been a common theme for many rooms until recently) conditions.

Another bank holiday weekend, not so much done on this one, as it was my 30th birthday! But as a birthday treat I got my family who was visiting to help a little in the garden and so now my greenhouse has a lovely waterbutt, which is great as it filled up in just one day and means that I no longer have to walk from the house with a full watering can.

M then also got three more posts in of our pergola / fruit cage, and I was given lots of lovely plants for the garden for my birthday so it is really nice to see it coming on.

The kitchen is coming on, the walnut detail has gone in and is beautiful, templating for the worktops will take place tomorrow and more appliances have arrived.

Update from the garden...

as always there is alot of work to do out there, but I am pleased with how it is developing, it is amaizing to look at pictures of what it was when we arrived versus now...

I am pleased with how the beds are starting to develop, again still alot to do - adjust what is in there and add more plants, but...

the bits in there already are looking really pretty particularly the peonies and irises.

In the veg beds, the potatoes are romping away, the peas are starting to pod, garlic looks almost there and numerous seedlings are starting to come through. It also looks as though it will be a good year for gooseberries even though we haven't got our full fruit cage solution implemented, I am hoping they will be reasonably safe from the birds and give M a chance to make a lovely crumble!!

The kitchen is moving forward, we now have doors on our cabinets in the utility room...

And here is M demonstrating how to use our marvellous new pull out ironing board...

Wow what a day!!! We now have carpet upstairs, it's brilliant, it's so clean, we can walk around barefoot or roll around on the floor, as demonstrated by M

So now we have what we set as our minimum for the arrival of mini-challis, so it is great to look back over what we have acheived and realise that it is possible. If only I could drink, we would be popping the champagne corks at this milestone.

Few more pictures of installation and our lovely carpet...

Another busy weekend at the Challis Palace...lots of bits finished off and we are finally ready for carpet to go down, well we had better be as they are coming tomorrow to lay it!!

The kitchen chaps have also been cracking on, the carcases are in, so we can start to see how it will look. It will likely take until the end of May, because of when the appliances are being delivered, but hey ho, it is in sight.

It's finally happened!.... We have heating and hot water!!! I think it was sometime back in November when we disconnected the old boiler and started to plumb in the new system. I'm told it's been a mild winter, maybe so! I don't know what we would have done without the trusty wood burner and the electric shower. But hey, lets not dwell on the past, it is now working!!!

In all it was a very busy bank holiday weekend, M's parents came down, M'd dad was working with him on getting the heating and hot water finished and M's mum did a sterling job of painting anything that didn't move, while I spent more happy hours in the greenhouse with mini-C avoiding the nasty old VOCs.

The kitchen people arrive properly on site today and it looks like the carpet will be going down upstairs next week, so there is much to celebrate... perhaps with a long soak in the tub...finally...!