It's nearly April

So much for good intentions of keeping things up to date, a month has gone by since I last posted anything.
It was a month that saw Alison turn 50 and the stairwell almost completed, as I type here is a ladder/scaffolding blocking it quite well as we work on the unreachable bits.
Alison celebrated her birthday starting the day before with a trip to the V&A (Peter would have considered this mild torture so she went alone) followed by meeting Peter after work for a meal out. Her actual birthday was a quiet day with school in the morning and coffee and cake with a friend in the afternoon. Thursday saw her heading off to London once again to join her mum for a trip to Olympia and the stitch and craft show. Although it was a really good show it was interrupted when Alison's mum was admitted to hospital overnight with suspected heart problems. It turned out to be nothing and she came home with us on the Friday evening with a clean bill of health.
Alison is now busy using up all the craft supplies that she bought there.
Our other big news is that it looks like we will be aunty and uncle later this year as Alison's brother is to become a daddy. Our lounge now has a large ball of knitting wool in it as Alison knits a Jean Greehowe toy.
Alison has regular appointments with a physio for her arm which is improving really well.
Peter has started studying for his Microsoft exams and despite his allegiance to Linux is actually enjoying the study, if you ignore the few mutters. At present it is in his own time but he is hoping to go on a formal course later in the year.

Cutting Back

We spent this afternoon just clearing the garden up. This should probably have been done in the autumn but we just didn't get round to it. While Peter kept lovely and warm pruning the apple tree with a saw Alison got frozen cutting back soggy dead plants to make way for new growth. Just as her fingers couldn't take any more cold she decided to attack the Yukka plant. It has been growing amazingly and after removing two very large sections she could then start to get some of the dead leaves off and found loads of smaller new growth underneath, most of which has also come off and it's still huge.
Hopefully this week being half term Alison will get some good days outside and also get more wallpaper removed form the stair well. Decorating has been a slow job recently as she can't stand on her ankle for long periods (it's healing but slowly) and her arm which started playing up in Tanzania starts up again if used for long periods, but we're getting there very slowly. The bedroom just awaits a border around the top and curtains which we ordered last week, photos will follow on completion.

First Day in School

Yesterday was Alison's first day ( or should we say morning) in an English school and she really loved it. Although she has taught year one in computing being in a class with them was totally different as she had to work out just how much they should know about the basics such as reading and writing. It really helped that she found out that she already knew a couple of staff, one of whom was in the same classroom as her. As the day starts at 8.40 it means that Peter can get out the house way before Alison needs to think about hogging the bathroom etc and so morning bliss can remain in the Roots household.

CRB At Last

We have just heard that Alison has got her CRB check through. Tomorrow she sees the head teacher to arrange which days she will be working. The ankle is getting better, still swollen and bruised but with plenty of sitting down there is now very little pain.

Oops, Ouch

Alison got up a bit quickly form her craft desk on Wednesday and didn't realise that her foot had gone numb (because she had been sitting on it)until she stood on it at a really funny angle, then she heard a crunching sort of noise and it was very painful. As she seemed to have movement she just strapped it up and tried to keep it raised. By the time Peter got in from work and had a look at it it was going a nice grey colour. A trip to casualty found it to be badly sprained but not broken so she is now stranded on the sofa with it in the air. Peter very kindly got her a pile of books from the library to keep her amused (as he is away with work this weekend) he claims it was coincidence that one of the books is called 'Break no Bones'!

A Bundle of Fur

At the beginning of December we got ourselves a lovely little kitten called Tubs. He is now the center of everything and certainly sees it as his right that the household revolves around him. I have been meaning to put these photos up for ages, here they are at last.
Under the Christmas tree with his china friend

Helping? to make his scratching post

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you and a very special thank you to the
anonymous person who sent us some Waitrose vouchers for Christmas - It
was very kind and very much appreciated.