One Year On

Peter's computing course wasn't as great as he could have hoped for and he was left with some of the practicals to do by himself afterwards as there hadn't been enough time planned into the teaching time. On the whole however he managed to move a bit further forward so not all bad.
Alison has had a busy few weeks at school with day trips to the beach (it was a long day as we couldn't live much further from the coast), Sports day and a morning out joining another school for their arts week.
The ash saplings are showing signs of dying which has caused much joy so we might try the others with weed killer.
Somehow the life of doing nothing mentioned in the last post hasn't quite materialised although we have had a couple of very restful weekends which has been good.
Next weekend it is one year exactly since we arrived back in the UK. In some ways it seems longer and in others we can't quite believe that we have survived for a year (most of it by ourselves) in a country were we knew very little. A big thank you to all who have been praying for us during this time and for those of you who have practically helped us. Also a huge thank you to all those in Tanzania who have kept in touch with us and helped us ease out slowly, it has really helped us not having a clean break. I will include photos of our celebrations in the next post.

Celebrations

Last week was half term and saw me not only finishing painting the lounge but also getting the garden under control, so now a life of doing nothing beckons?
We have decided to leave the flooring in the lounge until after Peter has taken his Microsoft exams, as yet we have no date so it could be a while.
The ash saplings are still thriving weed killer in cuts did not work, any ideas as to how to get rid of the little beauties please let us know. The rest of the garden continues to grow and delight us as plants we had forgotten about come out into bloom.
This week Peter is attending a course in London to help him prepare for his exam.
Last post I mentioned that Tanzania was facing power problems. It appears that Dodoma wasn't hit too hard but Dar Es Salaam had a very hard time.
Last week we heard that if the scan got it right we are getting a little niece who in theory should arrive on Peter's birthday.

Not bad

My intention had been to write weekly but two weeks since the last post isn't bad for me.
Last week was a confusing one for us as Peter spent a lot of time working locally. On the plus side this meant shorter days on the minus we didn't know what day of the week it was.
Sales for my designs have been going slowly but I have continued to upload designs in and have loved learning more design features of the software package I am using.
We were saddened to hear this week that the whole of Tanzania will lose power this week for 15 hours every day. It appears that the hydro electric power station has not had enough water from the rains to continue working for much longer and the gas station in Dar needs vital repairs. This will badly affect those who rely on electricity to run their businesses ,many of whom were good friends to us.
With a lovely sunny day today we were able to do some work in the garden. One of our main problems has been the many ash trees which have sprung up. Having treated them with weed killer to only see them still standing tall we were led to research killing them on the net. You cut them and put the weed killer straight into the cut is the answer and we will try it next week.
The decorating saga continues but with nearly all the walls prepared in the lounge and most of the gloss paint finished hopefully I should be able to start putting some colour on the walls this week

Oh Dear

So much for good intentions, where did April go?
I (Alison) was accepted as a designer at www.craftsuprint.com (Click here to see my work) just as the Easter holidays started. That meant that I spent the holidays decorating and designing which was fun but left very little time for anything else and by the end of two weeks I was exhausted. Thank goodness that I only had to go in for one day in the first week back and that Peter had the three days between Easter and the royal wedding off. Despite still decorating it was much more restful.
I went to watch the wedding with my mum and we had a lovely day.
Back at school now I am in more of a routine and so not so manic either with the never ending decorating or the designing.
Peter had to go into work on Easter day as the air conditioning in Amersham had stopped and so the computers had overheated. Although they had been shut down remotely the problem needed to be sorted so that work could continue on the Tuesday. Fortunately we had gone to the 6am sunrise service so Peter could celebrate Easter and then go into work after a shared breakfast at our house.
Today he has gone to the Albert hall with friends form church for a men's conference while I am going to coffee and lunch with the left behind wives.
As promised though a picture of the purple bedroom

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.