Winter coming fast

The whole summer seems to have flown by and I haven't made a single post on the progress we have made in the house. My last post mentioned that we had finished the tiling in the kitchen which was a relief to get done. We installed the range as soon as we could afterwards and what a difference a good cooker makes! We bought the range (made by Stoves) before we even moved to Ireland and it was being stored in Kinsale for a while. Fortunately it lasted well and it is a dream to use and makes fantastic brown bread. The kitchen is still unfinished otherwise.

Daithi is going to make the cabinets because we are just too fussy and aren't willing to pay out the 20,000 euro for the kitchen we really want! Instead we have a reclaimed lab sink, a reclaimed stainless steel catering unit which came from a liquidation and some office tables as well as our old dining table and chairs. It's great for now and I find myself in that room most of the time. It is bright, spacious and peaceful (when the boys aren't in it).

The boys and myself went over to England for about a month in the summer. Daithi came over for a week for our annual trip to Butlins at Bognor Regis and again for my cousin's wedding. The Butlins at Bognor now has a fabulous spa so I treated myself to 3 hour of relaxation, facial and manicure and let Daithi send some quality time with the boys! Daithi came back and took a couple of weeks off work to clean up the area around the house and prepare the upstairs for plastering etc. I don't think he realised how much time things would take and he didn't do as much as he would have hoped for. Luckily he managed to get an excavator for a day and cleared the entire site of rubble. Well, actually there is a 20ft high pile of it at the back of the house but it is well away from us. The house looks amazing now that the area has been cleared of rubble, scaffolding etc. And it is a lot safer for the boys of course. Liam is made up that he can now cycle the whole way around the house.

The summer just flew past and before I knew it they were back at school. But we are still without plastered upstairs rooms and heating but we have hot water from new solar panels which were installed a couple of weeks back and the central vacuum cleaner is working. I have to say that everyone told me that central vacuum cleaners are far too noisy and that I should think twice about having one but my DuoVac is quieter than my old Dyson by a long shot and it has brilliant suction. I love it!!!!! I would recommend it to anyone anyone!

School run beckons so I will have to post more shortly.