hello all! Where have you gone Life, I missed that?
The all-inclusive hols sound great, maybe I should check those options out - DS might manage a hotel nowadays. (Mind you, I am also very apprehensive about Mediterranean heat in august, as I am fair and fat 😂)
Still on holiday, still spending but not too much TBH. Most days we’ve done things that are free or included in NT /EH membership, and mostly picnics. So just the odd parking charge and ice creams. However, yesterday we did the North York Moors steam train, a beautiful route, for £100 for all of us and today we went to York. So park and ride, York minster entry, lunch in wagamamas (first time we’ve taken DS for not-a-pizza and he actually ate something!), wander round the city walls, ice cream parlour and a bookshop, where the kids chose a book each. The most expensive day of our holiday but they had a great time and I remembered how lovely York is. Oh, and they went on a carousel. Mind you, I asked DS what his favourite part was and he said ‘bus’… makes me wonder why I bother 😂😂
Beach tomorrow, so just parking and ice creams (DD has extracted a promise in advance). Forecast for Friday isn’t great so not sure what we’ll do then.
The building work is still a roller coaster. We’ve another unexpected massive cost to pay because we need to insulate under the big open plan kitchen-diner floor to satisfy building control. I think everyone assumed that there would already be insulation under the old floor (most of it is an extension c 20yo) so that was a nasty surprise. We were already maxed out on our budget so I’ve been super-stressed, but it’s been a good evening because poring over he spreadsheet I realised I’d double counted VAT somewhere and that more than covers the extra. Massive phew! I mean, it’s still extra cost and I am very pee’d off about how so much has been missed by the architect/ project planner/contractor, between then - all blaming the others - but at least we don’t have to take anything out of the plan.
Also annoyed as we’re moving back home in 2 weeks and the sliding doors won’t be on the back of the house for another week, I’m told (and with his optimism bias, I’d say 2-3 weeks). Sigh. It’s going to be chaos for the first month or so.