What a Difference.

What a difference a bit of sunshine makes. As I've been travelling home from work the last during the last week, people have been spilling out of the many London pubs and bars I see on my journey home, happy to relax in the sunshine after a day at work. I'm almost envious, but am just happy to get home after a long day at work.

Things have been busy at work lately and even when I'm not there I've been thinking about it quite a lot, which isn't great. I've been getting to the gym on and off which helps, have spent some time in the garden sowing some more lettuce seeds into the raised bed, taken the time to hang out some washing on the line, to hopefully help me get a bit more vitamin D and have been getting on with more work on the allotment too.  As a consequence of all of the above, I haven't been blogging much, so I apologise for that.

It's been so lovely to have some nice weather even though it's now turned a little colder. I just love to see everything in the garden greening up a bit.  It makes me realise how much I've missed the sun and how it affects you both physically and mentally. I feel so much more motivated to get things done on a sunny day.

The kitchen is coming along very slowly at the moment as OH hasn't been feeling too well recently.  He's okay now though. One of the paint colours we bought is way too dark. Two out of the three were okay though. We're hoping to mix a lighter shade with the one we don't like and create a better colour, rather than just not using it.

In other areas, life has been progressing.  The car has been serviced and although it needed £300 worth of work doing, we've paid out very little in repairs on it in the six years we've had it. The things that needed doing were just general wear and tear, i.e. brake pads and discs and window screen wipers. It's been cleaned and valeted at the garage which is nice too, as we never seem to get around to doing it ourselves.

The dog has also had her fur stripped at the groomers and is now carrying a much lighter coat, which she seems grateful for now the weather has turned warmer.  She's seems a lot more perky on walks now which is good.

I've been doing a few small sewing jobs recently, that were piled up in the sewing room for months. Just some small repairs to a few items, but it's nice to get it done and get the items back into circulation in the wardrobe.

Talking of my wardrobe, I've now completed the changeover to my spring/summer wardrobe. Once I've got the ironing pile down, I'll be able to put the rest of the chunky knitwear into storage until the autumn.  My wardrobe feels lighter and less cluttered as a result.

LB has had another major decluttering session in her room.  I bought her a clothing rail from the CS the other day and it led to a reorganisation of her room and the donation of many more things that she no longer uses or needs.  She's so much better at this than me.  It will all add to the items leaving the house this month although the actual items won't be leaving until the next Give and Take.  I just missed one this last Saturday as I was working, but I'm sure there'll be another one soon.

I've also been making some curtains for the changing rooms at the shop.  I've used my old kitchen curtain for one and I've made a second one from the same fabric. (They won't fit in with the décor once we've repainted the kitchen).  I won an auction on eBay for 30 curtain rings and hooks.  They're quite expensive to buy new, so at just over £5 these were a bargain and I should be able to claim the money back from the shop. The new curtains should look much nicer than the current ones, once I get them in place.

We had a Spring Clean in the shop this week, just the shop floor.  We had to close the shop for most of the day and it was very intense trying to get everything cleaned, as it is quite a large shop.  I was in charge of cleaning the shop front, shutter, windows and window displays and then vacuuming and mopping most of the shop. I'm so pleased that we only do it once a year, as it was quite exhausting.
We've changed around quite a few of the rails and shelves, which makes the flow of the shop much better.  It's been hard work though, so I'm glad that I've now got 4 days off before I'm back at work.

I now need to spend some time on the house which has been sadly neglected lately.  I also need to re-apply for my job which has now been advertised internally. I'll be glad to get to the end of May, when the recruitment process should have been completed, whether I'm successful or not. At least I can then just get on with things one way or another, instead of feeling like I'm in limbo.

Anyway, this has been a bit of a long catch up. I hope all's well with you guys.  I have just spent most of today catching up on sleep and blog reading, which I've been too tired to do after work lately. It feels good to be back blogging and I'll try to keep posting as and when I can.