The weekend for us started on Friday evening with the work Christmas party, held at the house of the managing director.
I’m not sure if it’s just me getting old, but being in a home setting for the annual chance to let our hair down was somehow infinitely preferable to a pub filled with noise, drunken people and various antics (that while they may be fun, usually occur at the expense of somebody or other).
The most interesting aspect of the evening was the relentless round of conversations I found myself pitched into with staff members and their spouses enquiring about our adoption journey, and the inevitable excitement now we find ourselves approaching the long wished for goal.
The evening flew past, and before we knew it we had listened to everybody’s war stories of bringing up their own children, found out who worked with children, who ran parenting courses, and promised to keep in touch with many other halves we had never met before.
As is usual with a party, at least one person arrived determined not to enjoy the evening, but we weren’t about to dwell on them for too long - even after they made a point of insulting me to my face.
After vanishing the best party of two bottles of wine, a little hand tapped me on the shoulder and told me she was tired and could we go home. It seemed like a good time to go.
Saturday morning kicked off with a trip to Homebase (the UK equivalent of Home Depot), where we spent a small fortune on tools, and various childrens room accessories. After arriving home we set about putting up shelves, locks on kitchen cupboards, and finally hanging the fire extinguisher and fire blanket in the kitchen. Something else to tick off the health and safety list for the adoption.
While I found myself busy with the drill and spirit level, W painted one of the children’s rooms bubblegum pink.
A second trip out on Saturday found us going to Halfords (car accessory and bicycle store) to look at a new mountain bike for me to ride to work (my ancient Scott is finally disintegrating after having two sets of gears, two sets of brakes, two sets of wheels, and various other replacement parts - the only “original” pieces are the frame and handlebars).
I had anticipated buying a cheap bike to see me through the next year, but ended up getting something a little better - with the reasoning that I will be able to use it recreationally too, and also bolt a child seat onto the back. For those of you out there who know bikes, it’s a GT, it has disc brakes, and rock shocks. It’s the best bike I have ever owned, and surprisingly didn’t break the bank.
The one rather scary thing about the weekend was a sudden dip in my health once more on Saturday night. After feeling fine on Friday evening, I threw myself back into everything on Saturday but by the evening was coughing so violently I had breathing difficulties. W realised how bad I was when I didn’t eat all of my dinner. Thankfully I awoke this morning with a clear throat once more - me thinks I tried to do too much too soon after thinking I was better.
Today (Sunday) was a day we had been dreading for some time. Part of the health and safety assessment for the adoption had specified that we needed to get rid of the pond in the back garden. In driving rain and howling wind today, with the help of W’s parents and brother we destroyed and then removed the pond. This might not sound significant unless you had seen it. Many thousands of gallons.
During the mud bath, we evicted countless frogs, and caught many, many fish. We had presumed several years ago that a Heron had caught and eaten our fish, but digging through the murky depths towards the end of the job, we finally found them, and smiled - perhaps our pond hadn’t been so bad after all - the fish had survived for years and become quite big. They are now living in a trug (big bucket) at the back of the house until we either make a fish tank, or find them a new home.
After wading back indoors from the quagmire that our garden had become, we washed up, changed our clothes and went to the local pub for a late Sunday lunch. Mixed grill never tasted so good.
I am just about ready to collapse in a heap. The weekend is over, and I feel like I need another one to recover. What did you do this weekend?