Christmas is just around the corner, now would probably be a good time to panic

I'll keep this week's BlackLOG short, or at least as brief as I can be. If your build up to Christmas is anything like ours, then you are going to have less time to read this rubbish than I’ve had to write it….

Our attempts to get a shed load of work done in time for Christmas is coming to a nail biting conclusion. It really is going down to the wire and with 5 guests due for a festive visit, the situation can be best described as interesting verging on critical. Regular readers may recall that we have been playing peacemakers between tribes of workmen who get very territorial once they come on site. A couple of potential flashpoints have only been avoided thanks to copious amounts of tea…

The tasks that were undertaken, not necessarily started or completed in the order below, in the last few weeks have been :-

• Decorate our hall, stairs and landing, the living room and the back bedroom (previously my music and film room, the contents of which have been evicted by Mrs B). Rather than see the collection destitute and wandering the streets of Bishops Stortford, I have been forced to build them a new home in the loft. This in turn has seen me having to evict all the toot that we have collected over the past 10 years, plus loads of stuff that moved straight into the loft when we first moved in. It is amazing how tasks escalate, what seemed like a throw away line from Mrs B “Lets decorate before Christmas” has turned into weeks of D.I.Y and house rearranging…Ideally this would have been done after the work on the fireplace but even we could tell that that was never going to work.
• Have the old fireplace removed and replaced with a wood burning stove – How hard can that be?  Well "very" apparently. Three weeks after having a hole ripped in the wall, our contractors “Fireplace consultants” rang to say that they were having difficulty with their granite suppliers and had switched to new ones. This put the work back to just a few days before Christmas.  With fresh snow on the ground I was not expecting great things but the workmen arrived and started to install the granite, sweet. Part way through the process of fitting the fire surround, one of them casually dropped into the conversation that the stove that we had been recommended and was on their van was not actually suitable without having major construction work done on our chimney. What is wrong with these people,?  We purchased it on their recommendation? Fortunately they had a suitable one still left in stock …So why did they not bring it with them? Aaargh – as long as the snow does not get any worse it should be with us and installed tomorrow…. 
• New sofas – these have been on order since October, are supposedly on their way and we have been told that they will arrive on Wednesday.  I'm not sure that I have a great deal of faith as any contact with the sofa company has been less than impressive. When I called them at the end of November, I was helpfully told that we could expect delivery in December or possibly January, a nice small window to play with then. In order to make room for the new sofas we need to get rid of the old ones and thought we would do the decent thing and donate them to charity. The charity was due to pick up the sofa last Friday but a few meagre centimetres of snow put paid to that as a health and safety crisis arose, which resulted in the lorry drivers having to stay in bed in case they caught a cold or possibly slipped on their way to the bathroom . The only other chance for them to pick up the sofa is on Tuesday and with more snow falling over the weekend I suspect it isn’t going happen. This firmly puts us in a game I like to call sofa lottery.  Feel free to play along all you have to do is predict how many sets of sofas we will have on Christmas day:

1. Zero – Hopefully unlikely - let's face it if the charity people can get to us and remove the old sofas then even hermits and the bed bound will be out and about.
2. One – the ideal number but hopefully it will be the new sofas and not the old;
3. Two – Our guests will have to enjoy scrambling over spare sofas;
4. More than two – Hmm, something will have gone really wrong.  Our guests will not be able to sit on any sofas as other sofas will already be sitting on them. Since this is BlackLOG don’t count this option out…

Putting all this into perspective our friends lost their dog Saffy this week, she was only a year old and was run over. Really sad as she was a proper little character.

Saffy, gone before her time

Next week I will be publishing my photos of the year and you will get the chance to vote for your favourite BlackLOG. Despite the fact you will be in that busy time of celebration between Christmas and New Year you will be expected to attend and say which are your favourites…I’ll leave you with some photos of Newark from last weekend and McG and Mischief.  Have a great Christmas and New Year.

For those of you of a romantic nature, the bottom of these

very stairs is where I proposed to Miss C (You are probably

more likely to recognise her as Mrs B), during my speech

at my sisters wedding. For the record Mrs B burst into tears

and did not actually say yes, so I'm not sure our 14 year

marriage is technically legal

I guess this counts as a moonset...or is it a moonrise

Newark waking up...

You looking at me, punk?

I love the way that this picture gives the impression of

the crowding that this little fellow had to deal with...

Chrismas lights in Bath - If I hear one "They

sure are pretty" it will not go well for you

Main driveway leading to Newark Parks front door

Another dull sunrise,apparently it happens most

mornings, who would have guessed that?

The main entrence hall at Newark Park

The morning room -rather confusingly it

seems to get used at any time  of the day

High tea at Newark - Our friend Michael was only catering

for 60 friends and neighbours . I'm not sure we know that

many people....

McG - seems to have found heaven

Looks like Mischief is finding

life a bit hard in the run up to

Christmas. She's probably

wandering what Santa will

bring her...

See you next week