Mexino and that wasnt a fart.

2 weeks after the last post, I have a lazy Sunday afternoon. I cant be arsed cleaning the car. I have done enough DIY today already and I fancy sitting on the sofa, with a gin and tonic and telling you the story of whats been occurring around here for the last 14 days or so..... First lets talk about the elements that make up good frozen water.....

Ice is a weird thing. It is just frozen liquid and you would expect that as liquid is normally fairly, well  - flat, that the ice when it formed from the flat topped liquid, would also be fairly flat.

That is normally the case, but when a river freezes and has snow on top which melts, re-freezes and so on, this creates a layer of ice which isn't flat at all - In fact its like the off road version of ice. Its lumpy, bumpy and hard to skate on. At least that is my excuse for being a poor skater when we ventured out onto the river today to try our super comfy ice skates for the second time this season.

A flat bit of ice on the river

Me after an hour of trying to stand up!

To be honest, I thought I did pretty good. We only live a couple of minutes walk from the river and so we took a little walk down there to enjoy a lovely Sunday afternoon on the ice and although I did fall over a number of times, I think I can blame the ruts and bumps and holes for my bruised posterior more that a lack of control over the foot shaped sausages on the end of my hairy legs. For an old bugar learning to skate I did well. We even set a new speed record - I got up to 14k an hour at one point before collapsing in a heap as I was passed by a 4 year old girl. But I was happy and pleased that we are getting out and trying out the skates on a lovely afternoon.

In other news - Buffy is getting bigger (I wont write fat as that indicates that she is eating too much and is overweight, which is definitely not true - she is getting bigger because of the crazy baby shaped being inside of her. So to make her more comfortable now and for the next few months, we did a bit of shopping yesterday for maternity wear and as well as getting some really nice clothes that feel so comfy for her now, they all stretch enough that they should last the duration of the pregnancy - in fact the jeans she got look better that the ones she normally wears (Don't tell her I said that - although she reads this and will know before you, so it doesn't matter)

There was even one funny moment when in a maternity store there was a fake bump for the woman to wear to try in clothes. Buffy put it on and to be honest it really suited her. She looked great. I would have taken a photo, but it would be weird to get the camera out in a woman's changing area.
(Side note - Its a womans changing area in two ways in a maternity store - Its where women get changed, but its also for women who are changing! I should have been a philospher)
 So, anyway,  you will just have to imagine it until she has a belly that big herself.

Now, we don't know whether we are going mad, but we were sat watching TV last night and Buffy felt movement in her belly. It wasn't a fart though - I put my hand on her stomach and there was definitely some kind of movement down there. It felt like someone tapping on her belly with a finger, but from the inside. We thought it might be kicking, and after looking on the Internet it is possible to fell this at this point in the pregnancy mum is skinny and the baby is lively. So with Buffy being so small and the baby obviously being crazy, we have concluded that this is what was happening.

Enough about the thing anyway - I am trying to keep boring anyone who doesn't want to hear about baby stuff - so here's a bit about Mexico. 

Mexico? Mexino!
So in 3 weeks we are due to fly to Mexico for a wonderful warm 'get away from winter' holiday. That is until we saw the Dr for a check up on the baby this week and and she said 'Dont go' because of the risk of Zika virus. We had a very stressful evening wondering what to do - Should I go in my own, should we just go and risk it? Should we go somewhere else? After consulting the Zika map - which you can see below, we decided to stay away from the virus and go somewhere warm, but without the danger of mosquitoes making the baby go bad.

Purple is bad. Purple is Zika. 

 After checking out the map we decided that the southern parts of the USA would be safe and spent a few hours cancelling all the Mexico bookings and then researching and booking 3 lots of accommodation and a hire car for our trip. We aren't going to tell you where we are going yet or what we will be doing, but since we are away over valentines day and we will be somewhere pretty special, we are very excited! You can read all about it when we get back in late February,


We have also been busy around the house these last couple of weeks. We are starting to decorate the third bedroom and as such have moved a few things around. The engagement jigsaw from Gareth and Tracey has moved from there to the stairs, where it replaced the beautiful quilt. That is now in the spare bedroom. We have also being trying to make extra room in our tight little kitchen, so have now hung the pans 'Cabin style' on some hooks, with the lids on rails out of the way. This along with a new shelf we are going to put up means we have two empty drawers to fill with stuff! We are also going to make a pantry shelf in the basement so that lots of the stuff we use less often can move down there and be out of the way. Then we can finally sort out the cupboards like I have been wanting to for over 2 years!

Pan and lids

Empty 3rd room

Lovely 2nd bedroom

Pride of place on the stairs

I think I will leave it there for today. My arse is aching from hitting the ice today and I am going to take a nice long soak in a bath full of water that's a little too hot.Its been a good couple of weeks though - everyone is doing well and winter is soon to be over!!

Oh, by the way - If you noticed the new header, let me know what you think. 

Its just temporary for now until I think of something else......