What are you all up to

Very dull and cold here. We spent  an hour tidying up the garden, mainly vacuuming up the leaves. Made it look a lot better. Then for a walk in the local forest. The Forestry Commision had started selling Christmas trees this weekend. Seems a bit early to me, even the durable Nordman Fir would be looking a bit sad by Christmas Day. Even stranger, they are only selling them until the 10th December this year, still two weeks before. We don't usually buy until the middle of December, so just as well we spotted the signs.

Glad you had a nice time away M. 

Not sure if you've already said but is your January trip by any chance Costa Rica ? I know you said Mrs M was looking at brochures.

Lucky you  we stopped off for the day when we did the Panama cruise 6 years ago (wow was it really that long ago) we did an eco tour thing, one of the best trips we did on that cruise, the wildlife is wonderful I'm  sure you are going to love it.

And my teachers always said I never paid attention 

Reasonable day today, cold but sunny.

DD's last cupboard door finally arrived from Ikea this morning at 9 am, undamaged, so we were down at her house with it  by 10 and got it prepared with handle and hinges and installed without delay.

Then I did the first coat on the walls in the nursery....it's very blue!  After lunch she had a few small jobs for me, electrical stuff and touching up paint in other areas while she and OH did more unpacking and putting away of stuff, all boxes now empty.

Empties were put in the loft along with a few other bits and pieces, and she has a pile of stuff for the charity shop, we will deal with that next weekend.  She can now see the floor in the spare room again.

Now her husband has to unpack all his stuff so she can see if they need any more new cupboards.

She has a pile of baby stuff from her brother and some friends to sort through, decide what to keep, arrange it in sizes, plus next Sunday we are all going to his place so she can pick up the pram etc they had kept for her.

The nursery will need a second coat of paint, so I will do that on Tuesday so she has somewhere to put all the stuff, then we need to clear out our loft to see what we can contribute.

At this rate, the only things they will need to buy are nappies!

Yes, indeed!  They had some special blood tests at 10/12 weeks to check all was OK and one of the benefits is that they can tell whether it is a girl or a boy.

They are more than happy to have pre-loved items, and no doubt they will get plenty of presents too, the in-laws have a very large circle of friends!

The only thing they plan to buy at first is a rocking crib so he can sleep beside their bed, and a chest of drawers unless they get given one.

They will get our other grandchildren's cot bed, folding pram thing, no doubt other stuff, plus we have our son's cot and our daughter's pram, high chair and push chair in the loft, plus pretty much all the toys our two had, looking forward to emptying the loft!

We will keep the cot, pram and high chair here most likely, so he can use them here as we will be doing a fair bit of childcare by the sound of things.  DD will be returning to work and a nursery place seems to be about £50 per day, if you can get one!  Some places have a 2 year waiting list apparently.