Well now. Where to start.

Old radiators removed. New radiators and pipes fitted. Air heat pump fitted. Enormous tank thing in what used to be the airing cupboard. New solar panels and battery storage fitted.

The solar panels were no problem at all. Scaffolders arrived, put up the scaffolding, solar panel fitters arrived, fitted the stuff, scaffolders took down the scaffolding. All in half a day. Easy peasy.

The air heat pump however is a different story. We were ten days without central heating or hot water. We have had a plumber and an electrician back (the electrician twice) to try and sort it out. Now we have hot water and heating, but the thermostat doesn’t work. So the heating does go on, but just gets hotter and hotter until we turn it off. Then it just gets colder and colder until we turn it on again. There are a couple of other problems, one of which is sorted, one of which isn’t yet. That is the short version. We are both really stressed, though less now than before, and the company doesn’t seem to understand either the problem, or how cross we are. However, we haven’t paid them the balance yet, so it will be sorted out before we do.

Harrumph.

You can just imagine the mess. Plaster/brick dust everywhere. The guys were lovely, and funny, and one of the days they were here for thirteen and a half hours. 8 am until 9.30 pm. And they had a two hour journey each way. Heroes.

So we have the cleaners doing a full clean on Saturday afternoon. We have cleaned up the best we can but the dust just keeps on settling.

A couple of bits and bobs happened in the middle of all this. The tumble dryer (essential when there’s no heating and it’s pouring with rain!) was making screechy noises, and eventually died. Turned out it was 28 years old. Twenty eight! so we had to buy a new one, at great expense. But it’s great.

And the loft hatch, the one that the men kept having to go in and out of, fell apart. It was hanging by one hinge. Not great. So we had to get that fixed. But it’s so much better now! neat, tidy, safe and insulated.

Then there is the sale of the car. It was on Autotrader (a site where you can advertise your car as an individual) for a month, but on Wednesday somebody phoned and said I’d like to come and buy your car tomorrow please. Made me a reasonable offer, so I said yes. Then I panicked – what if it’s a conman? what if it’s a scam? anyway, it wasn’t. Guy arrived with a low-loader, checked the car, did the paperwork, paid us the money, and took away the car! excellent. So relieved. Now we are a one-car family, but as there’s only two of us we can manage fine with just the one. Phew.

What else? oh yes the garden looks lovely. Love this time of year.

No knitting/crochet mojo at all though. None. It’ll come back I expect when things are less fraught.

I’ve sent a DNA sample off to Ancestry.co.uk, and it’s currently being processed. Meanwhile I registered on their website and have been building a family tree. I did start one years ago and had kept a copy of the file, so it was easy enough to upload and carry on from there. It’s complicated, as I guess everybody’s is, as my mother was Scottish, and their records are kept differently and separately, and my father was Jewish, so lots of my ancestors are called Moses, or Nathan, or Miriam, or Esther. I have a lot of old photos, so have scanned them in and uploaded them (only people who have died – not sure about photos of people still alive, though hubby was happy for me to upload one of him).

The other thing is that people long ago, and Jewish families in particular, tended to have lots of children. So each ancestor I come across has nine or ten siblings. One is called Nathan Nathan. And he had a brother called Nathaniel Nathan. I do wonder if they were the same person, except that the birth dates are two years apart. It’s all very absorbing.

Haven’t quite got back that far yet, but my dad’s family was expelled from Spain in the Inquisition, so they scattered all over the world. I have ancestors in Holland, Russia, Poland, you name it. My sister is also doing the same thing so we are able to share information.

Here are my father’s parents. I never met them because they died long before Dad met Mother. Gladys and Sim Gordon. Sim was apparently quite scary according to my cousin. Wasn’t Gladys beautiful?