My week of getting things done

This has been such a busy week for our house and garden. We spend months putting things off and then – bam! – everything gets done in one week.

Last weekend we had a skip delivered. We’ve been talking about getting one for months to deal with the mess that had accumulated in our garden. What started as a pile of old fence panels last summer has multiplied over the months into a teetering heap of dangerous old junk and broken Ikea chairs. Not the nicest thing to have at the end of your garden, and not very safe for the children.

We spent the weekend filling the skip and sorting out the mess. The garden looks so much better now – I’d actually forgotten we had so much space. We’ve planted a few new perennial plants and some honeysuckle to cover the fences. We’re also making plans for a rose arch, vegetable bed and a new shed. To get things ready we paid to have some old tree stumps removed professionally. They ground them up really quickly and it’s a relief to have them gone. It’s great to be making a difference out there.

This was also the week we started work on creating my youngest son’s new bedroom. His new room has the boiler in it and it needed a few repairs and a service. Once that was done, the carpet fitters arrived to put in his new carpet (ever the farm enthusiast he chose a ‘barley’ coloured one). It looks great and has totally pulled together the room together. We decorated it fairly neutrally a year ago, so all it needs now is some furniture and pictures.

For now, we’re all enjoying having an empty room where we can lie on the floor and inhale the smell of new carpet. Seriously, I could do it all day.

Another thing I’ve managed to do this week is take my eldest to school on his bike for the first time. He rode his, I rode mine – and it felt great. We just need to get his brother confident on his and then we can make it a regular thing.

This week, I’ve also managed to really get back into baking again. We had Melting Moments for the first time in ages…bliss.

Plus, I’ve been baking my own bread again. The boys love it and it’s great to think it only contains a few simple ingredients – flour, yeast, salt and butter. The benefits of this deserve a whole post to themselves, but for now let’s just say that it feels great to be making the effort.  Tom said to me today, ‘I like your bread Mummy.’ Then after a pause, ‘I like you too Mummy’. Which makes it heart-meltingly worthwhile.

So that’s me done for now. What have you got done this week?