Busy times in Hello.

John’s step sister from Scotland has been here this week. Jessica was house sitting John’s parent’s house while they are on holiday, with her husband and two kids. On Monday night we went up, buying a curry and wine on the way. Katie was going to come, but changed her mind in the end, understandably. The Scottish schools tend to have slightly different school holidays, a week behind the English ones, so I had to leave to put the girls to bed. Was lovely seeing them all and we’ve been invited to stay with them on the Isle of Seil for a few days in the summer. I’d really like that!
We’re still undecided as to what we are doing for a holiday this year. I have the first week in August off and I should have passed my driving test by then. Seil is 230 miles away, not something I’m keen on doing all at once, so we’ll see. Maybe travelling up the west coast, camping as we go. We have plenty of time to decide. I like the idea of packing a tent and seeing where the wind takes us, the idea of having a strict itinerary when we go on holiday just fills me with dread!

Driving is going well. I’ve learnt everything I need for my test now, my lessons mostly involve fine honing my skills and running through my test. I thought I’d done really badly today, I made lots of silly mistakes, but my instructor told me he’d deliberately made it difficult so he could see where I needed to improve. That made me feel better! I’m on 35 hours tuition and about to pay for another ten, haha!

Some of my dad’s Welsh cousins are visiting the area. I bumped into them with dad in town today, and went back to my parent’s house for a cuppa. They’re lovely people, you can tell we’re related, it’s uncanny how much they act like my dad’s sisters even though all my aunties have always lived in Cumbria, his cousins always in Wales. They’re going to pop into my work tomorrow to say hello.

Speaking of work, John is getting a bit tired of his job in the Chinese takeaway. The combination of doing split shifts, late nights is getting on his nerves a bit. We can never do anything together as he starts work again as I’m finishing in the evening, by the time he gets home, puts his feet up, has something to eat, it’s usually about 2am by the time he gets to bed, meaning he’s sleeping till about 11am and going straight to work. So I’ve been looking for shop work, 9-5, for him. My friend, Susan, owns a big garden centre in town and she messaged me today to say they were looking to take on a full time member of staff, was I interested? I said I wasn’t but John might be, so she’s going to put in a good word to her husband. When I texted John about it, he seemed keen. He likes garden centres anyway, has loads of shop experience and the 9-5 would be perfect. I already feel like Susan is family anyway, I used to work for her years ago and babysit her daughter. Now her grand daughter is really good friends with Eleanor (she even named one of her chickens Eleanor!) so I see Susan a lot.
I really hope John applies for it, I think it will be perfect for him! Plus he’ll be able to do some gardening, something he can’t do now we are in a first floor flat.

Last updated April 14, 2016