#bloggingsix Secret Santa

Some of my favourite bloggers and I decided that we would do a Secret Santa. As well as a bought gift we made things for our secret Santa recipient. 

I made something for Zoe, it is on her blog today. Go and have a look. I was a little nervous about it so was very relieved with how it turned out and that Zoe seemed to like it.

aDizzyGirl was my Secret Santa and as well as a lovely brooch I got three jars full of good stuff; salted caramel sauce, peppermint creams and honey roasted nuts. I didn't manage to take any photos before O and I stuck right into them so you'll just need to take my word for it they are scrumptious. 

See another Secret Santa post here 

New kitchen 2

We scraped meals together for what felt like a long week. There was a little miscommunication with the plumber which resulted in me rushing home from work and then sitting waiting for 3 hours until the plumber who was allegedly “just round the corner” finally arrived. He then didn’t speak to me other than in grunts and complaints about the work he needed to do. Oh and he took away the sink which meant washing up in the bathroom. 
The electrician had a small heart attack when he saw the amount of work that we needed done. This was a team of people our joiner had put together and although we’d fully briefed him that hadn’t translated into telling the other tradesmen.


The weekend of the Royal Wedding. We jumped into the car and headed north for a wedding  with less hype but still an amazing day. We said a not too sad farewell to the sorry looking kitchen and wished the joiner well. Incredibly nervous about what might be waiting for us when we returned. We'd been seriously burned by bad tradesmen whilst getting our bathroom redone so we were over the moon relieved to come back to an almost complete and very soon finished kitchen.

It was then plastered and we painted, painted and painted some more.

I'd recommend getting your kitchen plastered before the brand new cupboards are put on the wall. We would have preferred to do it the correct way round but there wasn't a plasterer to be had for weeks and weeks. Thankfully our plasterers were uh-mazing. I think they left the kitchen tidier and cleaner after they'd finished than we did.

There has since been more paint applied to the walls, a floor laid and a splash back fitted. The boxes, crates and suitcase were all eventually unpacked. 

We love our new kitchen

New kitchen 1

When we got married all that time ago our guests were not only generous enough to give up their time, holidays and the expense of getting to our wedding and helping us celebrate they also gave us gifts. Our main request was a donation towards our new kitchen. It took us quite a while to finally get round to the kitchen, we still needed a little bit more savings. There were many, many weeks of angst over the design and how the layout was going to work. 

Eventually Easter weekend arrived as did my ever suffering parents, the kitchen was designed, the joiner was chosen - it was destruction time. We emptied the kitchen into an alarming number of boxes, crates and even a suitcase. Then we started stripping wallpaper layers upon layers upon layers of wallpaper. The previous owner of our flat was a heavy smoker and the steam from two wallpaper strippers meant that the tobacco and nicotine came dripping off the ceiling and walls – really truly disgusting. Under wall paper we discovered still live electrical sockets and other such dangerous mysteries. Over the weekend my parents and O and I got more and more weary. We were left with a sink and a cooker to keep us going for another week.

The living room was also emptied to allow room for the kitchen to be delivered and to give the joiners somewhere to work.