Sunday Things

Another very busy week.  I've sat down to write a post so many times and then... not.  Oh well!

It was an exceptionally short week of work - after taking Monday and Tuesday off I forgot we had POETS on Friday.   My work has POETS day on the last Friday of each month.  I did not know what POETS was when I started and assumed it was time off to do something enlightening or artistic... Poetry?  

No.  POETS stands for Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday.

Stay classy Britain!

In other news, our dishwasher was very very broken.  The repair man brought out a new board on Friday, installed it, and then it immediately broke when an internal water pipe leaked on it.  They gave us a code for a replacement, which I had to call and order through AO (where we bought the washer).  Annoyingly they were out of the model we had (which I liked, except for the breaking), so instead we had to pay £40 more for a "better" model.  They were going to knock £30 as a goodwill gesture... but then they were going to charge £30 for installation.  I said that wasn't particularly fair as I didn't want to be getting a new dishwasher installed.  So instead they gave me free installation but did not reduce the price.  I had been on the phone for a long time by this point and gave up, but I will be writing an angry letter as I don't think it's fair to sell a machine that breaks after 3 weeks, then spend 2 weeks without a washer, and then offer free installation on a more expensive replacement as a "gesture of goodwill".  I am going to hope we were just unlucky and this new machine lives a long and wash-ful life.

This morning my mom took the kids out to breakfast while Andy and I worked on house projects.  We managed to sort some boxes of kid clothes, and I am slowly getting rid of things that I can't imagine using again.  Many of our friends are doing the same, which means we are both inheriting and discarding things at the same time.  I've got another bag for the charity shop and my donation box is almost full again, which feels good.

I'm continuing a month of great reading with Solo by Jenny Tough.  I won this at a Mountain Biking Festival and it was an awesome and inspiring read.  

I'm now reading Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson, which is really enjoyable so far.  I've got The Salt Path on audiobook, which I listen to in 10 minute segments when I can't sleep at night (which is a lot, because I am pregnant and very uncomfortable).

Tomorrow is a bank holiday, so kids are off nursery.  We don't have many plans and will see what kiddos want to do.  I know that many schools in the US have started already, but here we don't start until after late August bank holiday (the last Monday in August).  However, school doesn't finish until midway into July... so I definitely feel like summer flies by here more than it might in the states.