The Clan of the Cave Bague

Well, we went off to Comet on Friday, clutching a big wad of vouchers supplied by the insurance company (otherwise we’d have gone somewhere decent). Anyhoo, much wandering about, cogitating, and deliberating later, we order a pile of white goods – fridge, freezer, dishwasher, etc. They’re being delivered on the 4th of November, so things are really moving forward. We’re currently waiting for a giant cheque to clear so we can get on with organising everything from sofas to spoons. Trouble is, most nice sofas have at least a four week delivery time. If we have to spend the first fortnight sitting on beans bags, we will.

We also need to get Harmony a nice birthday present. At the time of her birthday, we had enough dosh to get a little present (which she was very happy with) but we think they all deserve a nice present as well.

(Or Doday, in Dotty speak). She was very pleased with a little Snow White dolly, and even more pleased with her great big cake. As birthdays go, it was pretty bare bones due to the severe lack of folding monetary units available, but once we get some insurance money through we’ll find some “fogotten presents”. It’s hard to believe she’s three now. Three years since she popped out in the back of an ambulance outside Negotiance in Edinburgh. It took a few goes to get the hang of blowing out the candles, but she did fine

playing Halo on Legendary difficulty (XBox version, of course – not the slideshow that masquerades as the PC version). God, it’s tough! Three hours in and I’m still not off the first level. On normal difficulty, you get through level one by, er, running and shooting. On Legendary, you have tactical firefights at every single corner. Makes the game much more exciting and gives you a real sense of being part of something BIG.

Image to be replaced. Oops!

I think we probably work the girlies in this family a little too hard. This is Debbie and Harmony doing their best Tom Baker impressions at 3 O’clock in the afternoon.

Things are progressing quickly with the house now.

We are both feeling somewhat unsettled. Dont want to spend time in the house thats not home.

Yesterday saw the kids having fun in the back garden here in the golden autumn sunshine, John cooking apple pies with the wee ones and flour footprints and me repotting our somewhat traumatised plants on the dyke outside the front door.

We ve been trying to work out what furniture to buy from where and where we put it our house. We ll get there

Debbie.

Ikea make nice furniture indeed. They make cheap tat that falls apart if you give it so much as a hard stare. That and there’s the tortuous process of actually buying it – you hike around a weavy path looking at randomly displayed stuff and write down all the warehouse information, then you go to the warehouse and lug it all off the shelves yourself and then once you’ve paid for it, you still have to lug it across to the delivery section and pay thirty quid to have it delivered.

It also tends to be full of stupid people.

I Don’t Like Ikea(tm)

LOL. Ikea make some lovely furniture. We are going to have to go shopping for basics when things move on a bit. John and I had thought about the possibility of camping beds and bean bags if need be. Im just shattered – I just want to get home. I think we all do.

- Debbie.

Aaaargh! We’re now at the point where the loss adjuster is starting to think about sending out cheques for parts of our house contents. While this may sound like a good thing, Debbie is beginning to gaze hungrily at the Ikea catalogue :-/

On a cheerier note, I have an idea for a book that is bordering on libellous but very very funny

Dear God in Heaven! We chose what we thought were two delicate shades of lilac for our bedroom. As the painters were in we thought we’d pop along and see how it looked. It’s P U R P L E. I don’t mean strong purple, or surprising purple. I don’t mean the kind of purple that leers demonically from the walls at you. It’s the type of purple which leaps from the walls in the dead of night, grabs you by the optic nerve and swings you around it’s head while bellowing in gaelic about claymores.

PURPLE!

I like it.

Well, I think I do. Debbie went upstairs to have a look and came down looking very pale. One of the builders was standing beside her watching her reaction. Her reaction was magnificent. She stood, quite still, and said (in a very quiet voice) “My eyes are bleeding”.

Of course, not that it’s dry and has faded a little, it looks really nice, if a bit aggressive. It seems to go very well with the antique pine stain on the skirtings and as all the bedroom furniture is that tone, it should look very nice. I think.

In other news, the mad and grumpy plasterer has been tearing dirty great strips of harling of the exterior walls so we kinda have a patchwork house. It’s almost poetically Scottish – we knit our relatives up here – having a knitted house.

I forgot! We found out t’other day that we were likely to be back in the house in four weeks time! w00t! There’s always a downside, of course. It turned out that our loss adjuster had left and so nothing had been done on our claim for two weeks. We only got a new one assigned yesterday, so although our house will be habitable in four weeks, we’re unlikely to have any contents replaced for 6-8 weeks. Lovely. I still own pretty much two pairs of jeans and a pair of boots :-/

Going to see a counsellor on Friday – not so much to help with my own mental state but to get some pointers on dealing with children who are still waking up from nightmares about their toys being on fire some 6 weeks after the fact.