Weekend with Jo, Jonathan and Daniel

We had a nice weekend over in Surbiton with Jo, Jonathan and Daniel. On the Saturday their friends Becky and Murray were down from Edinburgh and we had some fireworks for Daniel (they're his latest favourite). On the Sunday we went to Kingston to feed the ducks...but as you can see it was mainly swans we were feeding!

Grace's 13th Birthday

Went round to see Grace on her 13th Birthday....she's finally a teenager!! Among her presents was a box set of the entire Friends TV series, plus a giant TV remote control that she'll hopefully be able to find in her room - Hee hee!

Autumn's here....

I've been suffering with ANOTHER cold (my second this autumn, and its only October!), so its been a quiet weekend. Went out in the garden Sunday afternoon to do a bit of tidying up before the winter comes. I managed to cut the grass, and got the last few apples off the tree for apple cake. There's a few plants left in flower, but like the scan of the leaf, most things are on their way out for the year.

An update on the work at Siv's flat

Well after a few days hard work (admirably assisted by Anders, Eva and Johan Arne), we have finally got the flat back to a stage where we can start drying it out before any kind of re-decorationcan start.

As you can see from the new photos and film, basically we're back to the bare bones on all sides (including a red brick wall we never knew we had!). So now its a case of waiting for things to dry out before the next stage.

As you can see from the photo from the bedroom, we've got all mod cons in our new 'hybel', so things aren't that bad!

A quick trip to Marina and family

We took a quick trip out to Tornes, and we were able to give Dennis and Benjamin slightly early birthday presents (They are 5 next week) including two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, which seemed to go down well.

Siv's past in advertising

Here's a photo from a few years ago (at least 10...), where Siv was asked to do some modelling for an Easter promotion for the Spar supermarket chain to sell oranges and other "goodies".

Major works at Siv's flat

If you refer back to some previous blog entries such as THIS, in the background, you'll see some views of Siv's flat in Elnesvågen which is outside of Molde. However, due to the discovery of damp, caused by poor drainage, we've come over for a few days to start taking out carpet etc. to see how bad things are.

We've now discovered the damp has gone up the walls, so the panelled walls have all had to come off, and we're back to the bare brickwork/concrete. As you can see from the photo and movie, the really dark area in the corner from where the damp emanates.

Next stage is to buy a de-humidifier, to dry out the room, re-decorating won't start until next year sometime.

Outside we've had to rip out Siv's decking, so that the area around the house can be excavated, and the drainage improved.