THE DAY WE FOUND THE LAWN (AND I CONTINUE TO DESTROY THE KITCHEN)

Well that was Christmas and a jolly good one it was too. No cooking, very little washing up and the whole family together, thanks respective Mums, Dads and Sis. too. Now we are all back at home and goosed by the fat, ooops, that's not right, er fattened by the goose. Ahhhh we've been mincing with the drink pies, sorry drinking with the mince pies and indulging the shatters we are now totally cream crackered, No, No, I mean indulging the cream crackers we are now totally shattered. AND perhaps had one or two alcofrolic dwinks too.

So having over eaten it was clear that we needed to go for a 5 mile hike, which is exactly what we did. I say we but actually it was only Alison and I as the children didn't seem to be of the same opinion. So 'we' headed off to the Cley marshes to see what unusual birds we may come across. It was bracing (a polite way of saying it was bloody breezy) and we saw Black-tailed Godwits, Red Shanks, Plovers, Lapwings, a Harrier and loads and loads of Geese flying in formation. So we thought it had been well worth getting out of the house to see the best of the Norfolk bird life, that was until we got home. Stephen and Claire proceeded to give us a graphic description of how a Kestrel had dived down on to an oblivious black bird and . . . . . .
              (*****WARNING FOR THOSE OF A NERVOUS DISPOSITION*****)
tore it apart right out side our back door. Needles to say I was gutted (but not in the same way that the blackbird was). I can assure you that the kids were not traumatised by the event, no, they were more upset by the fact that I had the affront to go off bird watching at the time with both MY camera and MY bird identification book.

So the following days were all a bit of an anticlimax after that with me taking my frustration out on the kitchen smashing the existing tiles off the wall. Mumble, mumble, Kestrel, SMASH! Mumble, mumble, grump, CRASH, grump, savaged, SMASH, CRASH, mumble my own blinking back-door, SMASH, CRASH, WALLOP, OUCH! As I take a slice out of my finger with the bolster. Which happened just as my daughter walks in, Ahhh, the incompetent DIY man has cut his finger lets help him with the first of many plasters today whilst patronising him as if he is a frequent flyer in accident Land. Sadly she is not too far off the mark there and I sealed the deal of being proven to be accident prone by catching my wrist on a nail some 20 minutes later. I didn't tell her but the bright green "Brave little soldier" plaster rather advertised  the incident and led to a further bought of ridicule - No respect for the elders any more!

This was the Kitchen once.

Ok then, the tiles are all off and now I start to build the kitchen back up. I started with plastering over the bigger holes today and next job is to make good the rest of the plaster then to paint the ceiling and walls. But that is all small news for Today, wait for it, Today was the day that I realised that the snow had completely melted away.

     For the last 4 weeks we have had snow on the ground. In actual fact the day after we moved in it snowed and since then we have had snow in our garden. There was a day two weeks back when a slight thaw gave me a clue that my lawn may perhaps be green but it was inconclusive as later on the snow came down in ice bucket loads. No, today I looked out of the kitchen window and somewhere between bird strikes and finger strikes a change had occurred, a metamorphosis, my crispy, cold winter white veil was lifted and once again we had found our lawn.