I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. ...............................Jerome K. Jerome

I have finally managed to pick up a paint brush again. It was not that I was in some way physically handicapped and therefore unable to literally pick up a paint brush, nor was it that I had some kind of phobia for which I have been consulting the best psychiatrists and part-taking in a course of acupuncture. Sadly not as those reasons appear to be far more ingratiating than the truth, which is all the damned paperwork and red tape that I have been trying to untangle.

The current situation is that we are waiting for several Companies to return quotes to us. So far some of them have already given quotes on different options but at present, based on the affordability of the other quotes we are striving to set up one B&B room and a holiday cottage. We have agreed a price with a plumber regarding the B&B's en-suite and are just waiting for a start date for that job and so the DIY work that I need to do must kick start now, which it has.

The Cottage however has a lot of quotes still to come in AND we have still yet to compose the planning permission request, which has to be done carefully as any errors will get it dismissed and as it costs £375 for the privilege of simply asking for the status to be changed from residential to a Holiday Let, we can ill afford to cock up this paperwork.

So there is still a lot of office work to do, registering with the Cash & Carry, obtaining Environmental Health Office clearance (after reading their 150 page rules book& watching the DVD that came with it!), joining the B&B association, organising the design and printing of the leaflets and Business cards, signing a contract with the local Tourist Board, completing the 'deal' with the Accountant and many other more trivial but necessary things of a similar nature. However I was getting really frustrated that I was not physically doing something to move the decorating onward and so I made a point of just stopping all of the above, picking up a paint brush and painting something.

The window frames and walls needed sanding down, filling and painting, so I set off yesterday to try to knock this item off our, fairly comprehensive, TO-DO LIST and it felt good. It is all very well touching up these window frames but there is an additional hurdle to leap, the glass it self. Throughout the house the previous owners used a dark brown wood stain, inside and out, which was put on with little or no care  with regards to the glass. There are drips of the creosote style liquid on 90% of the windows, no masking tape was used to protect the window glass and this messy stuff has dried to hard solid splash marks leaving nasty, hardened brown stains on most window panes. They are really hard to get off, but whilst in most family homes there are about 20 window pains here we have approximately 215 of the things, a regular Crystal Palace!

So I have got two window frames fully painted and I feel some progress has been mad. Alison and I went to B&Q and bought, the new en-suite but this may take up to 3 weeks to be delivered, so we know that we will not be operational until at least then.

The weather has been lovely and I have to confess to going for a bike ride first thing in the morning the other day. I saw two Hares right in the middle of an expansive field and just as I was about to take their photo they got wind of me and ran, but I still managed to get them and as you can see from the photo, neither of them appear to be touching the ground, they are really flying. The next day I saw another four Hares, that's six in two days and until about two years ago I can't remember seeing one in my life time! They really are massive and boy can they run, nay leap as they seem more like wallabies.

Looking forward to having the Family back together again as both the kids are back with us for the weekend.

Also it looks like lawn mowing this weekend too, if it doesn't rain!







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