2nd Time Lucky (Fingers Crossed!)

Dropped that kids off at school this morning, came home and spent two hours sorting the house for the estate agents visit!! They looked around the house and seemed quite impressed. They have the same house as ours on there books but on for 10k more. The people who own the other house are in no rush to move so happily over price it. There are some other smaller properties for sale in our estate that will be on for the same price as ours. I am sure we will ruffle a few feathers by pricing ours so competitively. I feel we are just being realistic with the price. I have also decided to do an open day with our house. Never tried that before, what is the worse thing that can happen? The house will not sell that day. At least we would have tried. They took pics and details, just waiting now to check them. OH has just called me with his holiday dates in August, so fingers crossed we hope to be viewing houses that week in Italy….

Once that estate agents left Luca and I had lunch. He then had a nap while I ironed my way through our mountain of clean clothes. I then had to collect the kids from school followed by a trip to the bank and supermarket. Then home and cook the kids dinner. I am pooped.

I rode Vasco three times last week. Bliss. He is lovely to ride and esp comfy with my instructors dressage saddle. Will try and take more pics soon.

Slimming World

I joined Slimming World early August 2006 (the pic attached was taken in late August 2006. It is a shame that you cannot see the tops of my arms in the picture) because I had had enough of my weight and none of my larger clothes fitting. I managed to loose 1.5 stone in 11 months which I was very pleased with. However I then went of the rails and have put a stone back on since then!!!! I stopped going in late August last year but have re-joined about three weeks ago because I was finding that clothes that fitted before were now not. I thought I was being very good the first week and was most disappointed that I had only lost 1.5 pounds, so spent the following week eating what I liked (I know it is my own fault) and I missed last weeks meeting (slap wrists!). I am fed up of looking at my overweight self so I have to pull my finger out and do something about it. I went to Tesco earlier and brought myself the Slimming World magazine for some inspiration. They always do fab recipes and it is always lovely to read other people success stories. I am drawing a line in the sand today and am not going to go back to my bad old ways!!

He Has Arrived

Finally Vasco has arrived. He was collected late on Sunday night, spent the night in Dover (thankfully not in the truck) and arrived at the yard at one yesterday afternoon. The kids and I went to see him at five yesterday evening. He was a little anxious, which is to be expected. My instructor took him into the inside school and let him loose. It was lovely watching him kicking up his heels and rolling around in the sand. A couple of carrots later, we went home. This morning after the school run I collected MIL who looked after Luca so that I could go to the yard. I arrived to find a much more calmer horse. I spent an hour learning what brush to use etc. I have so much to learn, it feels daunting at times. I am having to use all of my will power not to keep on popping over to see him. He is such a gentleman. So willing to give you his feet so that you can pick them out and when he takes food from your hand he is so gentle. I am positively beaming. I am having a sit on him on Friday night but will not start having proper lesson for another couple of weeks. We both need to build up our fitness!! It has been three months since I have been in the saddle and I think I might also be using a dressage saddle!!

I want to cry....

Just spent all morning cleaning and tidying the house in preparation for the estate agent. He spent two minutes whizzing round the house (he has already seen the particulars on-line from the previous time we tried to sell it!). He has valued it 35k lower them we want for it. I want to cry, well have done a little =-( I think we may have two options, stay here another two years or get a mortgage in Italy. Neither are particularly suitable. We just need to decide now how badly we want to move. Will discuss more tonight with OH. It has really p****d on my fire. Just want to go to bed and hide under duvet but not sure if the kids will let me, besides have to take DD2 riding in 25 mins. TTFN
PS Vasco is still not here (that is enough to make me want to scream!) however have been promised that he will be here on Saturday when I will be visiting my big sister in Devon. I am not holding my breath.

The Story So Far

I cannot believe that it has been a month since I last posted anything. Anyway I have been busy. I ordered a skip so that we could have a major clear out as we do not want to be moving with loads of rubbish and wanted to de-clutter the house ready for viewers. OH said that we should have words with the neighbours and see if they wanted to add anything to the skip. I suggested that we waited first to see if we managed to fill it ourselves. Good job we did as we filled it to the top!!

My horse is still not here =-( The previous yard that my instructor had lined up fell through because the owner got greedy. Sounds like she had over stretched her finances and was trying to make up the short fall by increasing the deposit on the yard. It has worked out for the best because my instructor has managed to find another yard that is closer and loads better. It also has an indoor school which is a bonus. Vasco was meant to arrive last night but unfortunately the previous horses that were collected before him were stallions and behaving like complete arses. So the poor driver was having to stop all the time and sort the horses. Prob best that he did not travel with them as it would have prob stressed him out and they could have hurt him. He is now due to arrive next Wed. Am keeping everything crossed. MIL was due to have the children for the day early next week and I was going to spend the day at the yard. She is still going to have the children but i have decided to decorate the kitchen instead (joy!).

The estate agent is due to value the house on Thursday which gives me plenty of time to sort the house out. Hopefully it will be on the market early next week. The only thing that I hate about selling houses is the strangers tramping around you home looking in cupboards. Thankfully I feel much better prepared this time.

I brought OH an antique map of Northern Italy that I have hung above my desk. Its lovely to look up at it and dream that one day we will be living there.

OH decided that he wanted to buy a running machine. It arrived all boxed up on Wednesday and is still waiting to be unpacked!! I am as keen as he is to use it. I am hoping that it will be the key to me losing weight. I plan to use it while monster chops is having his nap in the day. OH plans to use it after work. I am tempted to keep tabs on who uses it the most. I would like to think that it will be me.

Monster chops has just woken up so I will have to sign off. I did try to add a pic to this post but the b****y thing is playing up and is not letting me do it. I do like to add a pic because it always makes it more interesting. TTFN

Ski Deep

The first week the kids are due back at school is when we have our annual ski holiday. In the 7 years that OH and I have been together this is only the third season I have skied. Having babies puts a stop to my skiing. However Olivia has not yet missed a season and it shows!! The first season I skied was great but then I had a five-year gap and last season was awful. I was getting panic attacks at the top of the slope and had no confidence at all. Much to the annoyance of OH. He had to carry me back to the chalet on his birthday I was that ill!! However since then I have started horse riding again, which has given, loads of confidence. I said that I would not do ski school this year and would just get out on the slopes. OH did not share my enthusiasm and thought that I would chicken out! I proved him wrong. I was sooo chuffed with myself.

Olivia was absolutely amazing. She makes it look so easy. This was also the holiday that we wanted Amber to start skiing. We put her in ski school last season, which was a complete disaster so this year we decided to pay for some private lessons. It worked a treat. She can now ski. The instructor is an English lady who has the most amazing way about her and gets reluctant skiers skiing without realising it! I am sooo proud of Amber. The trip for Luca was just about having fun in the snow. I really enjoyed just going off with Olivia and skiing together. We also skied with OH a few times and as always he would be showing off and messing around. The last run we did together he fell over showing off. He is still suffering for it and has a nice bruise to remember it!

We stay at the same place every year www.skideep.net . OH has been going with this particular company for about the past 13 years. The only difference with this trip was that we drove instead of flying. We could not face the airport with three children so we went by Eurotunel. What a fantastic experience it was going by train in the car. It is soooo easy. Why people use ferries I will never know. The only pain was the 700 miles each way. Having said that the kids were amazing considering the time they had to spend in the car. We did it in one day, which we were not planning on doing. We had planned to stop off over night in France but we were keen to get to resort on the way and keen to be sleeping in our beds that night on the way back!

What made me laugh when we got back and watched the recordings of us skiing is that we only seem to use the recorder when we go skiing because last seasons was right before this seasons footage!! Another new years resolution, use the recorder more often!!

PS Vasco is not arriving this Saturday but that is another story.......

Belated Greetings

Mid January 2008 and I am only just posting about Christmas (mental note, must try harder to update blog this year). Anyway we all had a fantastic time and were lucky enough to get some fantastic presents. I did not dislike any of my presents this year, which is a first. I got a great grooming kit for Vasco from OH, he also got me a gorgeous Radley handbag, some Agent Provocateur perfume to name a few. The kids got loads as always. Olivia has finally reached an age where she really appreciates what she gets. As a surprise we got her a pair of skis, which she adores. It took Luca about a week to open all his presents. He would open a few and then get distracted with playing with them.

Christmas lunch nearly turned into a disaster. OH parents were 10 mins late but his sister and brother-in-law was 45 mins late! The annoying thing is that they had also come from OH parents house so no excuse really. OH was livid and told them that he would not be cooking Christmas lunch for them again (his sister and brother-in-law that is).

Will update again soon with the rest of my news………