The Mummy on the Bus says ‘Never again!’ (by sarah)

People have been being horrified that I wait until Al is free to go shopping rather than taking Jean on the bus - now I know full well that getting up the hill to the bus stop with the pushchair is a bit of a no-no. Al struggles to get the pushchair up the other side of our valley which is a lot shallower and due to the narrowness of the lanes if a vechile does come along - in some places you have to pretty much scale the sides to get out of the way - also something I feel I can not physically cope with.

But Tuesday I had people to meet and shopping to get and Als time was already pressed so he gave me a lift in and I said I'd get the bus back with the shopping. Now I recalled there was a reason that we had only taken the pushchair with us once on the bus when Jean was really tiny but that reason had escaped my mind.

I had shopping, I had torrential rain, I had a soggy baby and a pushchair I never collapse becuase it hurts my wrists to do so. I put Jean on the bus and gave her her now soggy blanket (bus was late and there were a lot of people waiting for it. I struggled with folding the pushchair up and then discovered that it was an awkard fit even when it was folded - then I remembered 'Oh yes I couldn't get onto these buses easily with the crutches becuase of how narrow and steppy there are.' A lady on the bus helped me get Jean past the urine smelling old guy who had his shopping trolly in the ilse taking up more space than the pushchiar would have, muttering to himself and occasionally shouting - whilst I wrsteled with the shopping and pushchair. On the seat I lift Jean sending my poor arm into spasm enough to grit teeth, so then I'm worried that the nice lady who's just helped me is going to think I'm mad or rude or something.

The next bit was fine as Jean was entranced by the 'Oh dear water! Wet! Floor water!' though one of the men on the bus was commenting loudly that 'no wonder the buses never run on time' as my attempts to get one the bus had obviously taken some time. Jean happily played peek-a-boo with school girl behind us (with the nice lady who helped), this was up until she founf the yummy! some nice person had shoved their sandwitch down the side of the seat which of course Jean found and being two wanted to eat. So then I have a disgrunteled child who does not understand why mummy wont let her eat the perfectly good yummy - and I think why hadnt I noticed it when I sat down, coming to the conclusion that as the bus started to move before I'd sat down I was a little pre-occupied!

Annoyed with not being allowed to eat yummy or stand on the seat Jean decides to get off of the seat and as I try to stop her my spasming arm decides to get worse meaning that I could not stop her flying off the seat at the bus suddenly stopped - fortunatly she landed on the shopping which was all soft stuff. After two more escape attempts she was imprisioned on my lap with my good arm holding the wrist of the bad arm as I had very little use of it. Miffed Jean wriggled as best she could to escape though eventually she gave that up.

The to the next fun bit - getting off of the bus. Fortunatley urine smelling man had gone taking his shopping cart thing with him but that still left me with Jean, shopping and a folded up buggy and a bus stop next to the A46 and I mean RIGHT next to it - no pavement or stuff. An old lady retrieved Bob the duck who Jean had hurled for me and I managed to stop her just before she dived off the bus whithout me. I then had to make sure I had a grip on her with one hand as she wanted to look at the 'doot doot cars!' whilst I wrested the pushchair off the bus, over the shopping I'd had to put down becuase I jsut could not physically do anything else.

I grabbed the shopping retrieved the pushchair from the mud (where the shopping had to take its place) reinstated the pushchiar pulling a muscle in my back as this is a proceedure you really need both hands for and a chin just really doesnt cut it! Child now thouraly soaked as it was still tipping it down - rammed into pushchair with soggy shopping half squashed uncermoniously dumped into the basket underneith bag on back I headed across the road into the pub where they dried the blanket for me and made extra hot hot chocolate for me whilst I waited for Al as we needed to be somewhere else in an hour.

Jean thought it was a great day out.

I think bus journeys are out intill she is no longer in a pushchair - the journeys fine on my own but not with a pushchiar. It is probably doable with two people but not on my own! Oh and did I mention the fact that the driver didn't have any change so the trip cost me £3 instead of the 2.50(60) it should have 🙁

The shopping was fortunatly all still usable at the end of all this which was a relief though I did discover that I'd forgotten the urgent nick-nocks (pull up nappy-nicker things) for Jean!

Filters (by sarah)

Finially filters have been fitted on the Mills water supply which being fed from a spring through cracked pipes just happens to be full of stuff like e-coli. There is now a partical filter and a UV tube for killing off the bugs. The UV tube will have to be replaced about once a year I don't know how often the partical filter will need to be changed - but still this now means the waters safe to drink 🙂

This is a great relief when dealing with a two year old who loves water 🙂 They made sure especiallly that the bathrooms water supply was after the filter too.

Re the wriggly monsters I found in the cats water (you can read about that here it turns out Barbara gets the cats water from the water butt outside so no wonder it was full of mosquito lavea!

Everything is normal (by alaric)

I'm back in Cranham after another week away. I came back late on Friday, and the first thing we did Saturday morning was go and pick the van up from Holbrook Garage, where it had been in for some minor repairs: the reversing lights had stopped working, the right headlight was being intermittent (sidelight and full beam mode worked OK, but when set to dip, it was merely sidelight-bright, but sometimes it worked OK), and the coolant temperature gauge only ever read above 'very cold' when we were sat in a creeping traffic jam in bright sunlight for a few hours.

All niggling little things that I had wanted fixed for a long time, and had had brief attempts to fix myself, but now we have some money coming in, fixing niggling little problems like that is on the cards once more (before they become expensive problems).

The van was ready and waiting for me, and the first thing we noticed as Sarah and I set off down the M5 for a day out was that the temperature gauge did indeed rise until it gratifyingly pointed to "Normal":

It's nice to know you're normal.

Anyway, we proceeded to visit Bristol for lunch and a walk about, then headed over to explore Weston Super Mare and see the seaside (even though it's not really the sea per se, it's the Severn Estuary), before making our way back home.

Then on Sunday we took Jean out. We tried to go to Bristol Zoo, but all the car parks were full, which lead us to suspect it would not be a pleasant time to visit, so instead we walked around Bristol again with her.

We came across a green square, where some air cadets where dismantling a glider and putting it in its trailer, while some army cadets were taking down a portable climbing wall. I presume there had been some kind of event on, which we had missed, but Jean was entranced by the glider. She demanded to go and see it, shouting "Plane! Plane!". Afterwards, we saw some people doing acrobatic leaps in the square, and Jean tried to copy them, which was rather cutely comical, too.

We had a relaxing weekend, since we'd both had a hard week beforehand (I worked all day and spent most of my evenings in a data centre fixing things!), and we have a hard week ahead of us.

Which I am now starting... with a bad cold. Sigh...

Damp Flags (by sarah)

Yesturaday the Rainbow people for the Mill came and said pretty much the same as was said of the Bakery - its naturally damp the amount of moisture goes up everytime it rains so the buildings at pre-flood levels.

Al asked about the 'long-term' solution and it would be taking up the flag stones and putting a layer undernieth but that isn't going to happen so for now its just getting carpets back in and rugs back down.

Unfortunatly the mill is basically sitting on a spring in the front part by the front door and when the water table rises it comes threw the floor! The water table is exceptionally high still and the guy showed us the visible damp patches on the stones - 'you can feel the damp with your fingers!' he told us demonstrating 🙁

The Disicated Mouse (by sarah)

The Rainbow people came again on Tuesday and pronounced that we were wetter than the previous week and therefore the property though very damp is naturally that way and they have returned the building to pre-flood levels. This ment they removed all the fans and dehumidifiers and will be signing us off so that the builders can begin their work.

However they did warn us that any floor covering we put down will go moulding in about a year and have suggested various things like ceramic tiles and waterproof layers - flag stones would apparently be the best as they would allow everything to 'breath' properlly. I think that what will probably happen is that a water proof layer will be painted onto the floor again even though that just means all the moisture will just go round it into the wall cuasing problems with plaster - sigh.

We really wish we had some spar cash so that we could sort it all out properlly once and for all but I dont think thats going to happen for a while yet.

We also found a little shrivelled mummyfied mouse corpse that had been dried out by the dehumidifier - in fact it was pretty much under the machine - I really wish I had a working camera as it was a photo oppertunity I'll probably never have again - gross but interesting - sigh I'm not sure that artist and scientist is such a good mix somethimes!