Learning to pace ourselves

I seem to get here less often these days but I know you will be understanding.  Our lives have become a bit smaller and less outward looking these past couple of weeks - we seem to be hunkering down and drawing ourselves in a little more than we were.  It feels like we are pulling together and spending more time in each other's company whilst we can - we are acutely aware that the EFG's time with us at home is limited now and she will be in Aberdeen in just 11 short weeks.

We are making changes in all sorts of ways.  The old three piece suite which we have sat upon daily for about 17 years is outside tonight, having been rained upon already, and is waiting for the council to come and pick it up tomorrow.  It has to be "kerbside" by 7am so we got it outside whilst we had help here yesterday and then the girls and I have moved it to the front driveway this evening.  I didn't fancy having to go out in the early morning to sort it out tomorrow.  It does look a little like Steptoe's yard out there tonight but it will be gone tomorrow.  The sitting room now looks a little like a bowling alley, as it has just two armchairs and a variety of odd other pieces of furniture left.  Today the FH and I went with the EFG to a local furniture shop and chose a couple of new armchairs.  I have paid a deposit and have about 6 weeks to gather together the remainder of the cash if I want to manage to buy them without damaging the savings balance........sounds like a wee challenge for me.  We felt that we had had our money's worth out of the old suite and it was just plain worn out - there are ways of rejuvenating furniture like re-covering it and buying new cushions, but I looked into that a few years ago and the 8 new cushions [4 places each with a seat and back cushion] were going to cost a small fortune, and the recovering was not going to be economical either - and I took offence when I did have a rep here from a well-known recovering company [sounds like a stone fruit] and he said he thought that a certain kind of covers I was enquiring about were "out of my price bracket" off his own bat - that would be my decision to make, not his!!

The stairlift man was here last Thursday and yes, you were all right, and we can have one on our stairs.  He gave me his quotation, and then told me to get a couple more because the company has a price match guarantee which means that if I can get a cheaper quote, we can benefit from the lower price but still get a really good quality stairlift.  His company is backed by AgeUK, and used by a lot of local authorities, so it seems good.  We're still mulling that one over...

The FH is pretty tired tonight because we have had a busy day - the wheelchair was delivered this morning and what with a ride around Sainsbury's and around the furniture shop, he's worn out with the heat we have endured here today.  It has been just that little bit TOO hot!