Back to being a student

James has been working evenings at home this week to get our bedroom plastered and today he finished all four walls with just the chimney breast to go. It's looking great and it's almost at the stage where I can lend my painting skills. 

On Friday I attended an induction day for the university course to do my prescribing certificate. To be honest they scared me to death with the amount of work required over the next 6 months. I had been told it takes 12 hours a week to complete, but they said it needs 100 hours a month, where will I find the time? I think to be honest you just find the time when you have to.

I'm still not fully enrolled, I've had to take just about every official document that I've ever had and I still hadn't taken everything they want. This leaves me without my student ID, which I'm told is required to get into the medical school there, so I'll have to attach myself to someone else to get me in, I'm not looking forward to that.

So tomorrow I'm back in to do my first day in a classroom in 10 years, how exciting and scary.

There are some very pretty (and ugly) parts of campus and I had a wonder round. I didn't take any pictures but I found this a few online so you can see the best bits.

Last year's achievements

Now my one standing achievement so far seems to be taking forever to put a post together so I'm a bit behind on last year's achievements.

2016 was a bit mixed, with some great successes, it just seemed to take a few tries to get everything right. I've made a list for us to see what we've done and it gives us a sense of achievement when you read it all and realise why you seem to have no time or money!

So here's a bit of a list in no particular order:-

• Got water and electricity to the cabin, fitted the cabin kitchen and bathroom and furnished
• Emptied the old extension
• Had old extension knocked down old
• Moved the boiler again and not for the last time
• Had more chicks
• Had a whole new extension built...slowly
• Bricked up the old doorways in the house
• Built stud work upstairs, insulated studs and plaster boarded
• Plumbed and wired the extension
• Fitted a new bathroom (partly)
• Plastered and decorated baby girls new room
• Built and fibreglassed the extension bay roof
• Had windows fitted
• Had doors hung, both internal and external
• Had back garden levelled and seeded lawn
• Changed jobs...twice
• Been to Sicily, Devon and Cardiff
• Grown a multitude of fruit and veg
• Canned and preserved the harvest

I will admit to using 'the royal' we. James has worked himself very hard, whilst keeping up a full time job and spending time with the family. I think it's fair to say that he pushed himself too hard last year and the plan this year is to spend more family time together. That's particularly important to me now that I'm also working full time.

So here's a quick pic of before and after this year of the front of the house. Would you believe that when I put this together I couldn't find a picture of the whole of the front, so the new bit will have to do, I must rectify that.

Before

After

And once again baby girl is called into play to show how time's flown, just look at that hair! Not to mention the first photo is Easter, so a quarter of the way in to the year.