First exams done

I know it's been ages but today I had my first set of exams as part of my uni course so I finally have 5 minutes to myself. James has been fantastic taking on even more of the household responsibilities and building work to enable me to spend evenings and weekends studying.

The less said about the ineptitude of the university and their exams the better, suffice to say it was a somewhat stressful day but at least I am one module through the programme, even if I may need to do some resits.

A few weekends ago we put another of our vegetable beds back in place and finally put in the strawberry plants that we dug up last year. It seems that at the moment everything we do is last minute. It was snowing whilst we planted but I really needed to get them in whilst they were dormant before Spring starts to show it's face. I also put in some Spring bulbs I ordered last autumn that should have been planted months ago. I'm not sure if they'll come to anything being put in so late. I think this next 6 months I am going to have to put any non-essential jobs on hold until I'm done studying.

James has finished the plastering in our new room, along with putting on the skirting and architrave. He made some window sills and fitted them. Bless him he's even taken over my job painting and the room suddenly seems to be almost finished. Yesterday he even fitted the facias on the plug sockets and fitted the light shade and curtain poles.

The fire place in our bedroom has been a bit of hard work. When we investigated the fireplace it became obvious why I had been completely unable to stand the Rayburn being lit when I was pregnant. The flue pipe only went as far as the first floor and was spewing smoke into the space just behind the fireplace which had been covered loosely with some particle board. You can see where it was leaking around the mantle piece. Thank God the smell made me feel so ill, all that carbon monoxide would have leaked into where we were sleeping. The carbon monoxide alarms were both fitted into the rooms where the burners were as per recommendations so were never activated when the fire was lit.

We have put in a floor as we don't intend to use the Rayburn again in it's current incarnation and will get a new flue fitted when a burner is fitted into the extension.

The chimney breast was a pain to get boarded and plastered, especially in the tiny alcove but it looks good.

Yesterday I took the kids on an hours walk in the local woods to atone for spending so little time with them recently. Luckily they're happy with their dad most of the time but it's difficult and I feel guilty for neglecting them.

I will take some pictures of our bedroom in the light and post on here soon.