Spring came with a new red bike!

Panic over - we have a new ceiling. The toilet is fixed and business is booming. Along with the brighter warmer weather, the blossom has burst into life on the cherry tree at the bottom of the garden, the grass has had its second mowing. Spring is definately in the air and everyone's mood in the house has lifted, it's amazing what a little blue sky can do for the soul.

I was up at the crack of dawn (o.k. so 7.30 a.m. isn't the crack of dawn, but for most on a Sunday morning in Havercroft it is stupid o'clock - especially after a good saturday night in the village pubs. By 8.30 Campbell, Ciaran and I were on our way cycling down a country lane, well they were cycling and I was, well, kind of wobbling, noisily. I wasn't that bad really, considering the last brief ride I had on a bike was when Donna was 10 and we were on holiday in Africa. Before that, the last time I rode a push bike I was about 15 years old. After the initial trepidation I found my cylcle legs and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hadn't realised there were little pockets of heaven so close to this old mining town.

We must have passed at least twenty people, like minded souls off for a walk or run on this glorious morning, all greeting us with a kindly nod or "Good Morning". It almost felt like an episode from our favourite tv show, Dr Who, as if we were in some kind of time warp back in the 60's when people were civil and crack was something the happened to a dish when you put it in cold water straight from the oven. Civility is alive and well, you just have to get up early to find it. No doubt I will pay for all this excercise in the morning when my legs and I don't want to work in conjunction with each other and I ache in places I didn't know I had.

We took a rest at an old bench along a leafy lane, and I had a cigarette, didn't want to overdose on the oxygen so soon! A group of runners came up swiftly towards us, they were clad in shorts and t-shirts, they were obviously no stranger to this excercise thing, one of them happened to be Stewart, my ex-boss, who, as he passed by greeted me with "Well! We've run all this way to find a seat and some bugger's sat on it!"

We enjoyed the ride back to the house, and Campbell was so impressed with my enthusiasm, that after a cup of coffee, he took me to Halford's in town and bought me a shiny new red ladies off road bike. It is so gorgeous and shiny, I have always wanted a red bike - might need a new outfit to go with it though! Maybe next time, with my new red bike I might ride down the steep hills and not chicken out!

Well, I meant to keep up to date with this, however, life got in the way as it usually does!
I have been very busy, thankfully with lots of portrait work, an actor and a model included, so it has been a lovely exciting week for me. I could have done without the excitement on Saturday night though; the kitchen ceiling began to pour with water at eight o'clock and by 9 o'clock a chunk of ceiling came crashing down. About two metres in all.

We have now had the source of the problem fixed, an overflow pipe that was running uphill instead of down would you believe? We knew the house needed lots of work when we moved in and we are slowly getting around to it all, but it's the little things that are tucked away ready to wreak havoc that is the most worrying part of it.

The emergency plumber came around and had a look, but told me it wasn't covered under the insurance, it was an easy job for Campbell to re-route the pipe and it now goes straight out of the wall, instead of 4 feet away via the bath outlet. The bulders arrive tomorrow to replace the entire kitchen ceiling and the laminate floor in the bathroom. Luckily these are insured. The laminate was due to be replaced and I hated the artex on the kitchen ceiling, which needed patching, so a win-win situation all round! Talk about landing in a pile of poo and coming up smelling of roses - forget that - the aroma is Armani Code! - Lucky me!