Ola!

Hi dudes, tis me with another quarterly update...

So it's now November the 4th, Bonfire Night tomorrow. We've just had Halloween which involved a house party in Winchester with a bunch of Nick's Southampton mates. Mostly old toots from his Days of Yore whose friendships have been rekindled since we moved to the big smoke. A really very nice bunch too if I do say so. It started with a night out at the Hobbit pub, a studenty dive of a place with dodgy booze and since then we have been hanging out most Friday nights. So we went to a great Halloween party where everyone made a massive effort costume wise. I was a black cat, as facebook pics prove, and Nick was a most authentic Ghostbuster with his homemade Proton Pack.

I am still mostly knackered with all this DIY malarky. Still, the house is looking better and better with the downstairs pretty much complete now. I spent this morning painting the woodwork in our shower room and then this afternoon tiling the bathroom. It all takes a long time but we're getting a really good finish, better than our last place in Guernsey as we're more practised now and have definitely learnt from our mistakes. Another month and we should be in.....

Lots of interesting wildlife going on at the house, with loads of bluetits and wood pigeons in the garden. I hung a few bird feeders in the little magnolia tree we have and this grey squirrel keeps coming along, grabbing the feeders and shaking them up and down like a lunatic. Brilliant! I have a fascination of squirrels as we don't have them in Guernsey so they can eat the nuts, I don't mind. In our loft we have found heaps of old wasps nests which are so beautiful and delicate, like little paper lanterns that fall apart when you touch them. A couple of days ago Nick found a most peculiar thing which looked like this up behind the felt which turned out to be a bumble bees nest. It looked incredibly alien and I don't know why but I had to have a good sniff up close and it smelt like a cross between honey and bitter mould. Then our next door neighbours have a very cute little chocolate brown cat called Coco who comes to visit us every day which is nice. She's a bit of a madam but generally cute.

I've started doing Hatha Yoga which is very lovely although the chanting gets a bit of getting used to. Lots of Ommmmmm shanti shanti's and such like. I love it though, am going to try to keep up with it.

Well its Trinity and True Blood night on the TV tonight, two excellent shows. I'm sleepy so hope I manage to keep my eyes open. Just getting over a cold which has lasted about a week so I'm ready for it to be over.