Moving House!

Hello,

Two in one day! You lucky people. Anyway, this is just a quick note to give some good news. As I had rather been hoping, a larger place in the same complex of apartments is becoming available. Our landlord knew we were looking (and we're wicked tenants, obviously) so he asked us if we'd be interested. We had a look, and apparently 7 extra square metres makes a hell of a difference, because it seemed pretty palatial to us! So we said yes.

We should be moving around the beginning of July. Not such good news for my parents coming over for Noemi's baptism in June... but there's an extra bedroom, room to swing a cat in the kitchen and it should be cooler in the summer. Woo ha!

Brewing

Image via Wikipedia Just a quick note to say how much I'm appreciating my parents' birthday present (birthday in may, but the moment was not opportune) - the BruBox! Apparently to the extent that I'm basically giving them a little publicity. They don't supply direct, but they do list stockists.

It's a little cube for brewing 10 l of beer in about the simplest way possible. I reckon I might even manage to do it with a small baby about. It's something of a godsend in this mysterious country where they know (almost) everything about food, but nothing about beer...

I wonder how I'll get the next packs.

N.B. It does make a bit of noise though. I'd advise the presence of multiple walls between the kit and, say, a pregnant wife.

Visiting People

I neglected to mention that we've managed to do a reasonable amount of visiting people over the summer. On the way back from Pembrokeshire we stayed the night with Nick and Ann in Swansea. Nice meal, courtesy of Ann, followed by a walk down Swansea beach to the cinema to see The Simpsons Movie.

Next day we headed off to Neath where we had lunch with James and Sonia (nice curry buffet type arrangement) before driving all the way back up to Manchester.

The following weekend we went to Nan's 80th birthday bash, visiting two sets of parents en route in Wolverhampton and Corby (Northamptonshire) respectively.

With a mere two weeks of summer holiday remaining to Emma, she set about preparing for the decoration of the dining room. We had a surprise visit from James Hall (formerly my housemate whilst at Sheffield uni, now resident in Cambridge, although his mum lives about half an hour away from us) during the second coat of the walls. As it was getting late, James and I got curry while Emma finished off the final wall. (I should point out that I did offer to finish the painting while Emma & James got curry!)

It's been really nice this summer to see so many people over the summer, and it was very pleasant spending some time with Emma (not teaching for a few weeks was a great help). Decorating's quite therapeutic, and I'm looking forward to trying it with a little less time pressure.