Sleeping Beauty

My departure doesn't seem to have caused her too much distress which I'm glad to hear. I recall when ours were young and I had time off work to spend with them, it caused issues when I had to return to work as they no longer received the same level of attention. Megan is probably still too young for that to be an issue. We'll save that for next time.

When we left for China, the conservatory had not yet been plastered. We left a key to the conservatory with the plasterer so that he could do it and then drop the key through the letterbox when he was done. Apart from him being a day later than planned, that little arrangement seemed to work well. Sue was to come into the house to open up the conservatory so that the new plaster didn't bake & crack in the heat of the day. That didn't work so well as she found that she couldn't open the door from the kitchen into the conservatory. Luckily the weather here was so crap, that didn't prove to be an issue. Had it been finer, we would probably have returned home to find crazy paving on the walls instead of smooth plaster.

When I got home yesterday, I tried and couldn't do it either so I immediately got in touch with the conservatory company who sent someone round today to look at it. Turns out that the plaster in the door reveal overlapped the door, in effect plastering our door shut. On the one hand, unbelievable but in fairness to the plasterer, from inside the conservatory the edge of the door looks like the edge of the door frame so he clearly didn't realize his mistake. 

As they say, all's well that end's well, and the guys who called today replaced the broken glass, finished off the little trim bits and gave the whole conservatory a thorough clean down from top to bottom, so I'm a happy man.

One last thought from the flight home - wrapping cling film around your suitcase as a security measure really? We saw lots of suitcases given this treatment but are we really to believe that someone who has the inclination and tools to break open a locked suitcase or a craft knife with which to slice through a canvas suitcase is going to be deterred by cling film! If so, why do policemen wear stab vests? Just wrap them in cling film. It's got to be cheaper not to mention less bulky and constrictive.