Had a mini meltdown today. The house is just horrible inside so I took a moment to walk down to the bottom of the garden and try to visualise what we're going to have. The area in the foreground will be concreted on Monday and will be the base for Gerty's (the campervan) shelter and also the base for Mike's bike shed/workshop. 

We're at the end of week 5 and we already have most of the roof on the back extension. The guy who's doing the windows came back to measure up properly this morning. I've spent the week whilst driving round for work looking at windows and unfortunately come to the conclusion that the dark grey we originally thought we wanted is now not what we want. So we're going for a lighter grey which won't dominate so much. Typically it's a non standard colour so adds a significant chunk to the already over budget window bill and a delay of a couple of weeks. It's not something to compromise on though as we won't be changing them in the future and I don't want to get to the end of this and hate them! 

This was after Eva had a really bad ride on Jack this morning. He appears to be over his colic episode but he would not do anything for her this morning. I'm very aware he could be trying to tell us he's not ok, but also aware it's not totally out of character to try and avoid work and get his own way. Except he normally gives in with a bit of gentle persuasion and today he didn't co-operate at all. She got off and I lunged him. He looked fine. His saddle was checked 6 months ago and I've booked another saddle check for next week but I don't think it's that. She got back on and he trotted round happily for a bit and even gave her a canter she didn't ask for, then the brakes went on again and he refused to go forward and when pressed was tail swishing and doing mini bucks. So he's either being cheeky little arse or he's in pain somewhere/possible gut issues- the grass is 'difficult' at the mo and he's not getting on well with the different hay but it's all I have. I've asked Ellie if she'll ride him. She's a light weight teenager and won't be the least bit worried if he bucks. It's all so draining and time consuming. We were supposed to be doing a dressage comp tomorrow but there's absolutely no point so we've had to cancel that. Too late for refunds as well. But I can't have Eva's confidence knocked as it takes months and months to build it back up and we have to be as sure as we can be he's not in any pain. It might be that he's still feeling a bit under the weather. We'll try a gentle hack out tomorrow with Bud as he enjoys that. 

I did a rider balance and alignment workshop on Buddy this afternoon. Got some good tips to help with my wonkiness! 

Home to watch the Strictly final. Eva had been to mini spa day for Ev's birthday this afternoon and came home in a funny mood so only watched half of it with me which is such a shame.