Settling in and sorting out

Shiny new slow cooker 

It's hard to believe that we've not yet been back in the UK a week and in our house for even less time than that. We've got so much done although it's not all been what you might call 'fun'.

In good news, I've replaced our slow cooker already. Do you remember it died while we were staying in Ourique? I was in Hailsham yesterday to visit my Dad while Dave was playing his first tennis of the year. I popped into Smythe & Barrie, a friendly and helpful electrical retailers on the High Street. They had exactly the 3.5L size cooker that I was looking for so we are now the proud owners of a Morphy Richards Accents 48703 Searing Slow Cooker in black. Dave has already used it to make the filling for one of his delicious steak and kidney pies. As well as having a choice of three heat settings and a light to show it is on, I was pleased to discover that the whole unit is much lighter than our previous one due to it's pot being aluminium. This will be perfect for the caravan where weight allowances are at such a premium.

However, there was bad news too because we had to call out a plumber. Something in the central heating had gone a bit screwy so it would either be full on or off but there was no way to have it clicking on and off with the thermostat as we used to do. Fortunately Chris from Graphite Plumbing was able to get to us very quickly and the problem now appears to be fixed. He thought the switching mechanism had probably seized up due to it having been in the same position for five months.

Red cloche! 

More good news yesterday. (This is starting to remind me of an exercise we tried at a Storytelling Group I was attending when I started this blog. We created a story in pairs, alternating to add an event that began either 'fortunately ....' or 'unfortunately ...' The photo is of me at the group wearing my red cloche hat from Austin, Texas. I can't remember why we wore hats that week?) Anyway! Yesterday two of the crowd-funded albums I pledged to came to fruition and we were able to download our digital copies for first listens. The albums are Silver Ladder by +Peter Mulvey which was on +Kickstarter and Flo by +Sunday Driver UK which was on +PledgeMusic. They are very different styles of music from each other and I am listening to Flo now as I type. It is beautifully chilled out and perfect to accompany blogging!

A second bad to finish unfortunately, but it (hopefully) will have a happier twist at the end. Dave is off to work today having been offered his hours back as soon as we got home. I, of course, didn't so I'm at home at the moment awaiting an opportunity. I've signed up with an agency and Catherine at Recruitment South East is encouragingly positive so fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'm having a big spring clean and sort out of STUFF. I seem to have lots of STUFF that I don't need. Today I have listed a few DVDs on eBay. If you like arthouse cinema, there's French, German, Spanish and New Zealand films on offer including a boxed set of Jean-Pierre Melville films. I think I've got a widget at the end of the post to show the listings but if it's not there, you can Click Here Too! Please share and bid! I'll be putting some unpostable bits on +Freegle too. Does anyone need a Stepper like this one or a large quantity of variously sized plastic flower pots?