Pentley Bl**dy Bark!

Well I have reverted back to motherhood and by that, I mean motherhood of a young baby that needs constant reassurance, cuddles and bottom wiping. Welcome to the world of Puppy-dom.

Yep, Pentley Bark has arrived in the Delaney house and boy do we know it. The house smells of Dog (at best!) at worst, something far less savoury (o; He is a very placid little fella though. Spent the whole journey home sitting on Sam’s lap and we didn’t hear a peep out of him. He cried last night a little – which is to be expected – in between shi**ing on the floor. THREE TIMES! I ask you, he’s only little. Where does it all come from? Perhaps he has it delivered in a concrete mixer and dumps it on the floor when we’re not looking. He hasn’t got the hang of things at the moment as he goes out with the kids in the garden and then poos/wees when he gets back indoors. Typical Australian dog ha ha.

Ssshhhh, don't tell them I'm here!

The only peace he gets any salvation from the kids is under the table. They are constantly following him round the house, calling / tugging / tormenting him, so he takes refuge under the table where their bony little fingers find it hard to reach him.

Darcie is still a little nervous of him – you should have seen her when she met Pentley’s granddad prior to coming home. She didn’t like him much, I can tell you. Sam thinks they are best buddies already and Adam has already told me that he loves his puppy. It’s a bit of a popularity contest at the moment and they all get upset if Pentley chooses someone else to play with. Give it a week, they’ll be sick of him and wanting him to choose someone else!

The kids broke up for Easter on Wednesday. Adam and I went to their special Easter Assembly where the Easter Bunny came to draw the raffle. Sam and Darcie didn’t win this time, but enjoyed watching the other children go up to claim their prizes; one child won three, but chose to re-donate. I don’t think Darcie would have been that generous; when it comes to chocolate, it’s each man for himself in this house.

Here’s a picture of Darcie in her Easter bonnet with her card that she made for us. No – I don’t know what the Teletubbie antenna is for either!

Tinky Winky wishes you a Happy Easter.

The house is looking good. They’ve dropped the scaffolding down now the tiling has been finished and they’ve chased out all the walls for the electrics and all the plumbing is now in. They’ve also fitted two skylights for the upstairs bathrooms and the air conditioning ducting is in situ, looking like a giant silver spider stretching his legs throughout the roof space.

Can you see the silvery legs of our house spider?

We’ve also had to sign off on the colour of the render this week. It’s ridiculous really – look at the size of the house against the size of the sample. Like choosing what colour to paint the opera house with a thimble full of paint. Hope it looks OK.

Er..... needle / haystack. What hope do we have?

We’ve signed it off now. It’s a coffee/cream colour although for some reason, both Paul and I were convinced we’d chosen a MUCH darker colour. Oh well…… my memory’s not what is used to be, you know. So hopefully after Easter, we should have the plasterers in to plaster the inside and have the render put on the outside. This will change the way the house looks totally – hope we like the change!

You can really see the dimensions of the house now the scaffolding's moved down.

So, now on to Paul’s news. Well he’s had a really tough week. He was due to go into hospital to have his stitches removed on Tuesday and he was in such a state when he arrived, that he ended up in a wheelchair. So looking like characters from Little Britain, I wheeled Paul up to the clinic, whilst Sam wheeled Adam in his pram and Darcie walked along looking terrified.

It turns out that the agony he was experiencing was due to the packing that they’d placed in the nasal cavity where they had removed the tumour. The Doctors were convinced that he would feel better once the packing was removed, but was anxious as he was told it was so painful he would need a general anaesthetic. They had him take one of his painkillers (which are hard-core, could make a living selling them on street corners, whoop arse painkillers), gave him half an hour for it to take effect and then preceded to start to remove the packing. Apparently Paul physically screamed, the pain was that intense. They managed to remove a length of it, before the pain got too much and he begged them to stop before sobbing for 15 minutes with the pain. Bless. They even considered taking him down to theatre there and then to remove it, but he’d had something to drink, so they refused. Instead he’d have to return next Wednesday to have a small general anaesthetic and have the packing removed. He did manage to have his stitches removed though, so that’s something /o:

Look - no stitches

So, this was all on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I got a phone call from the hospital to say could he go back to the hospital on Thursday for another pre-admission appointment. Sh*t. So we trundled off again on Thursday to sit for another 3 hours whilst he went through the same procedure that he went through last week prior to his first operation.

I'm more tired than you...........ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

As you can see, I think Paul and Pentley have a shared mutual interest. The duvet is Darcie’s by the way – my taste isn’t that dodgy for the double bed.

Have a great Easter gang. May your hunts be full of eggs, may your bunnies be full of bounce and may your buns be hot and cross.

Love to everyone x