Last day

Ok, today is going well so far. I was up on time, got the last wash into the dryer, then set off for Seascale for dinner at Mum & Dad's. The Potters and the Watsons were there as well, so it was a nice big dinner - roast pork, stuffing, roast potatoes and lots of veg, including a few of our courgettes and Dad's runner beans.

Dad loaned me his angle-grinder and we cut out the seized bolt on the spare tyre cage. I needed to get this done before I fly because while I can manage with the spare tyre in the boot when I'm on my own, once we have the whole family and all a bags in the car, there'll be no space for it.

Since Dobies hasn't managed to get us a replacement part yet, even though it's been over two weeks, I ended up pushing the tyre cage into place with Dad's little hydraulic jack, then wiring it into place with a coat hanger. It sounds very Heath-Robinson, but it is secure, and I can still get the tyre out if I need it.

After dinner, I picked Ben up and we did a couple of little odd jobs around the house for travelling, then went o to the big one in Ruth's room. I had wanted to put Ruth's curtains back up while she was away. The old rail had fallen down a while back. The bad news was that the old rail was to damaged to go back up - the good news was that we had a spare rail, only a little shorter, in the flat.

It took a while, but Ben and I got it up in the end. Proably the worst bit was when we thought we had everything sorted, but one of the hanging loops fell off and bounced out of the open window onto the kitchen roof. Fortunately we were able to recover it by taping Ruth's fishing net onto the end of a 7-foot pole and scooping it up. Here's a picture of the finished job, with fishing net...