A chat and some hard work

later Saturday:

Well, you'll remember this morning my stress about our neighbour's complaints. I spent the whole morning worrying about that, and stressing because Tim (wanting to get Aiden to his tennis lesson, already very late) told him we'd go over later to discuss the matter. Also waiting for the skip bin to arrive. It was actually supposed to come yesterday, but the guy called and asked if 9:00am today would be ok, I said yes. Waited and waited. Eventually texted him, he called back to say he'd be here in an hour. Ended up getting the skip at 1:00pm. He confessed when he got here that he'd forgotten us entirely and was doing some gardening!

So without the excuse of sitting waiting for the skip any more, we went next door and sat down with Craig and his wife whose name I can't remember. I was glad I hadn't invited them to ours because they have an immaculate home and ours is always a mess. But then we do still have children at home. Anyway, Craig started with very closed-off body language, crossed arms and constantly rubbing his chin and neck. But he spoke calmly and we spoke calmly, I think having the two women there might have helped diffuse things, and he ended up being quite friendly. We basically apologised and expressed willingness to explore options to resolve any problems, after waiting to hear what the heat pump sounded like once turned on, how difficult it would be to move etc. He seemed ok with that. So it all turned out fine. But I was a bit shaky afterwards.

So relieved.

Then Tim's dad and his partner Jo came over and we all did a solid three hours work (with a break for tea and a biscuit) filling the skip with all the rubbish from the garden demolition and pool construction. I didn't think we could do it all in one day or with only one skip but we did! Amazing what six people can accomplish.

Before:

And after:

And it only took one skip:

Now we can do some proper gardening whenever we like!

I'm so tired though. I'm not a fit person but I pushed myself today. 8,000 steps does not tell the story of all the broken tiles and buckets of rubble I carried! I wonder how sore I'll be tomorrow.

Definitely a roller coaster day.