I am changing my name this week. No longer will I be the boring Rick Keates; as of today I am Flat Pack Man!
We bought some new furniture from Ikea at the weekend, and I have spent pretty much every evening since, putting it together. A task I do not detest, as the end result will be amazing! The object is to reduce the amount of clutter in our lounge. Having a 2 year old = having lots of toys on the floor. This is fine, but at the moment they are all next to our TV, and my wife and I are growing tired of looking at them all of the time. We have bought a total entertainment unit. The TV will move from the corner of the room to the middle of the outside wall and will be surrounded by two bookshelves, two CD/DVD racks and will have two shelf units above it. It is going to look amazing when it is done, which is my motivation for not having a relaxing evening for a few days.
In other news; I was given a Herman the German friendship cake on Monday by my good friend Ingrid at work. It’s a sour dough mix that you mature in a bowl exposed to the open air for 10 days. Herman has to be fed every few days with flour, sugar and milk, and stirred regularly. Then on day 10 you get to add a whole heap of cake like ingredients and bake him. I’ve never done anything like this before, so am pretty excited about it. The sour dough mix does smell a bit, but it’s strangely pleasant.
October is upon us now, and we are looking forward to hosting our daughter’s first Halloween party at the end of the month. She and my wife already have their costumes, and I am going to order mine this week. There is a huge selection on the web site that my wife found, but I think I am decided on what I will go for. I’m going to buy the Ghostbuster costume! It comes with an inflatable proton pack and the overalls, it’s pretty awesome!
I’ve also got two days off later this month to have some Father – Daughter time with my little girl. The first day will just be a chill out day. I’m going to take her on a little walking adventure in the village where I grew up. Lyminster in Littlehampton has a legendary pond known as the Knucker Hole. There are several versions of the legend, but the main crux of it is that the Knucker Hole was inhabited by a dragon many, many years ago. We used to have the dragon as our school logo when I was in infant school, and I remember visiting it when I was a child and being very excited about the prospect of seeing a real dragon! I may also take her swimming, if the pool timetable allows. If not, we will go over and visit my Grandparents for a few hours.
I got some rubbish news last night that the bungalow that I grew up in has been demolished. The Haskins group bought the land that the old Roundstone Nurseries used to be on a few years ago, and people had been renting the bungalow after we moved out. To be honest, they never kept it looking as nice as Nan and Grandad did. They didn’t put any effort into the garden at all. It makes me sad to think that people would treat the place that way because Grandad spent every spare hour that he had in that garden, making sure it was always pristine. Even in the winter months! I remember helping to lay the patio when I was no more than 8 or 9 years old; then helping Grandad and my Uncle Alan build the summer house a few years later. The biggest achievement though was helping Grandad destroy the old and rebuild a new pond in the back garden. We spent days designing it, pulling up the old pond and laying down the bricks for the new one. We rebuilt the rockery behind it to hold a new waterfall and then stocked it with new fish. My absolute favourite being the diamond Sturgeon that my little sister, who was probably only 4 or 5 at the time named Sharky.
I have so many fond memories of living at the bungalow, and in some ways I have to thank Haskins for demolishing it because it has bought them all back to me. In other ways though I feel slightly cheated that I didn’t get to take one last walk around the house and grounds. I’m sure whatever Haskins has planned for the site will be new and exciting, but for me that site will always be The Bungalow, Lower Trees Farm, Roundstone By-Pass, and I am sad to see her go.
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