Natural expression...

Poor Alan, he has inherited his "natural" expression from me.  

You know, the expression your face wears when it's just relaxing.    The expression your face falls into when it's under no pressure to put on a front or responding to emotion.  The face that when people encounter it their immediate reaction is to say "What's wrong?"  or "Are you ok" or annoyingly "cheer up, it might never happen."  More recently re-named within popular culture as resting bitch face :-) 

David says when I am wearing my natural expression I look a bit like a bulldog chewing a wasp.  I thought he was joking till he took a photo of me one day and showed it to me.  Dear heavens!  A bulldog chewing a wasp would be a beauty queen in comparison to that pic of me!  It was swiftly deleted!

Thankfully Alan is blessed with the antidote to such a grumpy natural expression...a kilo watt smile :-)))  His smile above was a hello to his pal Karen who brought him his gorgeous Brighton hoodie that he's wearing when she visited earlier in the year.  It's become a favourite of his.

It's been a hectic day.

Up early as thought the plumber was coming to fit the temporary loo in our ensuite.  He didn't arrive.  Hmph!  But it meant I got my bag packed for our weekend away.  Just my toilet bag to put together in the morning.

Engineer came this morning to fix the boilers.  Can't remember if I mentioned that they've been cutting out.  It's caused by "bits" in the gas supply apparently.  We now need to get the plumber to fit filters to stop it happening again.

The guy from the local bathroom and kitchen showroom visited this afternoon.  He's going to give us a quote for updating our ensuite.  Not that big a job as we're keeping the bath and wash hand basin as the previous owners spent a fortune on them, which we are getting the benefit of.  

We're fitting a new loo, shower, shower enclosure and tray, flooring, wall panelling, bathroom cabinet and ceiling lights.  It's the same company who fitted all the bathrooms when the previous owners, Dawn and Mike, bought the house and completely gutted it from the bottom up.  Being a Victorian house, that job wasn't for the faint hearted!  

We've already had one quote for the work that was so off the scale we actually laughed out loud when we saw it.  Will be interesting to see what this company quote.  If it's anything close to the first one, I won't be laughing this time round!

Alan's photo book from our holiday at Calvert Trust, Kielder Water arrived today.  So pleased with it and he loves it!  Got one for Andrew too so will give him his when he next visits.  Alan says he wants to go back next year and his dad and I are welcome to go to, so we've not been completely dumped!  :-))

Ok, bedtime.  Early rise tomorrow for breakfast at Broadslap before heading to Northumberland, via a wee detour to Kelso.  Weather forecast isn't great but won't let that spoil my enthusiasm.