heatwave and bbq's and broken fridge

what a glorious week we have had although as i now type the sun has all but disappeared behind thick cloud on this dull Friday morning. However this will not dampen my mood as i am on holiday from work this weekend yippee!!! Got a busy weekend planned as well... dinner with the Bonds tomorrow evening and then nephews birthday and BBQ at the parents on Sunday...although Sunday could well be spent indoors as rain is forecast lol.
Had a good week , hubby and i went for a walk along the seafront.. something we rarely do considering it is less than  2 miles from where we live. The sun was beating down and everything looked vibrant and fresh...even our sea had the sky reflected in it giving it a hint of blue instead of the usual brown.

Birnbeck pier was first opened in June 1867, that's some 145 years ago!!! People used to arrive on steamers to the jetty and spent many hours in the cafe , and amusements and on the funfair. The pier fell victim to a fire on Boxing Day 1897 and despite rebuilds and modifications it suffered a great deal of damage over the years from storms and other various factors. It has been completely inaccessible now for many years as it has fallen into such a bad state that it is estimated that it would cost over 4 million to get it back up together. Its such a shame to think that this was so full of people and laughter.
The lifeboat station is still based on this pier with access  on the far left side for the lifeboat crew to safely get across .

A lot of money has been spent over the last couple of years in strengthening our sea defenses and renovating our seafront, but we still have many old buildings that are now derelict and in need of sorting out once and for all.

Anyhow on with my week, Tuesday ..another glorious day we spent at home enjoying the sunshine... also i had to wait for the engineer to come out and assess my fridge freezer which had the misfortune to go bang on the Thursday before. Engineer came and went and said another one would be out Friday to mend it with the parts that he had ordered....he cut some wires and taped them off and then left  . We have been living out of a cool box for the last week ...of all the times for the damn thing to go... and it turns out the problem is a manufacturing fault as well....and ours was one of the affected serial numbers... obviously we had no communication from Hotpoint on this...tut tut!!!!    
    
Tuesday night we went out for a meal at our local sushi place as my uncle and aunt were popping in on a whistle stop tour from Canada to Scotland to Weston and then back to Canada again.
Now i'm not a lover of raw fish at the best of time so i opted for steak and noodles but the majority had the sushi platters and i did get some pictures of the dishes as they came out.

We had a lovely evening, i did get a bit misty eyed when i had to say goodbye to my uncle again, he moved over to Canada in 1977 i think it was, and set up his own electric company. He and my Aunt now run a guest house at Barn Point in Nova Scotia, they have been renovating it and from the pictures i have seen on their web site it looks awesome..they have 90 acres of land as well so that keeps them out of mischief.
We are on a mission now to start to save a little bit each month for our Canada trip.... i think it will be several years before we are in a position to go, but we will get there.
Talking of trips and this is a secret so sssssssshhhhh.....i have just booked a trip to DLP for January 2013 which has wiped out the little bit of savings that we had and i am on a quest now to manage to save enough to pay the balance in November. The boys are going to be so excited and i intend to keep it a surprise until Christmas day!!! So don't go telling anyone OK??


Wednesday we didn't do much at all. We had a meeting after school to discuss middle sons pending trip to the Isle of wight which is so full on and action packed he is going to have a wonderful time.Mum in law came over as is customary on a Wednesday now, but as it was still hot out we had a BBQ rather than a roast.

Yesterday we went to Cabot circus as older son is a bit of a label freak... he took us into all these designer shops which we were a bit bemused by.... and nearly had palpation's at the price tags. We didn't buy anything as we are saving as mentioned above, and hubby had made a picnic which we were going to have sat up on the downs at Bristol...but there was no where to park so we ended up having it in the services looking out onto the motorway...not the most idyllic places but  memorable. We ended up having another BBQ last night to use up the rest of the cool box... even though it wasn't much like BBQ weather.
And finally today....
well another local engineer came out to look at and mend the fridge freezer,and not all was as straight forward as hoped...... the first had ordered the door without the handle and the wrong circuit board...so luckily he had a new board on the van... so i have the new door and new board but no handle... but i have a fridge/freezer back again for the time being so hopefully that is sorted as the electric tripped again this morning, before he came out.I still cant go shopping though cos he said to let it run for 24 hours before filling it. so once again i am only going to be able to buy a few bits today. its making all the right noises and hasn't tripped the electric so fingers crossed all is OK, and all i need now is for him to come back whenever after he has ordered the handle after the bank holiday unless he can get the other one off the old door!!!

Well that has been my week so far....hoping for a fab few days ahead....hubby is back at work today and then off again tomorrow til Wednesday. Kids break up today so hopefully we will get out and do some stuff with them.... have a fab weekend people xx