Holidays are here. When we first booked our annual leave, we had considered a holiday abroad. However, we decided it wasn’t worth the risk, with covid cases currently high and countries moving daily onto the red or amber list requiring travellers to take tests or isolate. So instead, it probably comes as no surprise that home DIY has become the norm for us and many others. And even better when the MESS DIY is at a family member’s house, to help with ‘gardening’. Now I say gardening but as we are using a digger and dumper truck to create 2 drives and an area for the patio it is more like landscaping. When the driver of the wagon took away 32 tons of soil, needing to return for a second trip, we were rather impressed with our efforts. But then the driver asked if we were landscapers and where we worked, we were all chuffed and felt complemented on a job well done.

It has been a week of adventure for sure. From our wet arrival in the rain, that first day moving dirt and hard core was a muddy sweaty slog in waterproofs. However, the rest of the week’s weather brought only a few showers, with mostly glorious sunshine. Sunshine = tan. Even if I didn’t spend the week sunbathing just being out in the sunshine was enough to gain a worker’s glow. And I really did have fun playing in the garden.

I have never been to digger land, but I imagine the fun we were having playing in the digger and dumper truck was the same as a kid gets at digger land. At first, I was a bit hesitant as they are not toys and I didn’t want to hold up plans by breaking anything. So I did spend quite a bit of time shovelling. But once I got the hang of the peddle being for go, the switch to move forwards and backwards, the leaver to work the dump body and there being NO break I was able to jump in and lend a hand. Although, it was comedy gold tapping the peddle to get into position to stop at just the right point for the digger to dump into it.

There was plenty of comedy to be had over the weekend too. My future parent-in-laws have also got an Alexa and it was reassuring that Alexa doesn’t always listen to them either. It was greatly entertaining when a 15-hour 10-minute timer was set for food on Alexa, I am not sure I can wait that long for tea!

When the week came to a close it had been a fantastic week.  It was lovely seeing them in person rather than online. To think only the week before during our catch up my future mother-in-law moved her screen to try to fit me better on her screen, if only it worked like that.