September slips by

Well, I have about a month to catch up on! I can't remember what happened each individual day, and it has been so ordinary that it would bore everyone rigid, so I'll try and remember the interesting bits.
As we can no longer fit everyone round the table, and haven't enough chairs, Daughter and Son in Law came for Sunday lunch the week after Son and Daughter in Law, just to even things out.
The first week, we only had the children for one day, that was one of their Mum's special liaison or meetings day, it was the Tuesday. She was taking a couple of days off as Nathaniel was starting school. It doesn't seem possible, he was only 4 a couple of weeks before, but the local education authority, in their wisdom, decided there should only be one intake per year. Theoretically, he doesn't have to start, by law, till he is 5, but then he would miss out on reception entirely.
On that Tuesday husband laid out lots of track ready, so he and Nathaniel played trains for a while. Lydia went up for a nap, but Nat was so engrossed he didn't ask to come to the shops with me.
He was eased in gradually, at school, the first week, which was only 3 days, he finished at 12.30. the next week he stayed for lunch and was collected at 1.30, but since then it has been 3.15 pm. It is difficult to say how well he is settling, he still comments that 'Jack wasn't there', his little friend from nursery. He doesn't say a lot about school, but we have learned that if they are well behaved, their name sits under a sun. They also have rainbow, cloud and rain, and we hear that his name has mostly been under the sun, with a possible hiccup last week when he decided not to cooperate.
Childminding has been easier, we pick Lydia up at 11, on a Wednesday, after lunch she goes for a nap, then when husband picks Nat up from school, we take them back to their home, as Mummy is home at about 4.
Last week Lydia slept so long that husband walked up to collect Nat, and walked him home. I took Lydia home when she woke, and we arrived just after them. Thursdays are easier too, as we only have Nat for a few hours. Since Lydia swapped to an afternoon nap, I have been known to take a doze. We had to buy a new baby monitor as the parent unit in the old one was no longer charging. this one plays more tunes.
We got the air conditioning fixed at the beginning of the month, which sent up the amount for recent car repairs to around £700, ouch! I felt that if I sold my car then we could offset what we got for it against the car repair bills!
 After a couple of false starts, I managed to advertise my car in the local paper. They charge £25 for 3 weeks. I had a few phone calls the first week, and arranged for a young lad to come and see it. The ad was included in a few local papers, including Luton and even Milton Keynes.

My little Fiesta

When I got other calls, people wanted to come and see it before the time I had arranged with the young lad, but I explained that I wouldn't sell it till he had seen it as it would hardly be fair on him.
It paid off, he and his Mum came, he liked the car, and gave me the full asking price. One of the others had already indicated that they would make an offer.
I was so pleased, but not being used to selling cars, I forgot to get him to sign the transfer form, so we had a trip to Luton the next evening to get it done. The only drawback is that although I contacted our local paper, they didn't withdraw the ad, so we have had lots more calls. Amazingly, I got most of the car Insurance refunded, with no admin fee charged.
Husband recently obtained an adapter to fit one of his bigger lenses to my camera, so when I took pictures of the large September full moon, I got a rather good one.

Ordinary lens

special lens

Ethan has started walking properly, I was sent a video as proof, and he now has his first pair of proper shoes.
We had a lovely sunny Monday a couple of weeks ago, husband said it seemed a shame to waste it, so we went off to a garden centre, had lunch there, bought a few items to replant some of my pots which had got tatty, and a large pot of chrysanthemums, and then drove over to Wendover Woods. We found the free car park towards the back of the woods and set off for a walk. Most of it was downhill, which meant it was uphill on the way back. We came back up part of the Chiltern way, it was nice to get back up to the level bit.

Chrysanthemums

sun on the trees at Wendover

Sun through the trees

the path

The Chiltern way

funghi

We are still having to pay the rental on my garage, as we have things stored in there. Husband was able to get at our Son's old bike, and has been working on it. He had to buy a new wheel as the other one got a bit bent by being reversed into too often. He was hoping to do the bike up to use as our Son doesn't want it. I must admit when we went into Halford's, I was looking at the 'proper' ladies' bikes, with the old Sturmey Archer gears, and wondering if I had found something to spend my left over Birthday money on. I'm still pondering and looking. We have discovered that you no longer need a permit to cycle along the canal bank, and there is also a disused railway line for cycling.

It's been a month for things going wrong and needing replacing. Husband's coffee machine got a crack in the glass jug, so he was nervous about using it. He managed to find a very reasonably priced replacement, which takes less room on the working surface. I ordered a new gasket for my pressure cooker, but it still didn't work properly. I reckon it's been put on without water in it once too often. A trip to Watford didn't reveal anything better, they were £59 in Argos, but only £50 on Amazon, so guess who got my business?
I was doing some shredding one day, and the shredder seized up. I took it apart and poked all the bits out, dusted the dust out, and put it back together. It still didn't work, so we decided it didn't owe us anything, and went to Staples and bought another which is better, as it cuts across. It was our second visit to Staples, as, fed up with overflowing toys, we had bough two huge boxes to contain them.
We had a trip to the dump where we deposited the old pressure cooker, bent bike wheel, old shredder and old coffee machine. On the way we also dropped off  a  bag at the charity shop. Decluttering is such a slow business in our house.
Our friend C came home from hospital, but I still haven't managed to visit her, every time I ring no one answers, so we reckon her husband had been out, and she can't get to the phone. She has a bed downstairs at present. I may just call in one day, and see if she is up to visitors.
If you can remember, back in June when we had our awful week, the chap from the water board ripped out our plinth from under the sink. Ever since then, if I have dropped anything, it has rolled under the sink, so I decided it was time to seriously look for new plinth. I decided to go for real beech, and found a company in Birmingham, which supplies different widths, and will actually supply it varnished. When it arrived it was a very long parcel, and had to be laid along the edge of the stairs as there was nowhere else to put it. I had to persuade Nathaniel that, no, it wasn't a slide, and no, it wouldn't be good to use it as one. So last Monday, we took stuff out of the back porch to reach husband's workmate, he got out his circular saw, and we managed to fit most of it, except 2 bits which need shaping round skirting. It looks quite good even if I did miscalculate the width slightly, It was good to bin the old disintegrating chipboard interior stuff too.
I saw an advertisement in the newspaper, which said that I was now eligible for a shingles jab, so I called in at the surgery, to find out if they would be sending for people. I was told 'no', so I made an appointment, and had it done last Monday, the nurse offered me the flu jab as well, but I didn't fancy 2 in one day. Just as well,as I have had a really sore swollen arm. The jab itself wasn't bad, but can cause sore arm, headache and fever.
I didn't sleep too well last week. When it got too cold for a sheet and bedspread, I thought we would try a 4.5 tog duvet, it was fine at first, but last week I felt cold. So I swapped the duvet for our normal 10.5 tog,and then it got warmer, so we couldn't win. At least we could kick the thicker one off, which is easier than hunting for something to pile on top in the middle of the night. All in all September had been a very warm sunny month, but the evenings are much cooler, especially since the Equinox. Yesterday it was so warm that we had our Sunday roast at the garden table. We would normally have visited Mum in law this month, but our Daughter expressed a wish to visit, so not wishing to give Mum in law more work changing beds etc,  we skipped this month and our Daughter went this last weekend, Grandma was delighted to have a visit from the great grandchildren.
Meanwhile, if you are enjoying a heatwave, I have to confess that you probably have me to blame. Whilst there was a nip in the air, I decided to put away most of the summer skirts,and get out, and sort through the Autumn and winter stuff. This is guaranteed to make the weather change, hey ho!
I almost forgot to mention, we had a butterfly came indoors on day and it landed on the voile curtain, I believe it was a comma.