The blur of January

After we laid Bentley to rest, we had a few weeks of difficult adjustment and plain ol' hard work in all of our respective lives. Work has been really busy for Rhodri and also really busy for me, and Tryfan has been struggling a little bit with his teacher, while Rhiannon has been working hard to keep up with all of her homework.

The weekends in January were spent doing projects around the house and outside in the yard - things we have been talking about doing for ages but just hadn't actually done. So it has felt good to actually get those things done: painting the base boards and walls in the entry way with a fresh coat of paint so we could hang up the long-awaited coat rack; cleaning out closets; raking the leaves off the 'campground' part of our back garden; and finally hiring a skip (aka 'dumpster') so we could fill it with the random bit of junk and rubbish that were too big to go in the roadside bin. 

Yes, the kids complained heartily and yes there were bribes of hot chocolate, sweets, and even money in order to get them to put in a good effort on above chores.  But it is awfully nice to come inside to a warm cozy house after working hard on a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon!  The one thing we didn't do a lot of was photography during the hard work. They really were not very photographic events so instead I am putting photos of the beautiful coat rack finally installed above the radiator in the entry hall.