A Day of busy work

Party preparations for our housewarming and joint 50th birthday celebration at the end of next month continue in earnest and one of my tasks for today was to hang the low-voltage lanterns we bought to decorate the conservatory.

A bargain at under a tenner, I wasn't expecting much from these but as it turned out I was pleasantly surprised. Cleverly packaged with all the coloured inserts together, all the lanterns "grilles" together, all the tops in a bag and the bulb loop folded neatly in on itself, assembly consisted of untwisting the wire carrying the bulbs and then sliding a top over each, followed by a colour and a grille to make the "lantern." I settled on the colour scheme Blue, Red, Amber, Green in a subtle homage to BRAG status reports that will be totally lost on ALL our guests but nevertheless amused me and had the whole string assembled in under half an hour.

One of the things that attracted me to this set was that it has 10 metres of bulbs AND 10 metres of extra cable, so I was certain of being able to reach the nearest power outlet in the lounge. Ten metres proved just enough to hang lanterns around the windows on all sides and then return along the beam in the middle of the conservatory. I haven't had chance to switch them on in the dark yet, so I'll post a photo when I do.

After interrupting lighting assembly to get the lawn cut before the rain started in earnest, my third task of the day was to assemble the free-standing towel rail and loo roll holder that we bought yesterday.

Both suit the bathroom perfectly and are exactly the right sizes for the spaces we'd intended. I'm holding off fitting the glass shelf for the time being, for two reasons. Firstly we haven't actually bought the matching mirror yet, and if we find a nicer one and have to return the shelf, it's better if it's still boxed. But the second and more important reason is that Nikki's little voice is telling her we shouldn't fit any glassware, mirror or shelf, until after the shower door is fixed.

We've found the mirror online priced £20 cheaper than Aqua Accessories in any case, so will probably buy from there. We also need a small glass corner shelf for Sheldon (our pot fantasy dinosaur) to live on.

Mid-afternoon our neighbours called round with a surprise invitation to their son's confirmation party tonight. That should be a good night, although we'll have to leave quite early as I have a 4am start tomorrow :(