Before the exploits in the kitchen, we had a nice walk down by the canal with its very frozen water, and then headed into town to visit the veg stall and get a few bits for lunch. After the mincepies, I was going to make a start on base icing the Christmas cake, but got diverted when Lucy came round and we went for a bit of a festive jaunt to the garden centre, a nice cashew chilli chicken meal and some good ol’ Strictly… on the tele. Emma was very pleased with the result, as was I, for Chris Hollins definitely seemed to the dancer who, if not the best, had developed the most of the course of the series and thus seemed to embody what it should all be about.

~ Dave The Kitchen Fitter arrives shortly after and sets to work ripping out the old kitchen. He makes quick work of it and starts to put the units in by the end of the day.

~ I’ve been working from home. I have to say it’s very nice to be working at my desk amongst my books and looking up, beyond the computer screen, and seeing our chickens, and lots of birds coming to the birdfeeder.

~ It has also been Emma’s day off today. I took the opportunity to take a bit of a longer lunch break so that we could go for a walk in Stoke Woods and stock up on bird and chicken food from Bicester Avenue.

~ Tonight was the Bicester Vets Christmas do, and we all gathered at the vets to get a wine and pringle fuelled coach trip into Oxford to go to see Creation Theatre’s latest production – Tales from Hans Christian Andersen back in the mirror tent. It was fantastic fun, and again an incredible display of creativity with just a cast of six characters. Particularly effective was the Little Mermaid, even if it revealed a shockingly different original story to the Disney barstardisation. It made me really want to go home and lose myself in the Hans Andersen tales – but which to read, the Rex Whistler illustrated one, or the one with drawings by Heath Robinson…?

~ The trip home really wasn’t nice though. The rain and the wind was abysmal and the number of idiots on the road, unbelievable.

From the outset, Nick was able to reassure me that David’s original estimate was way out, or should I say, way over. By the end of the day we had a plan and some illustrations of what it will look like, and it will look lovely. The First Collection option is not really an option though, as it would make for awkward comprises in that the size of units isn’t as flexible, but that doesn’t matter because we can afford the Vermont range that we first thought of.

A good day, if mentally tiring, day!

~ After dropping William back off home and having a swift bite to eat – in the form of houmous and taramasalata and crisps – we head out to John Lewis for our in-store kitchen planning meeting. We think that it will not take that long, after all, we know pretty much what we want, but it turns out there are more decisions to be made. One such decision is pretty major. We had based our choice of kitchen – the Vermont range – on the kitchen that Grannie had put in last year we hand worked out that it would be about on budget. Certainly Nick seemed to think so, too. This afternoon though, as David gives us his estimate we are crestfallen. It is way over-budget – like double our budget. There is a possibility of salvation in the form of their cheaper First Collection range but it would entail compromises. Anyhow, we book Nick in for a site visit and a kitchen plan anyway and see where we can go there. It won’t be until 8 November though, and so week’s of uncertainty before we know if it’s a goer or if we have to consider something else entirely. My hopes of a new kitchen before Christmas are slipping away.

~ We have left John Lewis despondent and disappointed, and feeling like we are being greedy. Not that we are, as we do need a new kitchen, and we aren’t actually being that extravagant with our choices. We still have funny feelings in our stomachs over the whole business though…