All Steamed Up

The bathroom saga continues.

Someone came round on Tuesday to look at giving us a quote. As he left he said he would email it to me. Here we are now in the early hours of Sunday morning, and no quote. Am I surprised? No. I knew when he was here that he wasn't interested in taking the job on. Yes, he could have taken the email address down wrong, but given that his wife works in our Trust, and that she emailed me his telephone number, that one's not going to wash (ooh, a joke!)

In any case, our plans have changed since Tuesday. Originally we were going to repartition the bathroom and back bedroom, but we've changed our minds half a dozen times since. This afternoon we went to have a look at Bathroom City, who have a showroom just up the road from us. We had a good look round (and bumped into Saleh, one of the doctors from work - funnily enough I also bumped into him last time I was in Ikea!) and chose a sink that we liked and narrowed down our choice of cupboards. However, they had one of those steam shower cubicles in there on special offer (as it was the display model), and we first of all decided we wanted it, but then Colin changed his mind.

Bathroom City have a factory outlet shop just up the road from their showroom, so we went to have a look up there, and they had another steam cubicle shower thingy. When we got home, we did a google search, and turned up a brand called Aquaplus. Now, Colin has been adamant that he wanted a separate bath and shower, and that under no circumstances did he want a showerbath. That is, until he saw this. Yes, it's expensive. But it combines a bath and a shower with a steam cabinet - AND the bath has jacuzzi/whirlpool jets. And it has a TV, Ipod connection, connects to the telephone line (I'm sure my Mum would love me to ring her while I'm in the shower - NOT!), and one of those monsoon shower heads. We're not sure if that clear panel in the bathy bit is a door though, or whether you still have to climb in like a normal bath. We're going to ring them next week to see if we can get the datasheet for everything so that we can determine whether or not having it is achievable. If not, they make about 20 other versions, of all different sizes, and I'm sure we can find one that will suit us.

The only bugger is, we would definitely have to move the boiler. When we went out looking today, we'd decided not to move it, and not to repartition the two rooms either. We're going to be left with a very small bedroom, but we will have the bathroom we want.

Yesterday I finished knitting my Monkey socks. I was very industrious last night and blocked them (for the non-knitters amongst you that means I hand washed them, squeezed all the excess water out in a towel, and then laid them flat to dry). They are looking wonderful, and I can't wait to wear them. Then I spent a couple of hours last night surfing the net for another sock pattern to knit. This is where I amaze myself - I really hate knitting socks, they seem to take forever to knit, and then there is the dreaded second sock syndrome to contend with. But I have several balls of sock yarn in my stash that need to be used up, and so I decided that more socks would be good. Finally I have gone for Hedera, and I cast on tonight with some Regia Jet Set that I bought from Ebay, in various shades of green. Okay, I admit it, I don't like it wound into a ball. But having cast on, done the ribbing and started on the first lace repeat, it is apparent that this wool is going to stripe, which is okay with me, and I am sure I will like it fine once I have knit them. The only thing is, on row 2 of the lace repeat as I got to the end of the row I see I am missing one stitch, presumably from row one (which felt very tight as I knit it), so I am going to have unravel and redo tomorrow. I have decided that I'm not going to knit the leg as long as the pattern states - I just want a quick knit, and so will keep the leg short (probably to wear with trainers or the boots I wear most often, which are just above ankle height). If the pattern is easy enough that I think I could bear to knit it again, I might get some Dream in Color Smooshy, which has subtle varigations in colour and should look really good.

And now, it's time to get onto Nintendogs and feed my Georgie, before a good night's sleep dreaming of posh and expensive shower cubicles.