Tues, Oct 31

Halloween again and we had some trick or treaters call at the house tonight. In fact, it was the first time that Paul ever had any come to the door living here in England. Luckily he picked up some sweets at the store earlier in the day; otherwise it would have been a little embarrassing.

Paul also spent the last two days sorting out some shelving for our second bedroom and closet room. He made several trips to B&Q to pick up some cubed shelving. It's a long story, but in a nutshell one box didn't have any screws, and another had wrong shelving. However, he got there in the end and it was worth it. He finally unpacked the last two boxes from Florida.

Sun, Oct 29

We spent the weekend in Hertford for a change. On Saturday, we went to our hairdressers, A Head Of Time, as we needed our hair cut. Paul called earlier in the week to bring the appointment forward as our hair was getting long. We usually go every 5 weeks, but couldn't wait this long this time. This time, however, our hairdresser cut both our hair really short, so we should have no problem waiting 5 weeks. Then we had lunch at the White Hart before heading home to spend the rest of the weekend with Tiny. Just for the record, as with Thursday and Friday, Paul went on the treadmill both Saturday and Sunday. So he is getting there.

Fri, Oct 27

Today Dawn took a day off from work so she could have a long weekend, and also accompany Paul on his visit to see his dad and brother George. The two of us got to their flat about 11.30am and then took them to the Gatehouse in Highgate for lunch. We enjoyed a good chat but couldn't stay too long as we needed to pop into Morrisons on the way home to do some grocery shopping.

Thu, Oct 26

Today Paul finally oiled the treadmill, and got back on his exercise program. He only did 45 minutes (about 6km). But in fairness to him, it was the first time he had been on the machine since he did the 10K race on the 1st of the month. Needless to say, he ached afterwards.

Wed, Oct 25

Once again Dawn has been travelling back and forth between Hertford North and Old Street every day to go to work, while Paul stays back in Hertford to do things around the house and look for work. He has applied for several jobs over the last few weeks, but nothing has turned up at the moment. So for now, he has been concentrating on the closet room. As he has already painted the walls (five times), he has started to put up some shelving and box in the top of the stairs. Above is the new cover for our suitcases. We'll show you the stair cover once that's finished.

Sat, Oct 21

Today we had a ride into Central London. We caught the train at Hertford North, before jumping on the tube to Covent Garden to do some early Christmas shopping. Then we walked over Waterloo Bridge to meet up with Cathy Eberhart at Auberge for lunch. Cathy, who we know from Schiller, was in London for a few days from Florida on business. It was good to see her again, not to mention the opportunity to enjoy some mussels.

Fri, Oct 20

Today Paul had a ride up to the Hertford County Hospital for a blood test. All he had to do was hand in his doctor’s request, roll up his sleeve, wait for the blood to be extracted and then leave. No insurance details or payment required. It wasn’t all plain sailing for him though. He had a ride over to B&Q at Welwyn Garden City, but couldn’t pick up the wood he wanted for the closet room as they didn’t have the machinery to cut it for him. Now he has to make a special trip to B&Q at Enfield to get the wood cut there. If you’re wondering why we need the wood cut, it's because it would be too long to fit in our car.

Wed, Oct 18

Paul had a ride up to his dad’s flat today and picked him and brother George up and met Dawn at Chapel Street Market for lunch. We feasted on some much enjoyed pie and mash at Manzes before Dawn headed back to work. Paul then headed back to Hertford (after dropping his dad and brother at home) so he could see his doctor. His blood pressure was 158 over 99. But, Dr Pratt said that it wasn’t high enough to need medication. However, he did ask Paul to get his cholesterol and blood sugar level checked. Dr Pratt would then check it again when he got the results.

Tues, Oct 17

Today Paul had a ride up to Welwyn Garden City to do some grocery shopping at Morrisons, and pick up some one-coat paint for the closet room. However, the highlight of today was a visit from our very own Dick Van Dyke. Yes, we had a chimney sweep call by to check out our chimney and give us the go ahead to have a real fire once it gets cold enough. Unfortunately, Mary Poppins didn’t pay us a visit, however seeing as we were only charged £25, we couldn’t really complain.

Mon, Oct 16

Paul was finally feeling a little better after his cold and was able to get back to painting the closet room. However, even after the third and fourth coats of paint, he could still see the dark purple paint and brown-plastered walls seeping through. Paul consequently decided to get some one-coat paint to try and finish the job.

Sun, Oct 15

Our plans Saturday revolved around the plans of our plumber, who as you will know we have been waiting for a while to sort out our radiator problem. Dawn decided to wait indoors to do some housework, while Paul had a ride into town to do some shopping at the local street market, and pick up a fluffy mat for Tiny. As for the plumber, he arrived after lunch and within an hour had unblocked the airlock in our radiators and got our boiler working. Best of all was that he only charged us £75 for the last two visits. Now we have the comfort of setting the heat for the mornings when we wake up and at night before going to bed. Admittedly, it is not too cold at the moment, but we know that the temperatures will plummet soon. As for Sunday, we just had a day of rest. We stayed at home all day and just enjoyed a film on TV.

Fri, Oct 13

After dropping Dawn off at the station, Paul drove the car to PNG in Enfield for a service. He left the car at the dealership and had a walk down to Enfield Town for a cup of coffee and walk around Waterstones bookstore before collecting the car a couple of hours later. He was pleased to hear that it had a clean bill of health, although it still cost us the best part of £270. In the evening, our new five-drawer dresser was delivered. However, as it had only just been finished that day, it still reeked of varnish and polish, so we had to put it into the spare bedroom.

Thu, Oct 12

Today Paul spent the best part of the day on the road attending interviews with employment agencies. His first appointment was with Hays in St Albans, which is a 25 mile round trip. However, the worst part was that the agent had given Paul their old address, so he turned up at an antique store instead. That didn’t bode well. Then this afternoon he had a 40 mile round trip to Bishop’s Stortford for an appointment at Dove. And just like earlier in the day, Paul had a job and a half finding the place as the office was hidden away on the second floor of a redeveloped Victorian mill. Both agencies said they had a couple of jobs that they would put his name forward for. So we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Mon, Oct 9

Our first autumn back in London and we’ve both gone down with a cold. Dawn probably picked hers up at work last week, which blew up yesterday. So, feeling like crap, Dawn decided to have a day off work to avoid spreading the germs. Instead we had a ride over to the Howard Centre in Welwyn Garden City to pick up an electric radiator. With no heat in the house, we were both feeling like crap and needed some much needed warmth. Needless to say, within an hour of getting home, the house was a lot warmer than it had been for several weeks.

Sun, Oct 8

Today we had a ride up to Welwyn Garden City to do some grocery shopping and pick up some food for the new freezer at Morrisons, and then to B&Q to pick up some household stuff. When we got home, Paul put the treadmill together in the shed so he can start back on his training schedule.

Sat, Oct 7

First we took Tiny to Chestnut Vet in town. As it was first come first serve, we tried to get in early. However, plenty of other people had the same idea, so we ended up waiting about an hour. The good news was that once we saw the vet, we were able to pick up six months' supply of Tiny’s flea treatment which (with the vet visit) came to just £25. We’d been paying $70 for the flea treatment alone when we were in Florida.

Then Paul went on his own to pick Dad and George up and brought them back to the house. Dawn stayed with Tiny as she had some housework she wanted to catch up on. We then had some fish and chips for lunch before getting stuck into moving the treadmill from the spare bedroom, and the upright freezer from the living room to the shed. The freezer was a piece of cake. However, Paul had to pick up a couple of strapped-clamps for the treadmill as it kept on opening up every time we tried to move it. We got it done in the end though.

Fri, Oct 6

The builders finally completed the work on the shed. Even better was that Paul finally found the switch that turned on the electricity out to the shed. All week we had wondered why it wasn’t working. It turned out we had turned it off by accident by knocking a switch just inside the back door. At least it means that we’ll be able to use the freezer at the weekend. Paul also started painting the walls in the closet room. In fact, he put down two coats of white paint and it hardly made a difference. The purple walls were so dark that it will probably need a couple more coats at least.

Tues, Oct 3

The builders finally arrived and started removing the asbestos roof from the shed at the bottom of the garden, in order to replace it with a felt-covered wooden roof. They will also replace the door and broken windows, seal the walls, and screed the floor. We’ll then be able to move the freezer out there (which is at the moment still crated up and standing in the living room), as well as the treadmill (from the upstairs spare bedroom). Today Paul also had a walk into town, not only to stretch his legs again, but also to return the NHS forms to the doctor's office.

Mon, Oct 2

After Paul's efforts at Hatfield House yesterday, he decided to walk into town so that he could get some exercise and try and prevent his legs from getting too stiff. First he called into Castlegate Surgery (next to the Castle) to register both of us with the doctor. Then he popped into Chestnut Vet on Fore Street to enquire about registering Tiny. Finally, he popped into a local electrical store where he picked up a DVD player which can play both US and UK style DVDs.

Sun, Oct 1

Today was the day that Paul had been fearing for weeks, the day he was going to run the Hatfield House 10k charity race. We picked Paul's Dad and brother George up and got to Hatfield for the 6.2 mile run a little early to avoid all the traffic and parking problems. Unfortunately, thanks to a problem on the M25, his wait was even longer as the race started about 10-15 minutes late.

As for Paul's run, it went a lot better than any of us expected. He started at the back of the field of 1400 runners, so Dawn could get a photo of her athlete of a husband. However, by the halfway stage, he had overtaken half of the field to get into the leading third of the runners. On his back he had a sign to commemorate his Mum and Dawn's dad, both of whom we lost to cancer. After he completed the race, he couldn't help but feel inspired by reading all the commemorations for countless friends, parents and grandparents on the backs of all the other participants.

Paul completed the run in 62 minutes 22 seconds - a good ten to fifteen minutes better than he thought it would take. However, best of all was that he raised £80 ($150) for Cancer Research. Again, we'd like to thank everyone who made a donation. By the way, you can still make a donation by clicking on the Sponsor Paul link. It will be available for another couple of weeks.

After the run we stopped at Highgate for lunch. Our regular haunt, The Gatehouse, didn't have any tables open, so we popped next door to a noodle bar called Dim T. The food was excellent. Even Paul's dad loved the food.