Marbles...

Our new kitchen should be finished tomorrow...and the whole thing has been almost completely stress-free...apart from the stress that my head seems to create! Before Christmas our oven was delivered...and it was too large to go through our garage door (the up and over door isn't particularly usable due to the large wall of boxes we have pressed up against it inside, so that just leaves the side door) and so it spent the Christmas & new year sitting in the garden wrapped in towels and plastic sheeting, with instructions from the delivery men that when we eventually did get round to moving it inside it would be a nightmare; that we would almost certainly twist the frame if we moved it with anything less than an entire army of men and some specialist oven-moving straps and that no refunds or repairs would be offered once we'd inevitably ending up damaging it. This idea rolled around my head like a marble in a moving car for the whole of the festive period.

The day that the men fitting the kitchen arrived I woke at 3.30am after only 3 hours sleep and stayed awake for the duration. At this point I started trying to 'block out' my worries...which worked, although in a bid to break out somehow they then manifested themselves physically in the form of a left eye that twitched uncontrollably, making me look like a complete loon! But as with most of the things I worry about, it turned out to be a completely pointless waste of time...for the oven was moved in, unnoticed by me, without a hitch, the frame retaining perfect 90 degree angles at each corner and I saw no sign of hoards of men running away from the house following its installation, so I can only assume that two men was adequate. Everything else has gone perfectly and I've even enjoyed washing up in the bathroom sink as it is such a positive sign that the filthy, ancient, impossible-to-clean brown kitchen sink (below) is finally gone! For the year and a half that we've lived with it I've been telling myself it was 'vintage' (and therefore vaguely desirable)...but have to admit to having found it difficult to buy into such depths of self-deception!

So what is the picture of at the top of this post? Worktop samples. For the main work surfaces we are having oak and for the island unit, Corian, so that the children can still do their felt-tipping and gluing on it. Both were chosen by Ian...but it seems that he's had his own marbles rolling around in his head. He turned to me in bed last night and said: What if the Corian looks like a giant white iceberg in the middle of the room? Mmmm.