The difference these past few days as I have woken up with things to do is immense. I’m desperate to get up and moving. Those of you who know me well will know how unusual that is - we shall see how long it lasts. Anyway, I am trying to be sensible, so I made sure I had breakfast, and my medication, and took my wrist braces with me when I headed over to the house, at 8am. It was time to try The Stripper! (there is no way of putting that which won’t get some people convinced I am talking about people stripping rather than wallpaper stripping, so I’m not even bothering to try!). I’d been good and read all the instructions before first use (shocking behaviour, I know - don’t worry, it won’t happen often!) and got my bucket and scrapers ready - and even a box for all the wallpaper. I scored the wallpaper with my rotatingn tool whilst the steamer warmed up, and then gave it a whirl… All I can say is, “why did no-one tell me how good these things were before?”! IT WAS AMAZING. I definitely have a new favourite tool. However, I also discovered that our new smoke detectors are a little sensitive - they both went off and probably woke up the neighbours who were trying to have a nice Saturday morning lie-in - oops, must go and introduce myself to them soon and apologise…

Matt and the boy came and joined me mid-morning to get in on the stripping action. We decided to let the boy loose on the machine (under supervision), in the bedroom he’s chosen as his, and good progress was made on that before heading home for lunch - and an eyebath for Matt as it turns out that glasses aren’t as good as goggles at keeping bits out of the eyes… Whilst they’d taken over the tools, I took photos of some of the things we don’t want (tumble dryer, water softener, long ladder), and offered them on the local newsgroup. Lots of people are after a water softener it seems, so I’ve now dismantled it, and roped Matt in to help me move and drain it. Just need to remember to block off the hole in the waste pipe where it used to attach..

In the afternoon, we had our first visitors - hoorah, I love visitors. Some kind friends were dropping off a second wallpaper stripper just as I turned up with another load of tools etc for the process. So I got to show people round our new place - happy Jude :) And next time Matt and I are both there at the same time, we won’t have to fight over the tools :)

I will be having an early night however, as after all my exercise (keeping track of it on fitbit is interesting!), I ache all over and am shattered.