Wanlockhead has a big mining history, and we were too late to go to the lead mining museum, but still enjoyed visiting the outdoor artifacts and the UK’s most elevated (normal) railway… a mile-long vestige of the mining days, but still running occasionally for demonstrations.

Sojourn into Dumfries and Galloway today.

Truly a mystery as to why one half of the couch back is always caved in and covered in fur 😒

Ripley be like 😻

100% over it and unbothered 😆

Bought a new toy “for the cats”. . . .

He did this three times in a row 🤦🏻‍♀️

Look at this muppet.

The grounds aren’t too shabby either.

Chatsworth! Somehow my first time, because we REALLY never ventured out of Yorkshire at all when I was a kid 😆

Also…. 💀

Spent the day in York: rail museum, Barley Hall, castle museum, museum gardens, and general walking around.

Somehow didn’t take a single picture of a streetscape 🤨

Also picked it for the reviews on bed comfort as I’ve come straight from a work trip where I was sleeping on a plank of wood… at least in my spine’s opinion 😭

In the cat sitter’s update Darwin’s looking like J any time he has to be conscious before 10am 😭

Spending Easter weekend in Yorkshire….somehow my first time ever staying in a traditional country inn (aka pub with rooms).

Picked it for the food, which is 👌🏻

Every spring I have the impulse to drench the whole flat in vibrant pastels, which is exactly why I’m only allowing myself to pick paint colours in September 😅

(I love all these pictures but I know myself… I would feel overwhelmed living in it)

He does this thing where he “announces” himself any time he goes up or down stairs, and the lack of hind leg means it’s easier for him to do it at a run, so he was just frantically scream-running up and down. It was too funny, we were falling over laughing 😭

Totally worked, though! Success.

He is, however, VERY food motivated.

So today we tried a new thing: we each stand with a bag of freeze dried chicken at the top and bottom of the stairs, and call him up and down between us, rewarding him with a morsel (which gets subtracted from his normal intake).

At Ripley’s yearly checkup he had gained some weight- possibly due to having fewer stairs in this flat, possibly due to treats over Christmas- so we’ve been talking about how to get a lazy tripod who doesn’t care for toys to exercise more.

(It is in fact a dryer ball)

Darwin, that is not, strictly speaking, a toy 🤦🏻‍♀️

Our appointment was at the showroom and lasted an hour and a half, me sipping water the whole time.

As we left I asked if they had a toilet.

J had a fun time with that one 🙄😆

They DID have a variety of colours for the small tiles and there was a moment when I was tempted by pink… then green… then blue… well, you see the problem 😅

At least this way I can be fickle for just the price of a can of paint.

Anyway, this is for the upstairs (main aka huge) bathroom, so we’re doing it economical and going with a well regarded company but who have limited finish options.

Neutral modern and then I’ll probably paint the two plaster walls to insert colour. Inspo:

I’ve been training my whole life for this moment.

The bathroom fitter we had an appointment with today praised my diagram and measurements so I am naturally over the moon to discover you CAN in fact get a good grade in floor plans 💁🏼‍♀️

On the one hand it’s cute that she hangs out on the couch now, on the other hand I wanted to stretch out 😩

🚨 DANGER ALERT 🚨

“You know what, I’d never want to clean up a murder scene.”

J went to throw out the used coffee grounds and accidentally Jackson Pollocked the kitchen 😬