Already at the end of April and this month feels like we're slowly starting to see the end of the house building works and start to concentrate on the garden, in the hope that actual Spring and Summer might be around the corner, but for now it's still pretty cold for this time of the year!

On the first weekend of this month, which was Easter weekend, Ellen had Lena's princess birthday party in Worthing, so after dropping her off there, Una, Ian and myself headed down to the beach to fly the kite and then up to the pier for a walk along and some lunch. That afternoon we were just at home and some time in the garden.

During that week, we managed to get the brickwork sorted above the living room doors which, up until then, was hindering the plaster work on the back of the house. Very happy with the end result and came out looking much better than first expected!

The next weekend we met up with Greg, Kim and the boys at Godstone Farm which was fantastic - very interactive with the animals and a few play zones and the kids really had a good time and enjoyed catching up with them. On the Sunday we had Laura with the boys over for brunch at ours, followed by an afternoon in the garden.

During that week, Ken finished up the exterior rendering and plastering, very happy with how it's looking, so next up will be to get it painted.

Then on that Friday after work I drove over to Hove to meet up with Una and the kids who had spent the afternoon in Brighton and Hove, so met up near Hove Lawns, took a stroll along the promenade and then headed home. The weekend was then fairly action packed with kids activities - Ellen had PQA on Saturday morning while Ian and myself headed to Vale Park. Then that afternoon we had Lila and Lark's party at Monkey Bizness in Lewes and on the Sunday we had William's birthday at Portslade Sports Centre.

The following weekend was busy around the house doing various DIY and house jobs, like sorting out the living room before the new flooring went in, as well as exterior window and soffit cleaning now that the painting is complete and wanted it done before the scaffolding came down. Then during that week we had the living room floor done which looks so much better compared to that old green carpet :) Last Friday we had the scaffolding taken down which has made a huge impressive difference to the house - can actually see the house again and looks amazing with the rendering and painting done - very happy with the result!

This past weekend was a mix of kid's birthday parties (Liam's in Portslade Village Centre on Saturday and Sophia's at Shark Park on Sunday) and in between those, Una managed to get the living room painted while I cracked on with the garden and tried to get some new turf laid where I could. Still plenty more to do, but good to get started with the garden.

This brings us to the end of April, hopefully we can get the last of the building works finished next month, like the patio tiling, the side gate and the driveway cleaned up. Then we'll be ready for the summer months which hopefully aren't too far away now...