All the preparation that I’m going to do for Jon’s new room is now done! The top of the walls have been sanded down to remove the roughness caused by the removal of the border. I’ve also washed the walls etc ready for painting and removed the radiator. Next job is to paint the ceiling…

The decorating of Jon’s new room has started in earnest and I’m really not into it yet. The border around the top of the walls refused to come off until we went out and bought a steaming gizmo. The steaming gizmo is excellent and I heartily recommend spending the 30 quid or so on one if you need to strip any kind of wallpaper.

Us, being us, bought a slightly more expensive one with more gadgets in the box so it can be used for steam cleaning too. whether we actually get around to doing so is open to debate…

I don’t tend to go in for New Years resolutions as I tend to break them before the end of the first week of January. However, inspired by an article on the Today programme, I’m going to try to keep my speed in urban areas within the speed limit. The interesting bit about the item on Today was an inteview with the chief instructor of the Advanced Driving Institute (I think – somthing like that, anyway!) who was saying that for most cars, you are likely to be in third gear around town as third will take you to around 45-50 mph anyway. The problem with fourth (in most cars) is that it tends to “struggle” below about 35 or so. This is certainly my experience as I find that the Rover has trouble below 35ish in fourth. However, it sounds like I should be changing gear when I’m doign 30 in third.

I don’t suppose that I will always keep to the limit, but I will try to be far more aware of what speed I’m doing this year.

To celebrate the start of a another year, we took Jon to see the steam trains at the Severn Valley Railway again. He really likes watching the locomotive but does get a bit scared when it blows it’s whistle…