Kevin is back thankgoodness

I know many of you will be HUGE fans of Grand Designs - I know I am... in fact the lengths I have gone to to ensure I had uninterrupted 50 minutes to watch it have amazed even me.

I go off on a tangent here so you can skip this bit if you are in a hurry:
I have always put Busy to bed. Pretty much every night from birth. This was mainly due to breastfeeding her to sleep ( nothing wrong with it peeps don't listen to those who tell you other wise, breast milk has a chemical in it that makes babies sleepy therefore it is made to put your baby to sleep -anyway I digress) and then after B.F stopped just a snuggle which is when she is at her cutest and I get all the gossip about her day. This preference for being "mothered" to sleep only bothers me about 1% of the time -when I get frustrated because I want to do something else ( ie sew, make , create- you get the idea). So last week Busy and I sat down and had a serious chat. Daddy is going to put you to bed sometimes. She was fine. Of course. anyway...

....the new series of Grand Designs started last week. Kevin is back. Love him or loathe him- I think he is great. In case you haven't seen the show it is about owner builders building a house.
here is the run down:
It is set in UK.
Therefore:

• it is ALWAYS RAINING and MUDDY. ALWAYS. At at least one point in the show the "build " will be delayed for several weeks because of the rain. (I cannot believe that this is a shock to the people building)
• it is full of people with those painfully posh accents.
• The build is ALWAYS delayed while they wait for some piece of BESPOKE (custom made) - something to come from some tiny little village in the South of France
• the 'build' is never finished by Christmas/ Winter/ expected time- quite often not even in the same year.
• there is always some huge stuff up- the "bespoke" something doesn't quite fit because the measurements were out by half a millimetre because the instructions have been translated across seven different languages and are now being put together by a team of builders from Poland reading the French instructions.
• the woman is ALWAYS pregnant and in this delusional state thinks the house will be ready before the baby arrives. (mwah !!har har!! )
• the baby ALWAYS walks into the house because it has taken so much longer to build.
• the houses are always insanely unfriendly for children anyway and I often wonder how they cope with a baby in some of those houses.
• but most importantly THEY ALWAYS IGNORE KEVIN. ALWAYS! He tries to warn them, tell them, reason with them that they should get a project manager and not do it themselves. But they never listen. And because of this they always go over budget and time. He always gets it out of them- how much money they went over by- but they are always fibbing I reckon- as if you are going to tell everyone that you underbudgetted by half a million pounds!

Some might think he is smug and annoying but I think he is great. He knows what he is talking about and I prefer to see him as a realist than a doomsdayer. He is passionate about architecture and lets face it who has mentally knocked down walls/ moved windows/ expanded decks etc whilst living in a rental. There is a little architect in all of us. You can take the Kevin McCloud quiz here