Happyometer needle moving slowly back to the right...

...after a much more positive meeting today with the architect, QS and potential contractor. The architect has been beavering away on a simpler cheaper roof design and today we've been through a number of cost-reducing possibilities that they're going to go away and cost up. Hopefully in the next week or so we will have therefore a more realistic set of options for achieving the budget. Keep fingers crossed, thumbs pressed or whatever! At the same time, one of the QS's other preferred contractors is in the process of tendering - but apparently he's felt it a higher priority to go off on holiday than to quote for us. I ask you, no sense of what's proper, some people... Meanwhile, here's a pic of someone bouncing around in the garden. While we were eating breakfast this morning, there was a tap on the window and he was there on the windowsill peering in at us. A fan of Waitrose muesli, obviously.