Sunday Reflection

A man should hear a little music...

Sunday Reflection

In Hoc Signo Vinces

TheMG63

All is for the best...

... in the best of all possible worlds or, to put it in English: 'mustn't grumble'.

Day One of the drops: one drop every two hours in left eye and one drop every four hours in the right. Tick.
Day Two: Only three times today - been out and about so couldn't stick to the regime - not looking hopeful for establishing a routine!

Have found a fab hairdresser; he was recommended by B, a neighbour, mainly because of price but I'd recommend him for doing a great job as well. He's the first since 1997/98 to give me the haircut I asked for all those years ago. Top tip: don't wear makeup when going to the hairdresser. Go completely bare-faced and if you look more gorgeous going out than you did going in then you know you've struck gold. If anyone wants his name/telno etc just email me and I'll be happy to pass it on. He also has a lovely little terrier called B who's a soft sweetheart. There are no frills, no added extras, just a good honest job. When I had my hair cut & highlighted in London it cost £108 - this time it's barely a third of that so that's another plus.

I now have two Cabbage Whites hovering and laying their eggs on my brassicas - I feel bad chasing them off but it's either them or me. I've found quite a few tiny green specks of caterpillars on the underside of the leaves and I'm squeamish about squashing so I've bought some organic pest control before I'm left with nothing at all.

P and C have almost finished the ch/hot water/bathroom. They would have finished today but when it came to fitting the bidet they discovered a manufacturing fault so the company is sending out a new one that will get here on Friday. The boys are taking tomorrow off anyway to let the system run and bed in and it also gives me time to go from room to room with my pen and notebook and make another 'little list' of what still needs to be done. There are only two more major-ish jobs I can think of at the moment: one is bookshelves, of which I need many all over the house, and the other is re-plastering the walls in the dining room alcove where there was once a cupboard housing a hot water cylinder - oh, and the fireplace that housed the Baxi back boiler. I need to measure up and find some nice Art Nouveau-ish tiles for that. It's all go!

The worst job, which I keep putting off, is to go through the piles of clothing on the floor and in the wardrobes and sort through them to see what still fits after two years in storage, what is still suitable given I'm no longer in Spain and a special bin bag (or three) for 'oh no, what was I thinking?' clothes.  Then it will all have to be washed, ironed and put somewhere.   On the other hand I could just bin the lot and start again - infinitely more preferable but definitely more expensive.  It looks like I have no choice but to pull my finger out.

I ordered the special carpet for the bathroom today so that should be fitted next week and at least one room will be decent. It's a gel-backed, waterproof, stain-proof, soft underfoot, marine blue and should look very nice indeed. The bath is fantastic - I must be a hedonist at heart - and everything is looking good to go. When everything gets too much I'll be able to lock myself in a lovely bathroom, surround myself with heavenly scents and drift away.

I hope it's all finished before too long because the Princess Theatre has some shows I'd love to see: Jersey Nights; Welsh National Opera; Sean Locke, the Vienna Festival Ballet and, say it softly, Rat Pack Live, which is some sort of tribute to Sinatra, Martin and Davis Jr ("charisma, panache and swagger").

Back soon with updates on the drops; they say it can take up to six weeks for definite improvement so I'll continue until I notice something - anything :)

Sunday Reflection

Is there anybody out there?

My new mobile still hasn't arrived so I can't show you pics of the mess or the wilted cabbage and swede in the raised beds.  Think yourselves lucky ;)

P and C arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Monday morning to sort out the central heating/hot water system and the bathroom.  My once clear front garden is again filling up with rubbish - old radiators, 30yr old gas fires, toilets, baths, pipes and all sorts of contraptions.  Fortunately I'd had the forethought to stake out the area for my raised beds and I managed to plant one of them today.  It actually took me three days: one to put it together, another to fill it with soil (carting 100L bags is no joke) and another to plant.  I doubt I'll get much this year because the cabbages and swedes were really sorry-looking by the time I planted them and some had to be discarded (over-watered in their original packaging) but, as usual, we'll see.  The heat may well finish them off.

I know I'm doing the gardening all wrong this season but I was so desperate for a corner of earth to cultivate and call my own again that I took chances with bought-in plantlets.  In another life I'd have grown from seed, nurtured in a greenhouse or conservatory and then planted out at the right time but this year hasn't been good for me so far in gardening terms and the timing is wrong.

I'm following the square foot gardening method - lots of produce in little space. It's a method by which you can grow successionally, week by week, month by month and feed a family with fruit and veg all year round.

Suki has settled in well now: he's very quiet and taken to sitting on one of the chairs in the front now that the weather is more reminiscent of his homeland. Apparently two neighbourhood cats died last week (one from a heart attack and another from old age) and that, no doubt, explains why he no longer feels the need to patrol the borders but is content to stay at home.

I met another neighbour today, C, who told me not to believe everything I hear from certain people in the neighbourhood. I learned very early on who are the gossips, which reminds me, I haven't seen A for ages now, not since he helped bring Suki back home. I wonder if he's attached? M has been holiday for the past two/three weeks so it's been quieter than usual around here.

For what it's worth, it may not be Yorkshire (nothing can ever compare) but Torquay is lovely: trees, sea, parks, people. It's the top, it's the Coliseum.



PS I almost forgot, though perhaps you'd rather not know, that last night I couldn't sleep so went downstairs to make a cup of tea. When I trod on something slippery on the way to the kitchen I thought nothing of it because I'd had red peppers for dinner and thought one might have slipped off my plate. I bent down, picked it up and, oh my! a slug. Cue screams and disinfectant. So gross. I'm seeing fewer woodlice too now so it can only be good and I hope that's the last of the slugs. Bleurgh!

Sunday Reflection

According to Plan

Torquay is going slowly at the moment - the only one making progress is P the builder who's made a startling transformation from black-mould-hell to liveable home. He takes a break tomorrow and won't be back until early/mid-July when we'll start to make inroads into the archaic hot water and central heating system and re-do the bathroom, which has an impossible corner bath and clapped-out toilet.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the days it hasn't rained here but, despite that, the exterior has been transformed, damp corners have been tanked, the kitchen has been re-fitted and electrics have been sorted. The raised beds aren't up yet because of the ongoing work to the frontage and the debris accumulating in the front garden.

My 'new phone' was returned to sender yesterday so I can't show you any pics yet. I guess I just have to calm down and hope for the best:

A Rollercoaster

If only days weren't a succession of ups, downs and swooping roller-coasters. Two hours with BT (total broadband and phone package) and four departments (two Scottish, two Indian) really tried my patience this morning. If I'd been wearing my shoes I swear I'd have kicked a window in but as it is I only managed to throw a cat brush across the room.

The new sink in the kitchen leaks because the plumber didn't change the connections properly last week so that's another day's work and I've just had the estimate for the central heating/hotwater (£7000): it didn't include the bathroom, which has to be done at the same time.  The wooden floor in the bathroom was cut around the corner bath and that means that when the bath goes the floor will have a semi-circle of, who knows what, below.

Happy Bunny?  Nah!

Other bad stuff: the trailing fuschias in the boxes have all died on me after only two days.

Good stuff:  P fixed the main electrical cable into the house and housed it in a conduit so I won't see sparks flying whenever I open the front door; the strawberries and tomatoes are doing well; the geraniums are fine; wallpaper is up on one wall in my bedroom and I'm just waiting delivery of a very fine 70's wardrobe.

I suppose it's to be expected that making things better means making things worse for a time but, tonight, being so far away from my sons & having very little in the way of phone calls means I feel alone.  Something's wrong when the internet being taken away from me can be the catalyst for so much pain.  Being cut off from the online press, the House of Commons debate on the Private Member's EU Referendum, and the plumber's leak were the final straw today.

I'd like to believe that tomorrow will be better but it won't.  I've done all I can do but boxes still need shifting and they're too high and too heavy for me to reach. I really want to get my garden going and so far, so good.  If you're wondering where the camera is - so am I.

Peace Comes Dropping Slow

A lifetime of 'dropping slow'.