Clear air

Our 2 new yellow kitchen window blinds arrived today and at first glance should smarten up the room considerably. Owen has offered to fit them over the weekend as his DIY skills considerably outweigh mine ( not difficult ). Due to unexpected visitors, a couple of heavy showers and a lengthy relationship discussion my exercise regime again bit the dust, as they used to say in the old westerns. Dust would be difficult to find locally after days of rain, believe me. The flood plains are .......er...........flooded.

In a freezing gale force wind I went for a walk round the village in darkness, helped only by the occasional street light and/or car headlight.I collapsed into the front door, head cleared but thoughts remaining jumbled.

Yet more long and winding roads

Today was dedicated to visiting a variety of family members in various states of recovery from illness/ operations. First visit was to Marlene, near Reading, recovering from a successful operation linked to breast cancer. Travel was in brilliant sunshine but arrival was at the start of a violent thunder storm, fortunately short-lived. After lunch and dinner the plan was to move on to see daughter Chloe, very healthy but perfectly placed for our next trip to visit Nanny Weames (aged 92 )in Kingston hospital, where she currently is recovering from a minor stroke

By mid afternoon all roads around Reading were gridlocked for some unknown reason so Lynne changed plans and we are now staying with Marlene overnight with the intention of returning home in the morning.  Bang goes seeing Chloe or visiting nanny, (perhaps my last opportunity to see her), as had been previously jointly planned,but what the hell. I don't suppose anyone will visit me in hospital when I'm 92, if I'm allowed to get that far, but I refuse to let it bother me right now.

After yet another change of mind this morning after a lively debate  we ended-up visiting Nanny to assist feeding her lunch, which I found very rewarding. She was obviously pleased to see us and for the company. We called in to see Margaret and Bob on the way home in heavy rain.

Leicester by bus or car?

A mildly  breezy, dry start to the day. Lynne needs to swop our new HP printer at John Lewis, as it fails to print on the grade of paper we need it to. A chocolate tea pot stand. Do we go by bus ( free and no car parking problems) or by car with the parking problems and expense but ease of carrying a chunky box around?

We opted to go by car, chiefly because the afternoon threatened to be wet. John Lewis advised talking to Hewlett Packard regarding adjusting the paper settings so we returned home in pouring rain, only to discover the HP printer is unsuitable for our needs following lengthy consultation with their technical team. Back to the drawing board.

Not a good day for me.  My daily walk regime was interrupted  due to heavy and continuous rain between my return from Leicester and darkness.

Sadly,I had to suffer a new "village idiot" moment today, the first for many months and totally uncalled for. During the rainy period I stupidly volunteered to replace the key hooks in the kitchen and, following consultation with Lynne I started the process, only to be silently relegated to apprentice fairly quickly. I was somewhat miffed to say the least. Realisation slowly and belatedly happened, thus avoiding a full-blown heated discussion and eventually a truce settled for the evening, thankfully.

Mojo regained

Following days of home disruption, terrorist atrocities, fictitious  bacon sandwiches and freezing temperatures I have regained my mojo, no doubt assisted by arsenal winning 3. 0, although it could easily have been 6.  0.   Following a self-help session via Google I have retrained myself to focus back on positives, with amazing results. 

Decisions,decisions.

Owen returned to the peace and quiet of London yesterday afternoon just as inspiration hit Lynne regarding the placement of kitchen utensil racks, too late for implementation on this occasion but a future project, perhaps ?

A sunny, chilly start to the day. No plans other than watching Arsenal v Stoke on the box, early afternoon. I aim to take my daily walk prior to that.

The long and winding road

If I had written this blog last night it would have been more positive. No so, this morning.The kitchen furniture/shelves etc, painted with silk-finish gloss yesterday, remains "drying" on the living room floor, but is still sticky, long after it should have dried, indicating a possible fault with the paint. My guess regarding a solution (excuse the pun) is to wait longer for it to dry ( unlikely ), turn up the central heating or, heaven forbid, remove the offending paint and repaint with some new stuff, extending the finish target by a week or so.  Owen, our friend and painter, is due to return home today, but has yet to wake from watching yet another late-night TV film, so a decision on the way forward will have to wait. Bearing in mind any disruption tends to affect my life balance this whole episode is just what I needed....not.

My sleep patterns have not been good lately so I will return to bed in a minute.

Lynne and Owen opted to refit the shelves, pot rack and fittings in my sleepy absence and very nice they look, too, although nothing is to be placed on them for a day or two. The offending paint pot has been suitably discarded.

The bedside light has been replaced following my demolition job on the previous one, so we are almost   

back on level ground once again.

Normal life ( whatever that is ) returns.

Bacon sandwich 2

With the downstairs resembling a travellers camp I opted to get a bus to HSBC ( the world's local Bank ) in Leicester to pay in a Christmas cheque. The world's local bank used to be just round the corner but is now 4.5 miles away ( sod the customers but admire the profits). The nice young lady told me I could pay cheques into my account via the village Post Office.Why hadn't they said so when they closed our"local" branch ?

The 4 Banks in our village centre will soon become 2.

Yet another "new" blood sugar monitor arrived this morning ( see 01/01/15 blog ) virtually identical to the previous one only this time with "ordinary" batteries, not rechargeables, thus doing away with the need for an electric supply or a generator. Surely my letter and subsequent rant at the customer services officer ( whoever invented that title ? ) were noted and acted upon. I guess I was not the only one. I felt sorry for the young lady afterwards because she obviously had little knowledge of diabetes and was confident all diabetics are old, decrepid and never stray away from hospitals or OAP homes.

She seemed astounded some diabetics travel and camp across the Serengeti and/or the Australian outback with no electric supply or generator. She has now been enlightened and probably is still trying to remove the flea from her ear.  If I ever make it up the Amazon I"ll send her a postcard.