Here I am! Lovely birthday, thank you! Lunch out with Himself Lord Malarkey, visit to see the new Shaun the Sheep film (very entertaining, apart from being accused of sitting in the wrong seats by a narky family who had actually, themselves, turned up a day late - ha!) and lots of shouting at the telly during ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ when ONCE again the judges (ha!) showed increasing bias towards some contestants and Shirley was horrid to Emma and Anton, which immediately got them 3 votes from me!
One of my lovely birthday gifts was a craft course voucher to spend on a craft course of my choice. Well, I’ve had a yearning to try weaving, and in the next small town along from us there is a lady who runs weaving workshops! So I am going to book myself into her Introduction to Weaving day, which Andy says is very handy because if I like it, that’ll be my Christmas present sorted in the form of a loom! How exciting!!
Anyway, one of my new ‘things’ for this coming 55th year of mine is to be more assertive in grabbing life by the lapels and giving it a shake to see what drops out of its pockets. Instead of thinking of doing things, I am going to do more doing of doing things. This is why yesterday I was out in the garden at 9 a.m tackling the woodshed. Basically, our woodshed looks like this inside...
...dark and grim, and damp and full of tat. It’s become a bit of a dumping ground and if I want to get logs for the wood burner I have to literally BEAT my way to the back (avoiding treading on the resident toad which has a remarkable capacity for camouflage) where they are inconveniently situated. Enough!
I opened the door and forced myself through the immediate thought of, ‘Oh, I can’t be bothered with this today. Let’s go inside and read a book instead,’ and thus I sallied forth and spent about three hours tackling all manner of debris that was wet, smelly, sludgy, slimy and generally yuck. I placed a dumpy bag at the top of the drive and chucked out stuff that I neither recognised the purpose of or knew we hadn’t used in the last three and a half years or that was patently past its life expectancy. This bag will sit there until a) it is full enough and I can pay something to come and remove it or b) Andy starts making a few trips to the tip.
The trouble with the woodshed is that it has a leaky roof. The woodshed is attached to the laundry. The combined area is substantial - about 12 x 18 square feet. As I went about my grubby work I allowed myself a daydream whereby we had the whole outbuilding knocked down and rebuilt as some kind of utility/ gym/ loo and shower building. It’s a thought...and it would save me ever having to do woodshed clearing ever again. Might need to relocate the toad, though...
Once I had completed Operation Something Nasty in the Woodshed, I moved onto Operation Let’s Make the Court Yard Look Less Like a Scrap Yard. Another two and a half hours of weeding, pruning, leaf sweeping, dragging a trowel edge through the gaps in the crazy paving, and all is tidy and I allowed myself a sense of smugness at my achievement. I also allowed myself a bath and hair wash to get rid of the accumulated grim, slime and cobwebs.
Today, I’ve been to the hairdresser and had most of my very long hair cut back to shoulder length. Eddie, my stylist, and I had a good old natter about Strictly and The Apprentice, which is another show I’ve taken a fancy to, having developed a morbid fascination with how the young people on it can be so disorganised and not know when WWII was, or how to tell the difference between a rhino and an elephant. It is entertaining me enormously, especially with Karen in the back of camera shot rolling her eyes at exactly the same time I roll mine.
I’ve started getting a bit of Christmas Shopping in. The Christmas Story is well over 13,000 words and I’m only on Day 11. I’ve read nearly two books this week. No way do I feel like I am 54.
One of my lovely birthday gifts was a craft course voucher to spend on a craft course of my choice. Well, I’ve had a yearning to try weaving, and in the next small town along from us there is a lady who runs weaving workshops! So I am going to book myself into her Introduction to Weaving day, which Andy says is very handy because if I like it, that’ll be my Christmas present sorted in the form of a loom! How exciting!!
Anyway, one of my new ‘things’ for this coming 55th year of mine is to be more assertive in grabbing life by the lapels and giving it a shake to see what drops out of its pockets. Instead of thinking of doing things, I am going to do more doing of doing things. This is why yesterday I was out in the garden at 9 a.m tackling the woodshed. Basically, our woodshed looks like this inside...
I opened the door and forced myself through the immediate thought of, ‘Oh, I can’t be bothered with this today. Let’s go inside and read a book instead,’ and thus I sallied forth and spent about three hours tackling all manner of debris that was wet, smelly, sludgy, slimy and generally yuck. I placed a dumpy bag at the top of the drive and chucked out stuff that I neither recognised the purpose of or knew we hadn’t used in the last three and a half years or that was patently past its life expectancy. This bag will sit there until a) it is full enough and I can pay something to come and remove it or b) Andy starts making a few trips to the tip.
The trouble with the woodshed is that it has a leaky roof. The woodshed is attached to the laundry. The combined area is substantial - about 12 x 18 square feet. As I went about my grubby work I allowed myself a daydream whereby we had the whole outbuilding knocked down and rebuilt as some kind of utility/ gym/ loo and shower building. It’s a thought...and it would save me ever having to do woodshed clearing ever again. Might need to relocate the toad, though...
Once I had completed Operation Something Nasty in the Woodshed, I moved onto Operation Let’s Make the Court Yard Look Less Like a Scrap Yard. Another two and a half hours of weeding, pruning, leaf sweeping, dragging a trowel edge through the gaps in the crazy paving, and all is tidy and I allowed myself a sense of smugness at my achievement. I also allowed myself a bath and hair wash to get rid of the accumulated grim, slime and cobwebs.
Today, I’ve been to the hairdresser and had most of my very long hair cut back to shoulder length. Eddie, my stylist, and I had a good old natter about Strictly and The Apprentice, which is another show I’ve taken a fancy to, having developed a morbid fascination with how the young people on it can be so disorganised and not know when WWII was, or how to tell the difference between a rhino and an elephant. It is entertaining me enormously, especially with Karen in the back of camera shot rolling her eyes at exactly the same time I roll mine.
I’ve started getting a bit of Christmas Shopping in. The Christmas Story is well over 13,000 words and I’m only on Day 11. I’ve read nearly two books this week. No way do I feel like I am 54.
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KJ
KJ