Oh, My Days!

  Where did that week go? Wherever it went, I’m glad it went quickly because being stuck in a house when major building work is occurring is not much fun. All the banging and crashing, the various smells created during plumbing activities, the little set-backs that are bound to occur when dealing with a house that is over 170 years old, not to mention being without various bits of a fully operational bathroom…well, I am looking forward to next Tuesday when everything will, fingers crossed, be back to normal which, in my case, means peace and quiet.  To be fair, our plumber has been very considerate of the fact we have only one bathroom and therefore only one toilet. At ten past nine this morning, he shouted from the top of the stairs, ‘Time for last wee’s!’ as he was about to swap out the old loo for the new. I made the most of the opportunity, then decided to take Nell for a walk because I didn’t want to listen to the high rise cistern being levered off the wall, nor that and...

 The plumber arrived yesterday to start our bathroom refit. Basically, the refit involves ripping everything out of the bathroom and replacing it with new stuff. The bath is going in favour of a large walk-in shower. I am looking forward very much to this change because I’m not really a bath person. Just like sitting in a warm puddle, really, and what’s the point in that? So, there is to be a new set of sleek cupboards, a new low cistern loo, a slimline sink and shiny counter, and Aquaboards instead of tiles.  The first step, then, involving yesterday afternoon and most of today, was to remove everything from the bathroom and take it back to bare walls. The plumber was very cheerful about this process, but then he was wearing ear-defenders. There was a lot of banging and crashing. Lord Malarkey was on tip run duties. Bambino monitored progress from the landing. Nell did a lot of barking. My nerves by the end of today were beginning to fray. The bathroom looks like a bomb-site ...

 We’ve had snow… It was a minor inconvenience for a couple of days and the wisteria came away from the back wall under the weight of the snow. I think the installation of some sort of wisteria props are called for but I shall wait until it has finished dropping leaves so I can untangle the web of vines in order to see how best to prop it up. Meanwhile, we now have rain courtesy of Storm Bert. We’ve had worse.  I’ve pin pointed the trigger of my bout of Achilles tendonitis to wearing Skechers trainers for dog walking. They are terrible trainers. Online research has shown that professional podiatrists advise against them because they lack support for heel and arches, and they also exacerbate any current foot problems. I have binned mine and bought a pair of Moshulu ankle boots in their stead. After six Skecher-free weeks, the tissue damage - stiffness, aches and pain - is noticeably improved. The Moshulu boots are a lovely shade of deep red so no danger of my Mum borrowing them!...

  It startles me to think that next year I am going to complete my 60th year on Planet Earth. Absolutely mind-boggling. And I remember a while ago, I was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be FUN to do sixty new things before I reach sixty?’ but I think that was when I was 58 and I convinced myself that I shouldn’t start this sixty before sixty thing whilst there was more than a year to go, as it would a) be tantamount to cheating and b) defeat the object of the challenge.  And so I didn’t give the idea much more thought, other stuff getting in the way and occupying my mind.  This evening, I thought about it again. The thought was triggered by watching Sarah Hadland on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ talking about women of a certain age being very good at telling themselves they couldn’t do something when, in fact, they jolly well could if they tried. And although Sarah is six years younger than me, I thought, ‘She’s right. Women of a certain age are often left to moulder on the scrap heap o...

 Emboldened by my triumphant tidy up and turf out in the laundry, I decided yesterday to tackle the woodshed in the same ruthless and gimlet-eyed manner. Actually, the woodshed is the only space at Damson Cottage that I haven’t fully cleared out since we moved here, and it was full of tat even then, with stuff left behind by the previous owners. And ever since then, it’s become, basically, a dumping space for stuff that needs a home but not necessarily a dry, warm and hospitable one.  Whenever I’ve needed to store deliveries of logs, or the barbecue, or potentially useful cardboard boxes, I’ve had to shove everything just inside the door further back to make space, preferably without having to enter the shed on account of it being full of spiders, snails, dust, cobwebs, unidentified objects and, for all I know, the dried and shrivelled remains of a 13th century hermit. The woodshed does, after all, give off a cave-like vibe. But the point had arrived where I could push the she...

 Where have I been for the last sixteen days? Oh, I’ve been here, as usual, doing my usual stuff in my usual way. What HASN’T been here has been the Internet. Two weeks ago, it ‘stopped.’ And the reason it stopped was because the farm vehicles around here are driven by young and reckless men (usually with one eye on the road and one eye on their mobile phones) in a wild and inconsiderate manner, and one of them pulled down and broke the cable that delivers the internet chez nous, and it has taken two weeks for Openreach and Shropshire council to organise their respective acts and mend the cable.  They say that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. And even though I am a child of the Sixties and therefore grew up and functioned perfectly well in the world pre-Internet, the post-Internet world has pushed itself (most rudely, I might add) into my world, forcing me to become reliant on it to some extent. For example, banking, bits of shopping and studying for my diploma ...