DVT DAYS 76 & 77

Saturday, Day 61. There is not a lot to say about Saturday beyond the word lawnmower. Most of my productive day was spent mending the now ageing Flymo, pac-a-mow lawn mower. I had previously diagnosed the fact that the power switch was knackered by the fiendish use of my circuit tester and had ordered replacement parts, all of which turned up except the actual switch, meaning I had o reorder from another supplier. The part eventually arrived Friday evening so you can imagine how excited I was to get going on my project on this Saturday morning. I set to work sitting at the door of my shed, my tool boxes opened next to me, and started the operation. All went well, I even remembered to take one or two photographs as I went along, just to make sure I wired it back up the right way.

These jobs never got smoothly. I had to re crimp the wiring connections with new connectors before could reassemble the power switch and its housing. The moment came to test the beast. Plugged into the mains and activated the switch. Nothing, I stand back in amazement. This is always what I do when at first I do not succeed. Fuck! I undo all my work and recheck the wiring and the circuitry, which is all tickety boo. So I have a mystery. I recheck the fuse, which I had done earlier. No problem there. Next option the power cable to the motor may be broken. So now I am taking of the motor housing which is fiendishly screwed on with counter sunk hexagonal screw heads. I have the very one to hand and whip the housing off to find a motor bay full of compacted dead grass.

I spend time digging the “gunk” out of the engine bay and even resort to hovering it out to get rid of it all. I check the circuit between the power switch and the motor connectors. Again the circuit is good so on theory the motor is getting power but it isn’t. My heart sinks for a moment at the thought of the motor having died, if that was the case then life would be either tricky or expensive. I reflect, I remember I had checked the mains plug fuse, which was good so I started to check the mains cable and could not find a circuit. I get a couple of extension cables from the tool shed and check them. Bizarrely one of them was good the other was no functioning and got dumped.  I set about replacing the mowers power cable with a modified extension cable. At last it is all in place and the moment of truth arrived. I press the power button, pull the power levers and the mower… springs into life! Genius, go me. I pack away the tools and tidy up, Dysoning the shed just for good measure in my tidy up mood. So most of my day is gone and I feel impelled to do something more creative. My answer to this is to plant up some of my grow bags with plants from the green house so that I can get everything off the grounds where the voracious snails live. Finally it is time to go inside and prepare for the evening.

I find German football is on and tune in on the computer in the office but it does not hold my attention so start to dig out my collection of art material from the cupboard. I reorganise my art bag and also fill my portable easel, however I am distracted by the fact that the football has suddenly disappeared and the screen is telling me that it is not receiving any signal. I am perplexed and check the line in to the screen and restart the computer. I retune to the football to find that I had missed two goals, isn‘t that always the way! I continue to wonder how I have accrued so many sets of coloured pencils when the football disappears again and I get the same “no signal” message. This time I unplug the myriad of leads from the tower and look behind it to find the monitor lead is not plugged in. I plug it all back together again and hope for the best but in doing so discover the external hard drive is not backing up as it should do. Life is never easy but I’ve had enough for today. I back up the system and leave it for today. We have a late dinner due to the families commitment to yoga and weight training and think about TV. We watch some of the Race Around the World but by 8 o’clock I have yet to reach my 10,000 steps. Its a change into my walking gear for me and I head out into the garden to walk for an hour. I end up with 15,000 steps so I am well pleased. I collapse into the sofa and we watch some of the Umbrella Academy. I am tired and my injection from yesterday os sore and quite prominent. Tomorrow is weigh in day, if come in under 100 kilos I’m having a day off from the walking. I am too tired to contemplate the blog, it will have to wait till tomorrow.

Its Sunday, DAY 62. I wake at three thirty in the morning and find my way to the bathroom and having evacuated everything I decide I might as well weigh myself now. 100.7 Kilos. Bugger, no rest day then for me. I go back to bed and wake up at about 7:30, I get up and find a friend has sent me “Anger Management for Beginners by Giles Coren. I make coffee, do yesterdays crosswords and read the first chapter of the book which I find very funny and a bit too close to my own irritants and angers.

I make my partner tea and take to her in bed and there we chat till joined by our eldest daughter, so we chat some more. By the time we are chatted out its gone eleven o’clock. It’s a late breakfast for everybody, which we end by ringing my youngest daughter. Isn’t Facetime grand? While we chat I drag out the bread making machine and begin to get the ingredients together. Thanks to a gift of yeast from a good friend baking bread has become a possibility again.

Breakfast over, daughter chatted to, and bread under way I start to sort out the baking cupboard, which is packed with odd bits and pieces and ingredients.

Finally I get it done, clear the kitchen, during which I find one of the Teflon coated pans is no longer coated and is showing shiny metal through its black coating. It goes in the bin. Kitchen cleared of breakfast, baking and organising I hit Amazon and buy a new milk pan and while I am at a new contactless thermometer. With the bread maker chugging along, Daisy dishwasher doing her bit, I turn to the blog and begin to catch up from yesterday, during which my partner brings me coffee and homemade lemon drizzle cake. I am so tempted to play hooky from my daily walk but unless I have lost 0.7 of a kilo since 3:30 this morning then a walk is on the cards at some point the only question is whether it is before or after I prepare chicken one pot.

A nice surprise the smell of fresh bread. Its been a long time since I made bread but now the smell will entice me to do it more often.

One pot underway and I am looking forward to soaking up the juices with fresh bread, before I go for my walk, or not. I am tired and sore still from Fridays injection, it really is like having a duck egg in my abdomen. Perhaps I will have a night off and give myself a break.