Wednesday and a big day in my household as our injured house guest is due to go to hospital to have her plaster removed and then, accompanied by her son, on to a hotel before flying home to Greece on Saturday. However before any of that can happen I have to get up, have breakfast and morning meds. My injection site is still sore and I am not at my best but as I have a plumber coming at 9:30 to look at our knackered downstairs shower. On the dot the plumber turns up and I lead him through to the offending shower. He looks at it and tells me that basically its as cheap to replace the whole unit rather than bugger about putting in a new thermal regulating bar. We chat option and ratings for potential new fittings and then he goes. I immediately do my research and order a new fitment to arrive tomorrow. God bless Amazon. I’ve gone for one of those rain showers that also has a hand shower with it, very modern and in stainless steel. Very posh, so it will look good, whether it works or not is a different matter, we shall see.
My eldest daughter adn one of my nieces go off to town to breakfast and to collect our house guests son from the railway station. In the background I am aware that there are packing and travel activities going on. I am writing Christmas cards and brief notes to accompany them to the Scottish branch of the family. My sister used to do this “oiling of the family wheels” but this year it falls to me. There are two generations of our family now that have had no contact with the other branch of the family so I am inviting my generation and my children’s generation to join in the family tree project. I just think it would be useful for my generations children and grandchildren to at least have a map of where they came from. So I busy my self trying to find the right words. Before I can finish there is news from the estate solicitors that some of our instructions have been carried out, which comes as a relief and a step forward. There are still some snags to sort out so some more admin is required. I’m doing this when my eldest daughter, niece and house guest’s son arrive back from town. The son of course wants to see his mum as soon as possible and is lead up stairs to see her. Almost immediately my brother in law also appears to say goodbye to our house guest. There are drinks and chats much of which is about clarifying timetables and arrangements. Eventually our house guest comes down stairs and waits in the lounge until her taxi is due. We have bought a light weight wheel chair for her to use and take with her, a strange but useful Christmas present. When the time comes I wheel her out to the back door and after a bit of jiggery pokery mange to get her to the front drive. Its bloody cold and a knot of us stand on the road side making small talk while waiting for the taxi. We wait and wait and wait and wait until there is a message to say the taxi has arrived. Only then do we find out that the house guest has booked a taxi to arrive at number 7, the wrong house number. There are calls made and then more waiting until the taxi arrives. Packing everything into the boot is fun to watch as a clearly pissed off taxi driver struggles to get the the walking frame, wheelchair and cases into the boot of his nice new car. What amused me was that he closed the boot of the car by pressing a button in side the boot rim. When it would not close there was a lot of rearranging before another button push, and then another and then another, in the end the driver just push it closed manually like we all did back in the day before we thought pressing a button was cool. A grumpy driver told us to order an estate car next time. We waved them on their way and went in doors to the warmth, happy that they were on their way home ultimately and happy that we could now settle down again and prepare for Christmas. Come tea time we celebrated with fish and chips.
It had been a strange day, it ended with my eldest daughter going to Jiu Jitsu, and my partner and I watching football and the third series of Crossing Lines. A strange experience as all but three of he original caste had disappeared since series two. There was very little explanation of why they had gone beyond going home or the in implied fact that the unit they worked for had been closed down. The reality was of course that the first two series had not got good ratings so the producers decided they need to rehash it. They rehashed it so poorly it never made a fourth series. Any way after downing my evening meds I headed for bed.
Thursday and I am up, dressed, breakfasted and medicated in time to get to the chiropodist by 9:30. Its happy feet day, I really enjoy my happy feet days. The chat with the chiropodist, the warm soak of the feet followed by the meticulous attention to my hard pad and nails, all finished off with an oiling, it is delicious and a genuine pleasure. Damn good value for money. If your wondering what to buy someone for Christmas buy them a chiropody session voucher. My feet sing with delight after I’ve been done, its the best £32 I spend on a quarterly basis. I am almost sad the sessions do not last longer.
Once home I am into heavy “Puttering”. Puttering is a word a friend introduced to me by sending me an image with a definition, I share it with you below.
Given the definition I am not sure one can be “heavily” puttering but it seemed appropriate to all the little chores that needed doing to return the house to its normal stats post house guest. So after my pedal delights I pottered and puttered for quite a time retuning the guest room to its natural state, my drugs to their draw, my clothes to their wardrobes and washing to the laundry. Having started from the top I worked down to the lounge and cleared out my end of the sofa, which frankly had become a bit of a shit pit. I returned books to shelves, rehouse boiler papers, returned other objects to their rightful places and filed the estate papers along with all the other documents I inherited. Only once my self maintenance structures were back in order did I stop to check the blog and discover that Tuesdays blog had been left hanging. I set about putting that right and then started to draft up the blog to bring it up to date. By 4 o’clock I’m just about up to date, so I take a breather for coffee and to plan ahead. All this done around Amazon delivering things and me arranging for the plumber to come and fit the new shower next Tuesday morning. Already it is dark and the evening approaches. I have an eye on Friday as the day I need to do things in the garden, have some Shed time, sign up to self publish my first poetry book and start serious Christmas decorating. But first the evening beckons. I get to the end of the evening with a final putter and my night meds, then retreat to bed, remembering to post the blog this time.
