Saturday and I am up early as “Bob” is arriving at 9am to strip the parquet floor tiles off the office floor. I just have time to have breakfast and my morning meds before “Bob” arrives armed with hammer and bolster. He also had a pair of knee pads the like I have never seen before, clearly a man who spends a lot of time on his knees laying tiles. He set to work and got on with getting ready for the afternoon poetry stanza. “Bob” was extremely efficient and had the tiles up in a couple of hours, well before I needed to go out. Money passed hands and we agreed to meet up with him and his builder friend on Monday to decide on the next steps.
I drove to the new venue for the poetry stanza, which I had researched for parking beforehand. Its a new venue for the group so it was exciting to be traveling to a new venue. I arrived at the new venue and found it to be locked so I sat in the churchyard and ate an apple and read a letter from a friend that had arrived that morning. Dead on the dot of 2pm people arrived including the woman who was to let us in. The group had two new attendees along with a few old hands. I gave the group a choice between my “donkey” or my “cat ” poem”. One person jumped in quickly for the “donkey” so that’s what they got. By five o’clock we were done and I drove home in Elsie, still getting used to the feel of the new car, but I have to say she is very very comfortable.
I get home and settle down to watch a rugby match on TV and then move into the evening, watching Strictly and some other stuff. I cannot do all the football highlights so take my night meds and go to bed.
Sunday and for some reason I am knackered and struggle to get up by noon and even then I feel crap. Did I over do it yesterday or is this just one of those crap days. When I do get up I feel like a slug on downers but I do repackage a copy of Man to Man that has been returned to me as the address I sent it to no longer hosts the newspaper I sent it to. In repacking the book I amend the accompanying letter and as I do so I realise the mobile number I put on the original letter was wrong. The email is right so I just hope they use it. With the repacked ready to go tomorrow I slump, already out of energy spoons so I watch another rugby match until tea time and the evening slips into gear. Of course I watch the Strictly results show and am appalled by the wrong person going out. I crawl towards bed, having taken my night meds and hoping to wake up pin a better place convinced that I have probably fallen asleep earlier.
Monday and I wake up feeling far more chipper than yesterday. I take my vitals and get up and into my training kit. I intended to have a hearty fried egg sandwich but the lack of eggs stimmed that so it was plain toast and another hot water tat starts my day. My partner has gone to aqua aerobics so I head for the garage and the rowing machine. Given how crap I felt yesterday I know I need an hour’s row to staff off the drug side effects, so I set the session up and get going. By the 30 minute mark I am half a kilometre down on my standard so I try to pick up the pace a bit. By the end of the hour I have caught up and I have managed to reach my standard of 12 kilometres and burnt off 800+ calories, so go me.
After having rested for a while I shower and drink large amounts of soup to recover. There is a quick trip to the post office to send the repackaged book to the local newspaper and then it was back home to start drafting the blog and awaiting the Tesco order delivery and “Bob” the tiler to arrive with his mate “Bill” the builder to look at the office floor. Unexpectedly Tesco deliver early, so there was a lot of squirreling activity to get it all away . Not long afterwards “Bob” and “Bill” rock up and we do the standing on a floor assessing the what is required. We decide that a waterproof coating will go down and then a leveller over which the tiles will go. They suggest a couple of tile provider and we note the names and the fact that we need 4.5 square metres of tiles to cover the office floor. “Bob” says he will source the waterproof coating and give me a bell when he has it and arrange a time to do the work. So its time to draft the blog and move into the evening. As my partner has her singing lesson tonight and my eldest daughter is at her art class I shall choose a suitable ridiculously violent film. Tonight I shall go to bed a much happier person than yesterday and tomorrow I am looking forward to visiting a tile shop.
