Pain and Pleasure

I have to speak at a conference soon so I spent the day working at home on my presentation. Inevitably I ended up going out for lunch with the wife and fighting with powerpoint before giving up and taking my frustrations out on the carpets. All rooms except for the two upstairs bedrooms are getting new carpets in a few days so the rearranging of boxes (still unpacked), furniture and piles of junk has started in preparation. We also have an electrician in tomorrow and he needs to pull up floorboards, hence the pulling up of carpets today. Like everything else in this house, that particular carpet is so old that it isn't one whole piece but is several strips sewn together and surely didn't need quite so many nails. We're also in a mad panic trying to get all of the messy jobs finished before the new carpets go down - the last thing I want is to splash paint or plaster or ANYTHING on the new floors, my life would not be worth living. Last night I was busy trying to repair some plasterwork so the wife took it upon herself to do dinner - home grown salad followed by homemade apple pie. I refer you to my last post!

Surely not

Who would really want to live to be 100 by giving up food and sex? They are two of lifes greatest pleasures! I'll take quality of life over quantity thank you very much.

Temper!

Most nights on my way home I get stuck in traffic on a dual carriageway through the city. The other night the guy behind me was determined not to let anyone get infront of him by staying as close as possible to my rear bumper. I noticed that the bigger the gap I left in front of me the closer to tried to get and I tested my theory by not moving forward too quickly. The funniest thing happened when I let a couple of cars in infront of me, I actually heard this guy swearing at me. Now I'm not the kind of person that can let an opportunity like this pass me by so I quietly chuckled to myself as I let anyone who wanted to cut in front of me as I slowly crept forward in the queue. It was more entertaining than the radio!

Oops!

I posted a couple of weeks ago about having won £10 on the lottery twice in one week. The wife has used the same numbers for years and three of them came out again this week. We went to claim the tenner today but the shop assistant said it hadn't won and it was only as she handed the ticket back to the wife that I noticed a 2 where a 3 should be. Who bought the ticket last week? Who was very, very thankful that only three numbers came out and not all six? Who is fortunate enough to have a forgiving wife? It wouldn't be quite so bad if it was the first time I'd made this mistake but only the other week I had to go back and buy a second ticket because I'd got it wrong then as well. I must start paying more attention.

I can't do it

It's not a case of won't, I can't! It involves knowing three different bits of software and the instruction manual for the first is 506 pages long (this work isn't going to be done by the end of the day). If someone would just show me what to do I'm sure I could manage after that, but I can't work all this shit out on my own.

UPDATE at 5.10pm: I came up with a solution which was to say bollocks to the lot of it and bugger off home. So now, rather than still sitting in traffic frustrated at having achieved nothing all day I'm already home and drinking tea with the wife. All is right with my world again.

UPDATE at 11.30pm: My wonderful wife knows how to make me feel better - a bottle of wine and a listening ear AND while I was having a crap day she got half the dining room wallpapered. I suppose I'd better make sure I'm fit to do my share of the decorating tomorrow and get myself a good nights sleep.

Funny Little Frog

Here I was quietly getting on with whatever it is that I find to do on this computer all day when the wife says she's going out to look after the greenhouse. Two minutes later I heard her shouting for me. Thinking she'd chopped a finger off or been stung by a giant insect I went running to save her only to find her bent over the water butt shouting "it's a frog"! I've been saying for weeks that we should try and encourage such things into the garden and there it was, trapped. So instead of saving the wife I got to save the frog and it hopped off under the fence.

No messing

Yesterday morning we decided it would probably make sense to get the skylight in the spare room replaced before all the new carpets come - especially having seen several times already how much mess that sort of a job can make. After consulting the yellow pages we chose three reliable sounding firms and phoned to ask for quotes. One of them didn't answer (or reply to the wifes message), the second said he was too busy (i.e. the job is to small to be worth his while) and the third said he'd be down in 10 minutes. After 25 minutes he was on the phone to his team and about five hours later the guys started knocking a stonking great hole in the roof. The boss had said it would take about three hours and the guys would be glad of the overtime. He is obviously just like my boss, thinking a job will take half as long as it actually does - the fellas are back on the roof today! What has really shocked me though is that we made a decision and acted on it immediately, usually we have to think about it for at least a week!

I don't want to know

This morning we had the two new brown leather armchairs delivered (which cost us far more than we had budgeted for them but they are so, so comfy). The six yr old grandkid was around and fell in love with them straight away. Making herself comfortable in one of them she warned "you'll not be allowed to pick your nose on these chairs though will you"! I didn't want to ask what prompted her to come out with that one.

Yawn

I'm having trouble waking up this morning - I know its 11.00 already but I'm sure my eyes are still half closed. I suppose that's what you get from spending evenings building furniture rather than vegetating in front of the TV like normal. I feel like I haven't stopped all week and this weekend is going to be just as busy. We've decided on the carpets we want downstairs so need to get all of the messy jobs i.e. painting and wall paper stripping done before they are fitted. Then we will be able to get some wardrobes! It's nearly five months since I last had a wardrobe to hang my clothes in, half of them are still in suitcases while the stuff I tend to wear is on a rail getting dusty. Such a simple thing but I can't help but get excited!

Third Time Lucky

We've won a tenner on the last two lottery draws - got my fingers crossed that tonight it's the jackpot (even another £10 would be nice)!

I love flatpack

Just call me the flatpack queen! We went in a spending spree in Ikea. Not only did we find the bedroom furniture we want for one of the rooms, we also found furniture for the hall and dining room and solved the problem of what to do with the floor in the living room (wood floor with a huge rug in the middle in case you're interested). The best part of the trip though? Pulling my little car into the loading bay in amongst all the (effing) 4x4's, vans and people carriers AND managing to load all of the flatpacks without a problem. Admittedly we left the wardrobes until we've got the wifes car, but the bookcase, side table, two bedside cabinates and a chest of drawers along with a mirror, a lampshade and four wine glasses all managed to fit into something similar to this:

Worth the wait?

I finally, nearly nine months after starting the job, have a desk (infront
of the window no less) which I can fill up with all my crap. This is the
highlight of my week. Unfortunately I have no excuse not to clear out my
locker where all the aforementioned crap has been placed up to this point.
I'll maybe get around to that once I've stopped looking out of the window,
trying to identify all the local landmarks. And while I'm on the subject of
work, why when I do protein searches do I just get a list of patent numbers.
Does this mean that half the proteins in my body actually are the property
of someone else?

To curl or not to curl

The wife had a sleepless night last night and was up at 5am trying to occupy her mind. This is what she came up with. Every four years, for just a couple of weeks through the winter I become obsessed with people throwing stones down sheets of ice. Now I can play myself, anytime and without having to get cold feet. Unfortunately you have to add your own sound effects - sweeeeep!

How Long?

Ok, so I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, life has taken over and I’m amazed at how long it is since I last posted something. They may not be much but the excuses for my absence are as follows;

Firstly my mum came to stay with us for a few days. I got to take some time off work and play the perfect hostess and tour guide. It’s the first time that my mum had met the wife and fortunately they seemed to get on great.

My second excuse is that work has been mad – I’ve had too much time off recently with the house and mums visit and everything seems to be happening now. They even managed to ship me off down south for a few days to 'network' - ugh!

Thirdly, the house! Kitchen is finished, just waiting for the walls to dry out from where the old pipes were leaking – it’s taking a while – then we can paint. The walls are stripped in the dining room, unfortunately half the wall came away with the paper on one wall but, as we’re putting new paper on we decided to have a go at fixing it ourselves. If we have to get a guy in to sort out the mess later we’ve not lost anything but if we can make a decent job of the plastering then we will have saved a few quid.

And lastly, but certainly not least, we have recently had not one but two new beds. And that is much more exciting than it sounds!