Do you ever feel that repair guys are a bit out of their depth when they visit your expensively furnished home? It's a normal human emotion, isn't it, and it's nice when we try and make the repair guy feel that, deep down, we're just as plain down-to-earth ordinary as he is, even if we aren't haha - you know?
[You're not just very ordinary, Colin, you're thoroughly incompetent with it, most of all when it comes to repairing anything! - Ed]
The local Onion News had a story on this just this morning - did you "catch it", I wonder?
Poor Delaney !!!!!
Let me put my cards on the table at this point. It's barely 3 months since my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I moved into our current 4-bed detached house in leafy, semi-rural Liphook, and we're already fast becoming dependent on two completely separate "repair guys" - Russell (house) and Mitchell (garden): [memo to self: must get them the right way round, from now on!!!]
(left) Russell, and (right) Mitchell, our two "Mr Fixits" (!)
Yes, confusing isn't it? Or "confoozing" as Steve, our American brother-in-law always puts it!
Both men's names end in "-ell", but Russell just fixes things in the house, whereas Mitchell just fixes things in the garden - they're both local men, one from Grayshott and one from Bordon, and they're both "specialists" in an odd kind of way, "only" doing house or "only" doing garden. And, whereas Russell communicates by text using whatsapp, Mitchell prefers a more formal email. [memo to self: must try not to get that muddled up either !]
Both men are specialists: Mitchell (left) communicates by email and
only fixes things in the house, whereas Russell (right) fixes
things in the garden, and always communicates by text.
Lois showcasing something or other in the back garden.
Could this be the "rogue" honeysuckle that's going crazy?
I'm not 100% sure! Answers on a postcard please haha!
Anyway! This morning, it's MY turn to get busy: (1) planning things for Russell (or Mitchell) to do in our living-room with the double doors, and (2) laying some old bits of wood on the bed in the garden, to stop the weeds growing in it for the time being.
So, all in all, a busy day for Yours Truly - what with the planning AND the pieces-of-wood-laying, it turns out to be quite an exhausting morning for me, to put it mildly!
my busy morning (part 1): planning things for Russell (or Mitchell?)
to do in our living-room, like painting the double doors
my busy morning (part 2): laying bits of old wood over Lois's
future 'herb garden' that Mitchell, or was it Russell
cleared for her last week - what madness !!!!
My wife Lois, who specialises in the "gardening side" of our marriage, [What side do YOU specialise in, Colin?! - Ed] is currently "hors de combat" in the garden at the moment, as the French say: poor Lois had a cataract removed yesterday at an eye hospital in Guildford, Surrey, and has been told not to do any gardening for 4 weeks.
flashback to yesterday: Lois wearing her plastic "eye shield"
after her cataract operation in Guildford, Surrey.
Also all "contact sports" are forbidden, or any "boisterous activity" other than walking for the next 4 weeks, so that's a temporary end to our intermittent bouts of "rough-housing" (!).
This is Lois's first full day after having her cataract removed, and she has to keep her plastic "eye-shield" on today, sellotaped to her face. So we decide to just take a gentle stroll over the local "rec" (recreation ground), not doing anything in the bushes except looking for signs of spring (!), and finding some nice bluebells.
Lois says bluebells always used to be "a May thing", so I guess it's yet another sign of global warming. Yikes !!!!
Lois's first full day after her cataract operation, so no rough-housing
in the bushes for us today (!), just looking for bluebells amid the dandelions.
Bluebells are now apparently an "April thing", whereas they used to be a "May thing".
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
21:00 We go to bed on this week's programme in Kevin McLeod's "Grand Designs" series, the series in which Kevin usually follows a couple in the process of designing and building some swanky big house - usually far bigger than they really need, with huge windows and impossibly high ceilings, and then filling it with uncomfortable furniture, like sofas so "deep" that you have to lie on them rather than sit on them when you're watching a bit of "telly" in the evenings.
It's total madness!!!
This week's programme is a bit different, because instead of some thrusting, ambitious young couple, it's an "old codger", recently widowed Kathryn (82) who's in the frame, planning a huge house, although she's being helped by her children, who are of course now themselves into late middle age - yikes !!!!
Kathryn, has been living in her existing house for 60 years - she's got lots of memories of her life there with Jon, her now sadly deceased husband, bringing up their children etc, and she loves the area and her neighbours. Now, however, at 82, she's finding climbing the stairs a problem due to her knees, has the idea of building a similar-sized house onto the side of her existing house, but with a downstairs bedroom, and moving into that one, eventually selling her original house to recover the costs of the project.
The project to build the adjoining 'replica house' takes a year and the eventual costs are about £900,000, and it leaves Lois and me wondering, "Why didn't she just install a lift in her original house and leave it at that?"
What madness, isn't it !!!! [That's enough madness for today! - Ed]
We've got to admire Kathryn's guts, however. Lois and I turn 79 this year, and we can only hope that we're as lively as Kathryn when we're her age, i.e. in 2028 - my goodness! [Not much chance of that, realistically, is there, Colin! - Ed]
An uplifting programme, all in all. And we love seeing the touching clips of old home movies featuring Kathryn and husband Jon in the house in their younger days, and when their children were just babies and toddlers, and growing up etc.
flashback to almost 60 years ago: the young Kathryn and
her husband Jon, who's now sadly deceased, with their
first child, Rosalind
Fabulous stuff !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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