Wednesday December 14th 1800 - Thursday December 15th 1759

19:00 Oh! Where is the quiet life that once we knew? Due to jobs overrunning, the guy from Hillary's Blinds arrives 2 hours late to put up the blinds in all the back windows of the house - and he's clearly exhausted. He's in his 60's, we think, so Lois and I take pity on him and say he can come back on Saturday afternoon to do the job then instead. He ought to be getting home to his wife, and we want to be able to relax on our own. It's not exactly rocket science is it?

And we let him dump the blinds in our living-room, to save him bringing them again on Saturday. We're all heart haha!!

we let the guy from Hillary's Blinds leave all his stuff

in our living-room, to save him bringing them all again on Saturday

It's a great pity, however, because we've cleared all the surrounds of the windows for him, and also heated up the unused bedrooms upstairs especially, so that he wouldn't have to work in the cold. Perhaps we should send Hillary's a bill, do you think?

21:00 We go to bed on a special edition of our favourite angling show: the Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing Christmas Special from 2021.

Another charming episode, enlivened by the show's much-awaited annual awards ceremony, with its highlight prize for the show's Employee of the Year.

No real surprises again, however, because for the tenth year running the award goes to Bob's dog Ted, who always accompanies the boys on their fishing trips. 

As always, however, it's a real treat to see Ted's emotional acceptance speech.

22:00 At this point, with the usual tears in our eyes, we go up to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!

07:00 It's an early start this morning, because we have 8:40 am and 8:50 am appointments with the nurse at our new doctor's surgery, for blood tests and blood pressure tests. And we're not allowed to eat beforehand, and not allowed to drink anything except water, so no breakfast or morning cup of tea. And the car windows are all frozen up as well, so I have to go around defrosting them - what an awful start to the day!

08:30 Disappointment awaits us at the doctor's surgery as well, because due to a misunderstanding npth of our appointments have been cancelled. Two new ones are made for 10 am tomorrow.

However, we do get the chance this morning to play with the surgery's super snazzy new machine which measures height, weight and blood pressure and gives you a printout of the stats. Lois is pleased because she gets another chance at maybe a more accurate blood pressure reading after yesterdays traumatic rehearsal at home: she still thinks it's much higher than usual, but the receptionist asks a doctor and gets the reply that "it's nothing to worry about". 

I try the machine myself and get a reassuringly low blood pressure reading, although the machine measures my height as 5ft 8.5 instead of  my actual height of 5ft 10. Probably I wasn't standing up straight enough - the machine seems to be designed for people shorter than me, so I had to bow my head slightly to read the instructions. Or maybe I've just shrunk, as elderly people are rumoured to do.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

typical modern integrated height, weight and blood pressure machines,

where the instructions are sited too far down - what madness !!!!!

I'm surprise that both our blood pressure readings weren't higher than usual, because we left the house both feeling in a stressful state, having failed to lock the patio-doors at the back of the house: the key just wouldn't turn in the lock. But we had to leave the house anyway, to be in time for our supposed appointments at 8:40 and 8:50, so we just bolted the back gate and had to make do with that. What madness !!!!!

09:00 We get home, just as some turfing guys arrive unexpectedly, followed by the local locksmith guy with the East European accent, who has a look at the lock on our patio doors: it's the cold weather that's responsible, he says.

Busy busy busy! And the turfing guys look at the soil in our back yard and pronounce it "too frozen" to lay the turf, but luckily tons of topsoil are actually being delivered today, so the poor guys have to dig all of that in before laying the turf.

Poor turfer guys !!!!! But as the day wears on, the turf becomes more widespread:

as the day wears on, the turfer guys work their magic

10:00 There are some other nice things happening today. An airmail package comes through from our daughter Sarah in Australia, including a memory stick with videos of our 9-year-old twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica, plus these charming and touching hand-written Christmas cards. 

Is it not worth all the money in the world to have two lovely granddaughters who send us such touching cards?

12:00 While I stay in and "hold the fort" in case the turfer guys have any issues, Lois goes out for a walk round the estate to take pictures of any remaining snow or any Christmassy displays. 

Lois is not expecting a lot of Christmas decorations, such as inflatable Santas and the like. As far as we have been able to judge so far, this isn't an estate with a lot of children - it's mostly young couples and older couples only. But we'll see. Only about a third of the houses have yet been built, so things could change.

snow on the hilltops

(to the left) the mysterious defence and security contractor, Qinetiq

some Christmas displays

For my liking this has been far too busy a day as regards things going on, a lot of them unexpected too, so that the agenda Lois and I worked out yesterday is all in pieces, frankly! I'm hoping tomorrow will be more predictable.

Call me an old stick-in-the-mud if you like haha!!!!