Well, after taking the wall down, we had to put one back up – it being a bathroom - privacy being an issue without a wall there*1. We boarded out the new wall and then decided to mix up some plaster to skim the joints etc.
Hubby, being a trusting soul left the job of mixing the plaster to me while he went off to do something else. I tipped the water in the bucket and then added the plaster one dustpan worth at a time (I can’t do that thing where you lift the bag up and tip it – much too messy (and heavy)!). It is at this point I should tell you that rather that using the kitchen whisk (don’t laugh, it’s been done) I had attached our whirligig thing to the drill to make the job easy.
Now we’ve had our whirligig for a while and its getting a bit old, but over the years we’ve used it for all sorts from paint to cement to cake mix (well maybe not really cake mix – I’ve never actually needed to make a cake that big) and its coped admirably with everything so I really didn’t doubt it for one instance - even though its starting to get a bit rusty. Well, I should have doubted it, ‘cos as I stuck it in the bucket and turned it on, the whirlies came away from the gig (or at least the arms kinda parted company with the shaft) and as they flew out sideways, they produced a fountain of plaster, plaster powder and water which flew upwards and outwards at great velocity. I shrieked (well, anyone would have) and hubby came running. He came though the door (I think expecting to find me fallen over or electrocuted or something) and found me, the walls, the bath, the ceiling, the window and everything else, dripping with this gloopy mess. He laughed so much he nearly wet himself – sympathy – not a chance…..
*1OK, OK there are two sides to a wall, I admit it!
So, we are (finally) doing the bathroom. When we moved in (nearly 6 years ago) we decided it needed doing and have been putting off ever since. Well, a permanently dripping tap which turned into a running tap tipped me over the edge….”I’ve found a plumber”, I said “and here’s the bathroom catalogue – pick something!”
So, we settled down to lots of shopping, decided on suites and tiles and all sorts and finally made up our minds. So far, so good!
The next job was to start ripping out the old suite and generally make good before getting ready to re-tile and the get the new suite fitted. We live in an old house – its Victorian – which is very nice, but sometime means your floors and walls are a bit on the wonky and worn side. In fact, sometimes these things get patched up relatively unsuccessfully – usually by previous owners. One of my personal pet hates was the fact that we had Victorian 8” moulded skirting board on one wall and 1960’s 5” plain on another. It will all have to go we (I) decided and be replaced with new (Victorian style) skirtings. Well, we knew that the plaster on that one wall was a bit dodgy, and taking off the skirting would make a bit of a mess, but I’m OK at filling (I’ve had a lot of practice over the years on various walls, cars and of course the wrinkles on my face) so we thought we’d go for it. Well, after pulling it off, there was a bit of a mess and a bit higher up the wall a large chunk of plaster had fallen out. Never mind, we thought, we’d just hack back to a good bit and re-plaster the little hole as necessary.
Tap tap with hammer…..
Oops – umm, how did that happen (three feet away a 2ft by 1ft section of plaster lands on the floor)….
….never mind, we’ll just hack back to a good bit and re-plaster the 'little' hole as necessary.
Tap tap with hammer…..thud, crumble crumble…thud…oops…
“Umm, hubby – have you found a good bit of plaster yet?”
Well, finally we had hacked back to good plaster and we stood back and surveyed our work. There it was – a 2ft by 3 ft section up in one corner of the room and apart from that the whole wall lay in bits on the floor.
“So, that’ll be rebuilding the wall then, before we start the tiling?”
So, I’ve been away for a couple of days and while hubby stayed at home and hacked all the tiles off the bathroom walls, I was off gadding about at important meetings and stuff. In addition there was also some preparation for the latest upcoming trip which is going to be 10 days in Arizona at a major event.
So our conversation over the dinner table turned to the forthcoming trip and it went something like this. EO*1 was getting quite animated:
- EO: “It’s brilliant that we’re going to Arizona isn’t it...?”
- Me: “Well, yes, I’m really looking forward to it”.
- EO: “…and I was in touch with my friend TJ and he tells me that the Americans are going to be there….”
- Me: “Well, they would be - its Arizona…”
- EO (in a rather more excited tone): “…but the Americans are going to be there…”
- Me: “I think they’ll be a lot of Americans there…”
- EO: “…no, I mean the Americans”
- WW: “I still think there’ll be lots and lots of Americans there – you do know Arizona is in America don’t you?”
…at this point EO nearly threw her dinner at me*2 until she realised that I was deliberately misunderstanding her to wind her up…I knew all along that she meant the American team with whom she is quite friendly and who will also be at the same event.
*1 Eeyore’s owner – well, not his real owner obviously ‘cos that would be Christopher Robin wouldn’t it?
*2 There are worse things you can do with mass catering….like eat it!
So I did promise to tell you the tale of the big bad cable tv man and the even bigger badder satellite man (or was it the other way round) so here it is.
Once upon a time, there was a hubby and his warped woman and they lived happily in a little house not too far from what used to be a coal mine. They liked watching television, especially science fiction programmes like Stargate and warped woman was also very, very keen on 24. 24 was halfway through the series and getting very exciting so she eagerly looked forward to Sunday nights when she would watch it and then phone ‘A’ and have a good chat about what had happened.
Time passed by happily until one Wednesday night when hubby and WW were watching the late news. It said that Virgin Media were dropping Sky channels at midnight. Well, hubby and WW were a bit mystified at this but since Virgin had only just taken over their cable channel they thought it couldn’t really apply to them and so went to bed and dreamed of spaceships and Jack Bauer.
In the morning hubby phoned WW from work – “Have you checked the TV today?” he asked, “Do we still have Sky?” When WW looked, Sky was gone from the channel line-up and there was just a message from Virgin saying that due to a rise in price they would no longer be supplying Sky Channels. There was much weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth over this – no more Stargate, no more Jack – what were they to do?
Well, as with many tales, this one too has a happy ending as WW phoned the Sky company and the nice men from Sky came and fitted a shiny dish to the back of the house. Since it points straight at the sky, it gets all the science fiction straight from the spaceships and Jack is back saving the universe from the bad guys. All the services seem to work better than the cable did and through some quirk (yet another mistake by the cable company in fact), its costing less too! WW and hubby are now very happy and think that every cloud has a silver lining.
The End!
Actually, this isn’t strictly the end, as I simply wish to add a comment. There has been a certain amount of name throwing via the press between Sky (the Rupert Murdoch Empire) and Virgin (the Richard Branson Empire). It seems that with the renewal of a contract Sky wanted to raise their prices – they think that since they have the best channels (well, they have apart from the BBC) then they should get a fair (or unfairly high depending on who you listen to) price. Virgin didn’t want to pay any more than they were already paying and so said that unless Sky asked for a more reasonable figure, they wouldn’t pay up and therefore wouldn’t continue to have the right to broadcast Sky channels. They also figured that people would stick with them having decided that Sky channels weren’t that good after all.
I might have agreed with them, or at least sympathised with them except for one thing. In their infinite wisdom they didn’t see that we, as customers, needed to know what was going on. They chopped our channels without bothering to tell us in advance and without apology afterwards. In my book this was inexcusable. They have my e-mail address (heck they supply it), my phone number and my address. One e-mail could have been sent to every customer at a pence cost to the company, but no, nothing, zilch, nada. So, we continue with the phone and broadband until they pull the next stunt and the TV comes from the sky (literally!) ….and yes, silver linings and all that, it has worked out cheaper – about £15 a month (no, I don’t know how either!)
I haven’t blogged anything for a whole week now. This is partly ‘cos:
- hubby has had a week off (yay!)
- we no longer have a bathroom (see note 1.)
- I have a baddie wrist (tendonitis) – this means I am only typing with one hand and it’s a pain in the ….wrist actually (well, what did you think I was going to say?)
I fully intend catching up soon with Virgin Media and Sky One (please note, I’m not as mad as I was), tales from the plumber’s life (or at least why we no longer have a bathroom) and an amusing tale from (almost) over the pond as well as other such drivel just as soon as I can type with two hands.
So I was just in Tesco and I saw a "Magnetic Excercise Bicycle" for sale.
What's that about?
Does it mean that for storage you can just stick it to the fridge or what???
I think I’ve been quite quiet lately in my blog*1. This is mostly ‘cos I have a completely utterly boring life and I didn’t want to write blah blah blah, blah blah blah and all that stuff.
Seriously, I don’t know if it’s true that I have a boring life, as I do get to zot off all over the place on trips and stuff, but my life is not exciting in a sky diving, roller coaster kind of way. I wonder sometimes about what is (or what seems to be) an exciting life to another person. F’rinstance, is my life exciting to someone else, or do you have to be Victoria Beckham (you will love how verbose she is on this, her very own blog), before your life gets exciting or do you maybe have to be Ellen McArthur ? Do you suppose that poor ole Ellen when she is halfway across the Atlantic, freezing her nuts off (or would be if she had any) suddenly sits down and goes, ‘Gosh, isn’t this exciting?’ – or do you suppose that she ties another knot (or whatever it is she does out there) and thinks - ‘Gosh, this is boring – wish I had a telly so I could watch Sky One*2’. Maybe Victoria Beckham after doing her 3000th crunch before breakfast with her kid constantly interrupting her and wanting to know if he can have spaghetti hoops for breakfast – with marmalade – thinks ‘Gosh, this is boring – I wish I could do something different with my life.’
What I’m trying to get at here is that surely it’s all just a matter of perspective. As they say (whoever they are) one man’s meat is another man’s poison but I guess mostly people think that something (anything) different from what they do would be more exciting. Grass is greener and all that…
As for me, well, often I think that all this excitement stuff is overrated. Give me a boring old night in with my best friend and a bottle of red or a good book and a nice warm room and I can be happy. That’s not to say that I’d trade in the exciting stuff, but it’s nice to have a balance…
*1 I had to add the term "in my blog" here as everyone who knows me knows that I cannot be quiet for any length of time at all. The term chatterbox was invented for people like me....
*2 This is another blog entry and one that I am still too furious to blog about ….watch this space for ranting and raving soon….
I just had one of those highly inspirational e-mails – you know the kind of thing I’m sure, but this one said:
“Never save something for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion”.
Now, it’s not the sentiment that I want to draw your attention to – even though I actually think that one is one of the best around. In fact, many of these messages have really good things to say or for us to think about, but I often don’t like to receive them. So why is this – it’s got nothing to do with the message, or the person who sent it to me – but everything to do with those horrid few sentences at the end. You know the bits I mean – the bits that say forward this to 5 of your friends or you will die of Dengue fever or forward this to 5 of your friends or suffer bad luck for a year or forward this to 5 of your friends and something good will happen or even forward this to 15 of your friends and you will win the lottery on Saturday! Why, why, why??? I am now taking to stripping out all of that and sending them on to the people to whom I think they will make a difference but secretly I fear that Dengue fever is just waiting around the corner. What is it about the power of words, that those delivered by total strangers are able to make me feel guilty about not forwarding them – and – I know I am not alone! It’s this whole guilt thing that leads to people forwarding chain letters around the world because they are too frightened not to ………
Well, I think I've found the solution to nasty tropical diseases for anything I get that I don't want to send on - it's Chain Letters Anonymous!
