It is done.

We is knackered.

But before we collapse in a heap, a huge thank you to Jan and Andy and Pete without whom we would still be struggling with a concrete base and a spirit level.

And also to Pickle, Button & Eric, who have inspected the works and pronounced the new scratching post / sun terrace Very Good.

G’night!

There are two bicycles in my dining room, a hole at the bottom of the garden and a stack of rotten broken up wood outside the kitchen window.

We seem to be past the point of no return…

I have a cheerful little Ford Fiesta as my courtesy car whilst poor Minifer languishes at the garage for the next 10 days - and I’ve had to sign an agreement which includes a maximum weekly allowance of 250 miles (can just do that as I only work 4 days), and an understanding that I won’t smoke (fine) or transport pets.

Ah.

1) Unscheduled visit to the vets tonight (at seven minutes to their closing time, they really are very good) with Button who’s done something to her eye

2) Trip to vets tomorrow evening with Mum & Bones for a how frail is he now check up

3) Back to the vets Saturday lunchtime with Button for a post inhections and eye drops check up

Ooops.

Head off to work only to arrive back home 4 hours later via a breakdown lorry - and not because you broke down, but because you had a 30pmh argument with a kerb which your two driver’s side wheels, steering rack and suspension system definitely lost.

Fek

Ever since I moved into this house - and certainly since I bought it - I’ve been concerned about the garden shed, which seemed to bring new meaning to the word decrepit, and was largely held together by cobwebs.

Soon I will worry no more! The component parts of New Shiny (well, golden oak Cuprinoled as of this afternoon) Shed are stacked up against the side of the house, and next weekend - providing the current good weather forecast is accurate - we will be having a shed party to a) knock the old one down (30 second job) and b) put the new one up (bound to take hours; I suspect the instructions are in Taiwanese). But the barbie will be going, and the drink will be flowing, and hopefully by the end of Saturday it’ll all be done.

Last Friday I had the MRI scan on my neck - which had to be held still in exactly the wrong position for 20 minutes, resulting in a painful weekend and a day off work yesterday. Today I had the results.

The good news - it ain’t anything serious. It’s a bulging disc between my C3 and C4 vertebrae (vertebra?) and explains all the acute pain, referred pain and hot flush sensations I’ve been experiencing.

The not so good news - there’s bugger all they can do about it - time, more time and loads of yummy drugs are the way forward.

So, all in all, it’s good. Mostly. Yes. No I didn’t want them to find anything serious, but I did want some kind of definitive action plan!! Ah, never mind. I’m bloody glad I’ve got one of those prepaid prescription certificate thingies!

For I am surely without them today.

Seeing as it was such a nice day, I decided to be all environmentally friendly and (mindful of yesterday’s ahem/eek experience) health conscious, and walked to Mum’s/vets/town/back home - a round trip of about 4.5 miles. I put some sun lotion on my arms, but forgot all about the v shaped expanse of skin left by my t-shirt…

The redness would be bad enough - I’m always banging on at Chris about sun protection when he goes to football, so red chest matches red face. The icing on the cake was the fact that I’d been wearing a flower shaped pendant, so now have a corresponding white shaped splodge in the middle of the redness…

There I was, wandering round Matalan, eyeing up some nice summer tops, knowing I was somewhere between size *ahem* and size *eek*, and choosing a few in size *ahem* to try on because size *eek* looked enormous…and then finding out that size *ahem* was never going to happen whilst size *eek* was a good fit…

Bah

Ever since Chris moved up here, he’s been itching to get his hands on our cupboard under the stairs and turn it into a library for all our cd’s, dvd’s and videos (remember them?!)

Today, his dream came true, and the new room was unveiled. Having emptied it some weeks earlier, ripped all existing rubbish woodwork out and redecorated it, Chris’ mate Pete finished the shelving last week and Chris put the carpet down today. He’s since been in his element, emptying boxes and boxes of stuff, filling the shelves and making sure everything’s in alphabetical order (and he says I’m anally retentive!). I’m not left out, I have a section of shelving all of my very own, becayse I can’t be trusted to keep everything in alphbetical order!!

Anyway, it look really good, and is an excellent use of the space. We haven’t lost the junking storing capability either, there is a smallish cupboard right at the very end (where it would have been ridiculous to have shelving) where various things can be stowed. Just not everything that originally came out of there, so I predict a mass sort out!

This is the first housey project we’ve done for ages (that’s the royal we, I did nothing towards this!) - and we’re hoping it’s the start of a fresh drive to Get Things Done. Next up on the agenda is the garden shed, we’re actually planning a shed party for the end of the month (weather permitting) as I think we’ll need outside help on that one. Then sometime over the summer we’ll make a start on the spare room. Oh, and then there’s the damp in the dining room, a possible problem in the main bedroom, re-pointing work outside…eeek, we seem to have opened a can of worms!!

Yes, I’m calling time on this joke of a government, and this abomination of a parliament. Root & branch reform should begin with a hefty dose of weedkiller.

General election please.