Back in London-the project continues
Wednesday 26th. Slept surprisingly well albeit with periods of wakefulness. Got up and made Mikes breakfast and then took Sookie for a walk. Went to see Keith and went to Sainsbury's for him full stop we were going to go to the village for a haircut but he didn't feel like it. Shame as the weather was jolly good and may not be good enough next week. Lorraine phoned me to talk about her job and we both felt much better about her accepting the alternative offer which she had not been happy about before. Got home nice and early full stop that there was still there so had a chat with her. She has started cleaning the radiators with the new radiator dusters. Heated up the stir fry I made in Devon for Mike's lunch. Quick cup of tea and made him some cheese sandwiches for the flight and the sandwich and a taxi pick him up at 3 p.m. to take him to Stansted. I ordered clothes airer for Keith. Change the bedding on Mike's bed and tried out the new sheets which were fine. Talk to you for a walk. She has rumbly tummy syndrome again today and was eating grass but seems a lot better after that has got through her system. Went for supper with Caroline and proof. As usual the talk about books that was way above my head but the rest of the conversation was enjoyable and we had a very nice meal at as and a very enjoyable evening. Rather spoilt the atmosphere by knocking over the remnants of my wine at the end of the evening. My left eye had been trying the hearing aids all day with a view to really making an effort to get used to them. The left one was responding to noise with loud whistling sound tinny vibrations and eventually got so cross with it I took it out and see get my wine glass over in the same motion. They rushed over with many napkins and it was only the tablecloth which suffered. My phone was covered in wine because it was waterproof it quickly was wiped off with the napkins and was fine. I felt a bit of a mini though. Straightforward journey home on the Tube and I was in bed by 9 p.m. with a hot drink and a whiskey ready to watch something on the iPlayer and have a nice early night.
Thurs 27th. Got up early and had breakfasted and walked Suki for an hour by 9.45. Drove out to Staples looking for decorated filing boxes but they didn't have anything so I ordered some faux leather ones from Amazon. Then went to B&Q and got a tester pot of paint made up in the same code as the cupboard doors. When I gave the girl the code she put it in to the computer and then announced that it was definitely Dulux- because it was not in their own make database. She then produced a huge mass of Dulux colour cards and suggested I look through them even though the codes were clearly not in the same format. We reached an impasse - in the old days that would have been that and I would have had to take her word for it that she couldn't do it. However I got my phone out and put the code in to Google and found the Dulux equivalent. Then she pored over the colour cards again without success so I took them from her and found it almost immediately in the index and then she was able to make up the paint!! I got some more white eggshell while I was there. Then it was off to Dunelm to change the bird curtains for a shorter drop. I was quite confident about doing this but once I got in the shop it became quite intimidating - whereas with Jayne it would have been fun. I had to queue for ages to get a refund. Then found everything had been moved around and I couldn't find the curtains. I eventually asked - and they didn't have the 72 inch drop in stock. So I picked up a pair of the heather ones to try out. I got a couple of duvet covers and pillowcase pairs for Mike - or so I thought but when I got them home one pack of pillowcases turned out to be a single frilled pillowcase. I had opened the pack before noticing so I used it at the bottom of the bed where it was less noticeable!! I got back at lunchtime and had a couple of slices of toasted fruit loaf then spent an hour sorting out and cataloguing the handbell music we had got when we bought the handbells and merging it with our own. Only taken 20 odd years to do that!! Had a great Skype call with Jayne for an hour. Then took Suki up to the Chiswick High Road and went to three different banks to deposit cheques - Barclays for numbers club, HSBC for Cantanti and Halifax for Jayne. It was actually fun using the machine to deposit - so much better than queuing! Walked Suki home and grabbed a cheese sandwich before heading out to Bermondsey to ring handbells. We rang a nice peal of Plain Bob Major with Peter Richards - his first peal at first attempt. He was unnervingly good and only made a couple of tiny slips towards the end. Mike got back from Bremen about midnight.
Fri 28th. Mike mentioned that he needed more room to get in to the living room so I rearranged the side tables so that the sofa could be pushed further from the door. However the state and size of the tables then on show was so awful I decided we needed a new set. I took Suki to Acton Park for a walk and went home via the furniture shop at the top of the road just on the off chance they might have something and there outside the shop was the perfect nest of 3 in the sale. I took Suki home and went straight back to the shop and purchased them. They look great and are made of solid wood.
I just had time to dust them and put them in place before going up to Covent Garden to Bill's to meet up with Wendy for lunch. It was great to see her again and I am sure we could have carried on talking long after the two hours we took over lunch. The meal was a bit of a debacle - the waitress got the order wrong several times,and the bill at the end, and they had changed the menu last week from having a wide range of gluten free dishes to very little. But we had a thoroughly enjoyable meal otherwise and the food was delicious. Wendy went on to Somerset House afterwards and took some photos of the place now - we can hardly recognise it.
When I got home I did some numbers club admin, including processing an application which had arrived in the post with a cheque - aaaargh another trip to the bank - and the winners cheque for Richmond Ringers so that I could take it to Barnes and get it signed by both signatories who would be present that evening. I had hoped that Martin Crick would be there to take the cheque back to Richmond, but he cried off the QP with a cold so Mike rang in his place. I did some printing for Mike for the outing the next day and then took Suki for a walk. Went to Barnes with Mike and sat in the Melville Room cross stitching during the QP. Rang quite a bit (which aggravated my shoulder later causing another sleepless night!). Had cheesy chips in the pub.
Sat 29th. Very disturbed night. Made tea at 2 am and was awake until 4.30 when I finally got an hour and a half of sleep. Mike was out all day on the South and West district outing. Got up and got him out of the house by 7.45 and took Suki for a walk. Phoned John to discuss Butlins and Christmas.Then dusted and washed down the downstairs radiators (excluding living room and dining room) and washed down the kitchen window. Then painted the window and used up rest of paint in the tin on skirting boards. Then painted the three radiators. Also did some strips to match with cupboard colour in Devon. That took me to lunchtime. Had 2 humus wraps. Lorraine came over and she admired all the work Jayne and I had done. We had a lovely hour or so chatting. She went in the loft and got some jumpers from under the bed - I had to move all the music off the bed! She took the stuff I had for the convent sale which got it out of the house. Phoned Carolyn about Butlins and Christmas - and chatted for an hour. Took Suki for a walk to Southfields. Then put up the curtain pole and then the curtains. I was going to iron them but they had specific instructions not to iron them. Hopefully the creases will drop out! The hanging of the curtains finished the kitchen off - I was very pleased with the end result.
Then spent the rest of the evening sorting and cataloguing music. I did all the sheet music of madrigals. The faux leather box files had arrived in the afternoon and it all fitted into 3 of them. Mike got home at 8.30 and we had Lebanese lentil rice and aubergine. He had had a good day but failed to elect Steve Craddock - electing someone called Fred instead. I had written it down for him too. Just can't be bothered to give it his attention because it did not figure in his plans. He didn't say anything about all the work I had done or notice any of it or show an interest in it or in what I had done that day. When I pointed out how much better the hall radiator looked he simply mentioned the smell of paint. It's a good job I am deriving my own satisfaction from it all and am not reliant on praise or recognition from him. Watched a couple of episodes of The Fall and went to bed early - even taking account of clocks going back tonight.
Sunday 30th. With the extra hour in bed today getting up early was easy. Had a shower and took Suki for a walk to Wendell, sorted out Mike with dressings and cup of tea. He was playing the organ. I went to 8 am - we had the proper reading of the beatitudes with the word "blessed" not "happy" which was so much better - I mentioned how much nicer it was to Father Simon later, since I am the first to complain when there is something I don't like. Went to coffee with Monica and did the ringing circuit. Did church sitting in the afternoon - spent a happy couple of hours cross stitching before being sucked in to the choir rehearsal at 4.30 pm. There was a professional alto present so I was tempted to go home, especially as there were a couple of incidents which made me feel cold shouldered. The right number of chairs were put out - but the spare one was on the wrong side of the sopranos (2 of them). Instead of everyone shifting up so that there was a spare chair for me at the end with the altos (2 of them) they just sat there and made me move the chair - which left a big gap in the middle and me stuck out on the end. Then when we moved to the choir stalls, the other 4 filled the front pew leaving no gap for me. It was only when David asked them to move up that they made room for me, even though I had been wandering around at the end of the pew for some time. Still it was nice to stay to the service and hear the names read out and light a candle for my names. Got back home about 7.10 and had a quick humus wrap before the ringers came round for the first Christmas handbell rehearsal of the year. Sophie picked it up very quickly, and we had a good rehearsal getting through nearly all of the pieces. Sophie took the music with her to practice while on holiday in the Maldives for the next fortnight! Monica was most impressed with our new classy living room and dining room, and also admired the kitchen.
Monday 31st. Halloween! Dreading it. The next part of the project is to get the house back to rights, declutter some more, stock the food cupboards and fridge, and catch up with all the sadly neglected admin and paperwork, before I do any more decorating/painting. Did some more music cataloguing - all the choral stuff. Rather annoyingly most of it was just slightly too big to stand up in the bookshelves which is where I had intended to put it. Spread it out on the table while I thought about how to proceed. Went to Tesco and got some bags of mini mars bars ready for the Trick or Treaters. Had a nice chat with Rachel's mum while I was there. We were supposed to be going for tea with the next door neighbours at 4 (arranged by Mike) but when Mike checked with them they were both working until 6 so it was called off. We have yet to find a time when we can rearrange. Mike went off to Chiswick - just before the first lot of T&Ts which turned out to be Naomi from next door and her friends. They were very sweet and there seemed to be about 10 of them. No others came before I went to Chiswick - which left me with rather a lot of mini mars bars to eat up! There were hoards of marauding children on the street though - seems like this year they are keeping to the practice of only knocking at houses with pumpkins out. I rang quite a lot at the practice but went straight home afterwards and went straight to bed with a hot drink and a whisky. I am currently working through a small bottle of single malt - Cragganmore - which is really lovely. I thought I couldn't detect the difference between single malt and blended until I had that one.
Thurs 27th. Got up early and had breakfasted and walked Suki for an hour by 9.45. Drove out to Staples looking for decorated filing boxes but they didn't have anything so I ordered some faux leather ones from Amazon. Then went to B&Q and got a tester pot of paint made up in the same code as the cupboard doors. When I gave the girl the code she put it in to the computer and then announced that it was definitely Dulux- because it was not in their own make database. She then produced a huge mass of Dulux colour cards and suggested I look through them even though the codes were clearly not in the same format. We reached an impasse - in the old days that would have been that and I would have had to take her word for it that she couldn't do it. However I got my phone out and put the code in to Google and found the Dulux equivalent. Then she pored over the colour cards again without success so I took them from her and found it almost immediately in the index and then she was able to make up the paint!! I got some more white eggshell while I was there. Then it was off to Dunelm to change the bird curtains for a shorter drop. I was quite confident about doing this but once I got in the shop it became quite intimidating - whereas with Jayne it would have been fun. I had to queue for ages to get a refund. Then found everything had been moved around and I couldn't find the curtains. I eventually asked - and they didn't have the 72 inch drop in stock. So I picked up a pair of the heather ones to try out. I got a couple of duvet covers and pillowcase pairs for Mike - or so I thought but when I got them home one pack of pillowcases turned out to be a single frilled pillowcase. I had opened the pack before noticing so I used it at the bottom of the bed where it was less noticeable!! I got back at lunchtime and had a couple of slices of toasted fruit loaf then spent an hour sorting out and cataloguing the handbell music we had got when we bought the handbells and merging it with our own. Only taken 20 odd years to do that!! Had a great Skype call with Jayne for an hour. Then took Suki up to the Chiswick High Road and went to three different banks to deposit cheques - Barclays for numbers club, HSBC for Cantanti and Halifax for Jayne. It was actually fun using the machine to deposit - so much better than queuing! Walked Suki home and grabbed a cheese sandwich before heading out to Bermondsey to ring handbells. We rang a nice peal of Plain Bob Major with Peter Richards - his first peal at first attempt. He was unnervingly good and only made a couple of tiny slips towards the end. Mike got back from Bremen about midnight.
Fri 28th. Mike mentioned that he needed more room to get in to the living room so I rearranged the side tables so that the sofa could be pushed further from the door. However the state and size of the tables then on show was so awful I decided we needed a new set. I took Suki to Acton Park for a walk and went home via the furniture shop at the top of the road just on the off chance they might have something and there outside the shop was the perfect nest of 3 in the sale. I took Suki home and went straight back to the shop and purchased them. They look great and are made of solid wood.
I just had time to dust them and put them in place before going up to Covent Garden to Bill's to meet up with Wendy for lunch. It was great to see her again and I am sure we could have carried on talking long after the two hours we took over lunch. The meal was a bit of a debacle - the waitress got the order wrong several times,and the bill at the end, and they had changed the menu last week from having a wide range of gluten free dishes to very little. But we had a thoroughly enjoyable meal otherwise and the food was delicious. Wendy went on to Somerset House afterwards and took some photos of the place now - we can hardly recognise it.
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| Wendy and Me at Bill's |
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| Somerset House |
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| This used to be our office 25 years ago |
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| Under Secretary's Room - now Art! |
Sat 29th. Very disturbed night. Made tea at 2 am and was awake until 4.30 when I finally got an hour and a half of sleep. Mike was out all day on the South and West district outing. Got up and got him out of the house by 7.45 and took Suki for a walk. Phoned John to discuss Butlins and Christmas.Then dusted and washed down the downstairs radiators (excluding living room and dining room) and washed down the kitchen window. Then painted the window and used up rest of paint in the tin on skirting boards. Then painted the three radiators. Also did some strips to match with cupboard colour in Devon. That took me to lunchtime. Had 2 humus wraps. Lorraine came over and she admired all the work Jayne and I had done. We had a lovely hour or so chatting. She went in the loft and got some jumpers from under the bed - I had to move all the music off the bed! She took the stuff I had for the convent sale which got it out of the house. Phoned Carolyn about Butlins and Christmas - and chatted for an hour. Took Suki for a walk to Southfields. Then put up the curtain pole and then the curtains. I was going to iron them but they had specific instructions not to iron them. Hopefully the creases will drop out! The hanging of the curtains finished the kitchen off - I was very pleased with the end result.
Then spent the rest of the evening sorting and cataloguing music. I did all the sheet music of madrigals. The faux leather box files had arrived in the afternoon and it all fitted into 3 of them. Mike got home at 8.30 and we had Lebanese lentil rice and aubergine. He had had a good day but failed to elect Steve Craddock - electing someone called Fred instead. I had written it down for him too. Just can't be bothered to give it his attention because it did not figure in his plans. He didn't say anything about all the work I had done or notice any of it or show an interest in it or in what I had done that day. When I pointed out how much better the hall radiator looked he simply mentioned the smell of paint. It's a good job I am deriving my own satisfaction from it all and am not reliant on praise or recognition from him. Watched a couple of episodes of The Fall and went to bed early - even taking account of clocks going back tonight.
Monday 31st. Halloween! Dreading it. The next part of the project is to get the house back to rights, declutter some more, stock the food cupboards and fridge, and catch up with all the sadly neglected admin and paperwork, before I do any more decorating/painting. Did some more music cataloguing - all the choral stuff. Rather annoyingly most of it was just slightly too big to stand up in the bookshelves which is where I had intended to put it. Spread it out on the table while I thought about how to proceed. Went to Tesco and got some bags of mini mars bars ready for the Trick or Treaters. Had a nice chat with Rachel's mum while I was there. We were supposed to be going for tea with the next door neighbours at 4 (arranged by Mike) but when Mike checked with them they were both working until 6 so it was called off. We have yet to find a time when we can rearrange. Mike went off to Chiswick - just before the first lot of T&Ts which turned out to be Naomi from next door and her friends. They were very sweet and there seemed to be about 10 of them. No others came before I went to Chiswick - which left me with rather a lot of mini mars bars to eat up! There were hoards of marauding children on the street though - seems like this year they are keeping to the practice of only knocking at houses with pumpkins out. I rang quite a lot at the practice but went straight home afterwards and went straight to bed with a hot drink and a whisky. I am currently working through a small bottle of single malt - Cragganmore - which is really lovely. I thought I couldn't detect the difference between single malt and blended until I had that one.
