Where does it all go?

Time, that is.

I am so busy at present that I am having difficulty keeping up with normal everyday stuff, let alone the bigger picture issues. The van needed the brakes sorted and, at the same time, the tax was due. So I booked in the van and then couldn't find the renewal form.......or the logbook. Oh joy, van is fixed but will be unusable for as much as ten days whilst various documents are sorted out. The brakes, however, are now working fine again and they cost less than the estimate too. I must say, Mercare are very good with price, service and timing.
The wall is coming along but I will need at least another two bags of ready mix to finish it off properly. The problem is that the part of the wall I have to do first is also in the worst condition. Once I have finished it, I should be able to get on much faster with the rest of the wall. But also, of course, once this part is finished, the bunny gets his new home and we all get to spend some time with him. There will be pictures.

This time, things did get better............

It's been a while 'cos I've been busy but.............I'm back. The annoying Zemanta panel on the left has gone back to the right side and my formatting is back so that's good. I have updated all the software etc on Dees laptop and all is well there, apart from the fact that it is running Vista because the drivers don't work with anything else. Fluff, cat, was very in need of loving this morning, every time I walked past her,she slapped me with her paw. As usual, Titch was still up on Sallys bed. The heavens opened this morning just as we arrived at the uni, I dropped Hazel off outside her office and drove to my parking spot and I had to increase the speed of the wipers to maximum in order to see where I was going. Then, as I parked, most of the downpour stopped and within only a few minutes, we had a clear blue sky. The wind is still high but all the water has gone and it's quite warm now.

I have been playing with the beta image of Win7 for staff this morning. It's very good apart from the convoluted security measures that are in place as a result of uni requirements and the new extra security that Microsoft have put in place on Win7. It took me twenty minutes to work out how to make myself an administrator and then install some pretty basic software. It works fine now and the software is very useful but, if I had known how many hoops I would need to leap through, I would have installed it on my XP PC. The Win7 beta is the hybrid image so it's pretty small and runs very well.

Things can only get better...........Part two.

Things are now getting better, in some areas at least. The wall is beginning to look clean and workable and Ian helped me collect the first three bags of ready mix on Sunday. I have rebuilt the tap assembly and it no longer dribbles and I have bought a cheap shovel and used it to clear up the rubble and stuff left by the cleaning so far.

 I am currently getting annoyed with Zemanta/Blogspot as I have lost my formatting tools due to a re-placement of the Zemanta window within the editing area. You will notice that this post is not justified, this is due to the formatting bar appearing and then immediately being replaced by the Zemanta tools taking up residence on the left rather than the right side of the screen. That ir'tates me (deliberately spelt wrongly).

Flooded!

Well it was bound to happen, we had torrential rain for over an hour and  my rainwater drain got blocked with all the gunge from the various roofs and from the wall I am cleaning. I should have done it manually yesterday evening but we were late home, had a visitor and I eventually gave up and had a night off. This was not a good idea as this morning I couldn't even get to the drain to attempt to clear it for over an hour. The most annoying thing of all is that when I did get to it, it cleared within 30 seconds..Doh!

Bloods this morning followed by my bi-annual visit to the eye infirmary to have my glaucoma checked out. Major queues and long waits for all but I actually saw the senior man this time and he has given me a thorough seeing to................. I am to try a new type of eye drops that might improve the stability of my glaucoma and make it less of a bumpy ride than it is at present. Also, I have to organise another visit in six months time, yippee!

Water, water, everywhere.....................

I had fun yesterday evening. I began the big clean up of the yard and wall. The wall has to be completely cleaned as I will be putting a render coat on it as soon as possible in order to strengthen it and further protect it.   The first third had it's first power wash and much better it looks now. I then sprayed the remaining vegetation with a bleach mix so that I should be able to take out the rest tonight. I am gradually moving along the wall and should soon be able to start the render. I am also going to run a small gutter along the bottom of the wall in order to catch as much rain as possible from the run off and channel it to the drain.I fixed the final drain as well yesterday so that as little rain water as possible hits the ground and it all goes straight to the drain. This water problem has been a constant pain in my butt, pun intended, since the roof was put on, and I am hopeful this will cure the final few areas that remain.

The bunny remains at large up in Sallys front room. I go up and feed him etc but I never see him, he is apparent only by little scuffling noises every so often.

Back from the dead.......again!

I am really getting fed up with being ill and having to take time off work. First of all, I enjoy my job and like to be busy at it. Secondly, and more importantly, I am obviously losing ground with my health issues.

In the past twelve months, I have had 17 days sick leave. It's bad enough to flag me up on the uni system as a persistent unwell person. This is not good, but, it also flags me up on my own personal system as having been sick for 17 days when I was not functioning properly. This is worrying. I seem to be getting bad colds on a regular basis and, with my medication problems, I am unable to relieve the symptoms.

I spent my latest enforced absence sleeping a lot, it seems to be the only thing that helps, and planning the work on the covered yard area. By Sunday, I was well enough to nip out to Wickes and pick up a couple of plumbing joints and then fit an enclosed outlet from the sink and dishwasher instead of the old, constantly overflowing, surface one. My final effort before collapsing into an armchair was to dig out the power washer in readiness for an attack on the old wall.

At that point, after a nap, I watched some excellent TV. The Sunday Prom on BBC4 featured Percy Graingers music and finished with a clog dance and immediately after was the documentary about the Flash Mob clog dancers in Newcastle which I missed the first time around. Then, over to BBC HD for a re-run of Glorious 39 a very dark conspiracy story set amongst an aristocratic family just before the second world war. And so to bed.

Busy, busy, busy!

One helluva weekend again, Hazel and I spent at least five hours of it preparing to go to the hospital, going to the hospital, Hazels bloods being taken and coming home from the hospital. Spread over the two days. All very tiring, especially in the humid weather. Missed Russ on Saturday but did fit a ginormous 2 Tbt drive to the Sagem Freesat DVR in the lounge. As this replaced a 250 Gbt drive, you will understand the massive improvement. The old drive is now under examination to see whether it's possible to extract the movies on it and convert them to a normal system. No luck so far, and some confusion as well as what appears to be the video files don't fill enough of the drive to qualify as 86% full. I have spent some time with .trp converters and players and no joy so far. But, I have all the time in the world so I will plod on.

24 hours of fun............................NOT!

Some days, it doesn't even pay to go to bed. Yesterday, whilst on my way to bed, I chanced to go to the French doors in Hazels bedroom to pick up something. Whilst doing that thing, I received a few drops of water down the back of my neck. Upon inspection, I was able to see that a fair amount of liquid had already flowed and didn't look likely to stop any time soon. So I ran up the stairs to the room above to see where all this precipitation was coming from. The room above is currently used by our daughter, Sally, and the window sill was running with water which was dribbling down from the edge of the ceiling. I dropped a bath towel onto the sill and grabbed a bucket from my bedroom to catch any further drips. Then I went to bed after checking to see whether my own personal bedroom leak had flared up, it hadn't so off to bed. I awoke at 05.00 to the sound of dripping. My own little waterfall had begun. Plymouth had a lot of rain overnight and quite a fair proportion of it ended up in my house.

This morning, after dropping Hazel and Sally to the hospital, I called our roofers. They were pretty upset themselves and went straight to the house. No one can be absolutely certain, but it certainly seems that a wandering seagull happened upon our roof and saw a piece of flashing that had been placed there as a temporary measure in order to shield us against the incursion we sustained last night.Said gull appears to have moved the flashing to a new position and instead of water running off the roof and into the gutter, it was, for one night only, channelling the stuff into the roof. The really sickening thing is that today was the day our roofers were due to come and finish off the various jobs that were left.
Of course, the rain this morning was so heavy that they wouldn't have been able to do them anyway but, as I always say, "If there was no such thing as coincidences, we wouldn't need a word for them"!

Flying time

Had some things to do and did them between then and now!

Went to a funeral and, against all the odds, rather enjoyed myself. Well, at the wake I did anyway.

Then on a short holiday to the West Midlands. An area I used to be very familiar with at one time but lost touch over the years and had some fun re-discovering. We spent a couple of days at the West Midlands Safari Park and had a great time with the animals. I also spent a day on the Severn Valley Railway with Paul, my brother-in-law, and we had a pretty good time there as well. The site we all stayed at was great apart from the unfortunate problem of phone access. None of us could get a signal unless we left the farm area and that meant a two mile hike. As an added bonus, Hazel began to have a lot of problems with her leg and ended the holiday in considerable pain. I had to play the heavy handed husband in order to persuade her to see the Dr on Monday morning and by midday on Tuesday, she was heading for the Hospital with a letter in her hand. The upshot was that she has a clot in her lower leg and is now on DVT injections and warfarin tablets. She is, however, beginning to feel a bit better so "Fingers crossed"