Author: alex

Typical, isn’t it: you get a new toy and play with it for a couple of weeks but then you start to lose interest. Then again, it has been a little hectic. We did force a break, though — took a long weekend on the Isle of Wight which was fantastic: peaceful, pretty, lots of coast; very much not London and our blighted flat. You can see more pics by clicking those below.

That was only a week ago but seems an eon already. Isa caught a fevery cold which flared up the night she got back, and she spent three days in bed feeling really rotten. She wasn’t on top form, anyway — she finds walking and other movements painful and she can’t sleep well because of restless leg syndrome, and she get a lot of swelling in her feet. Add to that her distress at the time it’s taking to get the flat sorted and our little holiday soon faded!

It’ll return, though, when things settle; and so may we, with Lola — we really did like the place, and it’s very quickly reached from London.

Thank you, and good night.

And another that we’ll be spending in our very own DIY resort, the sitting room. Mike’s now put the finishing touches on the decoration, sensibly insisting that the ceiling be done, too. He’s taken away the manky, disused fire-alarm sensor and patched a good of gap twixt wall and ceiling; then painted the top of the end door/window frame which was exposed when we removed the pelmet, exactly matching the paint colour by adding black and yellow ochre to his white.

So, this weekend we can clear it up, bring the furniture back in, finish the wiring and maybe get the A/V stuff hooked up, and set the hearth board properly so Isa can lay her fantastic tiles. It’ll be a great relief for Isa to get the sitting room back; at least there’ll be a lovely new room for a haven as the rest of the work goes on. Mike’s coming back (thanks, Mike) next week to continue with that–should get the hall cupboard done.

Must get over to see Grandma, whom Mike is having to abandon to come over here. Strong word, abandon, but she’s had a terrible time with many hospitalisations for broken bones, knee-replacement, hip-replacement… She has great strength and bounces back with vigour–but she keeps getting knocked back. She’s become dependant on Mike to cook and care, and is only just now in a position where she can stand up and do something at the same time. I feel partisan in the abandonment, I guess. Maybe we could get over this weekend.

Next weekend, we plan to go away, take a long weekend… somewhere. If only I could decide where.

Monday afternoon:

Isa was working today; I started on the hall — lifting the carpet and starting to pull nails — then we went up to Kat’s place for a cuppa and to show her how to play Carey.

Later, we added some furniture to the living room:

Good Friday

First thing (well, OK — it’s midday): move everything over to one side of the room.

Then a spot of sanding, washing, hoovering…

Quick base coat of emulsion on the walls before priming the floor. It’s now five-thirty.

It’s eight thirty by the time I start the primer

Saturday

It’s half three — time for the first coat of top coat.

Ten past five, and all (half (of half)) done. We go out for a while, leaving the doors open for ventilation…

During which time, we had a visitor. :-/

Easter Sunday

It’s 11:59 — time to go to work.
Starting with the wall…
Walls done; now it’s 5.20. Well, we did go out for lunch as well.
And by 7.30, the primer’s done, too.

Gah. Posts dwindling already.

Well, we are a bit busy: the weekend was all about getting the rest of the carpet up in the living room and then hoovering, de-nailing, wire-brushing, filling, and washing the floor. And that’s just the initial filling; still need to go round with a caulking gun and do a bit of sanding before it sees primer. Priming is projected for the coming weekend, as well as getting a first coat of emulsion on the walls.

In the interim, we are left with an uninhabitable living room and a lightly oppressive chaos everywhere.

 
We did some social stuff too, though. It was big Jon’s birthday, and we went down to the Queens on Sunday to meet him and a dozen or so friends for lunch. They’ll cook you a sirloin roast, just bringing you the joint to carve; it was pretty good.

And we met Elly for lunch down at the World Cafe on Saturday. Without Abbey, who was at home with Rob.

Amaryllis, amaryllis.. AM-AR-YLLIS!

Sorry — makes me think of that Amadeus song by Falco. Any road up, we were given one by our friend Daphne before Christmas and, after a long sleep, it’s poked up its alien shoot and gone all fecund and, well, flowery.

It took quite well to being shot on macro with night flash and a bit of exposure fiddling. I forget the details; it was late.

Anyway, not much more to say about that. I just wanted to ramble on for another line or two in order to generate some more text for the images to wrap around.

I think there was possibly something in latin I wanted to say… Lorem ipsum, er…That’s it.

Isa went to see the midwife today to get her due shot of anti-D (she’s rhesus negative, these shots protect against the risk (certainty?) of poisoning our next child with her blood).

Anyway, she walks in and the midwife says, “Oh–I rang the hospital yesterday and they said you’d had the shot already, on February the 28th”. Which, of course, she hadn’t. In fact, she was in Italy that day. So now, apart from having to deal with more evidence of administrative ineptitude, she has to go to the Whittington on Friday to get her shot.

Wonderful, innit?

We need to get a move on with these house improvements we have planned. If Isa is four weeks premature (which we’d rather she weren’t), then we only have about seven weeks — and it looks like it will be two weeks before Mike can start the work.

There’s the kitchen sink to replace, and the basin in the bathroom; then the old stove to rip out of the kitchen fireplace/alcove; then the dead space in the hall to unwall and turn into a cupboard. Plus, of course, the living room floor to finish and walls to decorate…

Easy-peasy. 😐

Well, it’s another incentive to wish Grandma a speedy recovery. Though, oddly, one that inspires a certain amount of guilt. What a silly species we are. Or is it just me?

So how are we going to save the world¹?

When I was younger, I was going to do it by becoming a famous singer and waking people up with my songs; now I’m doing it by not running the tap while I brush my teeth.

I think my original plan was more realistic. As my uncle says, it doesn’t make much difference how much energy-saving and recycling a bunch of middle-class first-worlders do when you bring China and the rest of the developing world into consideration. But then, he’s a terrible cynic² — if no one makes the effort things certainly won’t improve.

Some might say we’re not worth saving, but I can’t agree. We do some beautiful stuff, and have the capacity for getting an awful lot out of what’s plonked around us. (I always was a bit of a tree-starer.)

[1] — Of course, calling the human race “the world” is a typical arrogance indicative of the mess we create. It’s not likely we’d succeed in completely wiping out life on the planet; I think even taking it down to the single-celled creature level might be more than we can manage. Which is some comfort.

[2] — Actually, he’s a very good cynic.

Ah, Sunday: a day of rest and…

Bzzzzt! Wrong! Today we initiated project rip-up-half-the-carpet-and-crawl-around-on-your-knees-pulling nails (a sub-project of the higher-level make-the-living-room-nice project).

We’d imagined all kinds of possible nightmare under the carpet but, actually, it looks pretty good. Some of those gaps are pretty big, though.

As a break in the middle of carpet hell, we went down to the Hornsey Vale community centre (where Isa does her Stitch ‘N Bitch). They were holding a (poorly attended) “Wisdom and Wellbeing” event. Cuppa tea and home made raw berry flan; cranial masage; Help the Aged. The best bit was a demo of Tai Chi by an impressive young guy who runs a Tuesday class there. I think we’re going to go; I never realised that it has so such a strong self-defence aspect.

Anyway: home; made ragu; pulled more nails and Hoovered while Isa decorated some tiles for the fireplace; ate; wrote this. And goodnight.