Life of Riley

Phil keeps telling me I have the life of riley but it sure doesn’t feel that way to me. Life certainly hasn’t been a bed of roses the last few weeks. I’m sorry if I sound like a moaning Minnie but I haven’t been feeling well these last few days. I can cope with the constant cough and snotty nose but the fatigue and trying to think with a brain that feels like it’s full of cotton wool is getting me down. Thursday was an easy day as predicted. In the morning I finally got round to taking my camera into a little unit in Stony Stratford for repair. The man took one look at my Dimage XI and said really it was beyond repair. He offered me an upgrade of the same make for just 30 quid which I thought was a real bargain. I managed to blag a free camera case. So now I take some half decent photos.

I was tempted to spend the afternoon in bed under the duvet but it was such a lovely day that I decided to cut the lawn instead. I was loading the car with stuff and ended up talking to Sandy for over an hour. I find her easy to talk to and her me because she ended up telling me all her problems. It’s not right to share these with the entire world and a girl has got to have some secrets after all. All I will say is that you never know what goes on between closed doors. I hope things improve for her, she deserves to be happy.

I went to bed early but didn’t sleep well and was downstairs in the kitchen drinking tea and brandy in the early hours of Friday. I thought it may help my cold but just made me worse when the dawn broke. I felt dog rough which was a shame because we had an early start to drive down to Slough to see Rashmi, our accountant. Traffic wasn’t too bad and we arrived just before 10. It’s always nice to see Rashmi; he puts us back on the straight and narrow. I don’t think he was impressed with me coughing and splattering sneezes all over his desk! Fortunately this visit didn’t bring up any shocks or surprises except that we have to pay more tax than we thought on the Downs Barn house. The tax man givith and then he taketh away again.

We decided to avoid the motorway and go back on the A roads and stop for a nice pub lunch on the company. Just off the main road we found a dinky looking pub cum hotel called The Burnt Oak. The food was quite good but we had a long wait for the starter so the waitress gave us free drinks, which I thought was a nice gesture. I had asparagus soup to start followed by lamp chops which were tasty. Phil had goat’s cheese tart followed by calf’s liver which he said was okay but a bit too pink for his liking. It was raining when we left and it took us ages to get to somewhere we recognised. My fault, I had the map and I have no absolutely no sense of direction. About 40 minutes from home, Phil’s gear box started to play up and not long after Aylesbury we were driving with only 3rd and 4th gears. All in all, not a great journey and we were both in grumpy mode.

After a cup of coffee and a wee, Phil decided it was a good idea to go to B&Q to pick a kitchen for the TMA flat. We saw the kitchen planner and picked a kitchen and had a printout within 20 minutes. Not bad going but unfortunately the B&Q software is not able to cope with customers like us and after picking all the bits and putting them on the trolley, Richard our helper said he would have to manually key in all our bits before we could pay and take our units away. By this time it was ten to 6 and I told Richard to keep the trolleys in a safe place and I’d come back for my goods tomorrow.

I dropped Phil at the TMA flat around 7am on Saturday to start tiling the shower and then went about my jobs and was back in B&Q promptly at 9am to see Richard. He was dutifully working on my order when I pounced on him and paperwork complete, together we took the trolleys to the till to pay. After I paid, one of Richard’s colleagues doubled checked the order and it turned out we had a couple of bits missing and a couple of bits we didn’t need. I had to wait with my trolleys and after a while Richard came back and said we have to go to the Returns counter. Now I am not the most patient person in the world and I was getting slightly agitated by this stage but I tried hard not to show it. At the Returns counter the girl had to void my whole order and refund my credit card. Then it had to go all through the till again. Richard loaded my car and it was choc-o-bloc. I had to drive with the plinths hanging out the passenger window. They moved when I went the roundabouts but I managed to get to the TMA flat without loosing anything. Of course, then me and Phil and to lug it all up to the top floor.


We drove to The Giffard for steak and chips and then it was back to the flat. Phil carried on with the tiling and I sanded the skirting boards before painting them. Afterwards I got up the underlay and dumped it at the tip. As the last job of the day we decided to go back to B&Q and pick up some 3 metre length worktops. We loaded them on a trolley and took them to the back of the store to get them cut. The boy on the checkout was a bit dim to say the least and when we got out we realised we’d only been charged for 1 worktop instead of 2. A saving of 65 quid! Getting the cut worktops in my car was another matter. It took some shuffling and swearing and me squeezed in the passenger well but we got them in eventually and the door shut. Of course then we had to go back to the flat and climb all up the stairs again. Joy, joy and more joy.

This morning Phil went back to the TMA flat to tile the back wall in the bathroom but I just wasn’t feeling up to it. I had taken some NightNurse before bed as this always knocks me out. I haven’t taken this for a long time and I had forgotten that it also knocks me out the following day. Phil got himself showered and then went to pick up Georgina. They decided to go and see ‘The Son of Rambo’. With my head full of cotton wool, I wasn’t up to much and spent most of today pottering. Bit of a waste of a day really but sometimes it can’t be helped. Hopefully the fog will lift soon and I will start to feel better.