Birthdays, Barges & Good Friends

It’s been a funny old week, in spite of all the packing and moving, it’s been one of my better weeks. I have been busy with little time to blog and also there has been something seriously with our internet connection. BT have checked the router speed and the strength is excellent and I’ve run several serious virus checks but still cant find the route of the problem. Don’t suppose it matters much because it’s all being turned off a week on Monday.

Where did the week go and what have I done all week I wonder? It’s sad that to answer this I have to consult my ‘to do’ lists in my filo-fax; even sadder is the fact that it’s only going to get worse not better! I spent most of Monday compiling an inventory in readiness for the new tenant. It took me hours and it’s still not finished. I’ve sent it to Phil twice for checking and this morning we are printing it off and doing a walk around the house to double check. When you let a house fully furnished the inventory is very important because in the event of any damage, it has to stand up in court. We intend to take video evidence just to be on the safe side because you just never ever know.

On Monday teatime I popped round to Vanessa’s for a cup of tea and a glass of wine and a very much needed catch-up. Phil had gone to pick Georgina up from school and take her for some supper but unfortunately when he got to Northampton School for girls, his battery failed again and he couldn’t start the car. He was phoning me frantically on my mobile because he didn’t have the ‘Rescue My Car’ details but unfortunately my yellow bag was sat on Vanessa’s kitchen worktop so I didn’t pick up. I learnt later when I got home that Georgina and her friend Jennifer and Jennifer’s mum had to push Phil in the LandRover in the school car-park until he managed to get it going. Certainly not cool for a posh school and I’m sure it didn’t help G&J’s street cred. Needless to say that Phil wasn’t a happy chappy when I got home, and of course, it was all my fault!

According to my diary on Tuesday morning, I cooked a Thai curry, cleaned the kitchen cupboards, phoned Betty in Cranfield, cancelled the broadband and landline, phoned the locksmiths, picked up a change of address forms from the post office together with milk and teabags and went to meet Jan at the OU at lunchtime for a walk. When I worked at the OU we tried to walk around the campus at least 3 days a week and I really enjoyed it. Me and Jan put the world to rights and made a pledge to try and meet for a walk and a chat at least once a week. After our walk I met Funmi in the café for a coffee. She has sold her house and is waiting on the survey; it sounds a real nightmare which has dominated and spoilt pretty much all of her summer.

Wednesday daytime was nothing much to write home about but in the evening Phil and Harriet went out for dinner at The Barge with Jim, Shirley and Dan to celebrate Jimmy’s birthday. Happy Birthday Jimmy! Jim is the same age as Phil bar a month younger so they are both Virgos which perhaps explains why they get on so well.

I went to see Christine for some wine and nibbles at her house in Great Holm for a much needed girlie catch-up. Christine’s husband John was recently diagnosed with cancer and she has been, and is still going through, some really tough times. John had been suffering for a few months and was fobbed off countless times by his GP before going to A&E in MK in desperation for a diagnosis. He had tests which diagnosed stomach cancer and then a CAT scan which showed cancer of the adrenal gland and was told that it was inoperable and there was nothing they could do for him. Thankfully Christine’s daughter Amber spent all night researching on the internet and emailed 4 specialist adrenal consultants who all responded to her. It’s a long story but Christine met with one of the consultants at Kings Cross Hospital in London and he has turned out to be brilliant. He operated on John a week last Wednesday and the operation, I am pleased to say, was a success and he is, as I type, recovering slowly and is now out of intensive care.

It wasn’t all plain sailing though; when the consultant opened him up he found that John had a burst appendix which he would have died from if the surgeon hadn’t have been opening him up the very next day. The morphine had been masking the pain. Maybe there is a god after all? John has a way to go because he’s had really major surgery but I know he is going to make it. My point of sharing John’s story is this; always get a second opinion especially if you’re at Milton Keynes General and live each day like it’s your last because you just don’t know what shit is waiting for you around the corner.

I picked up Phil and Harriet from The Barge just in time to see Shirley and wish Jim, a happy birthday. Apparently Dan’s friends had arrived back in the UK after a 4 month trip touring Greece in a campervan and had turned up at The Barge to see Dan. They’d left with Dan to go the The Giffard before I arrived and Phil and Harriet wanted me to drive them to The Giffard so we could have a drink with them. I was tired but I agreed to go ‘for one’ because Harriet doesn’t get out much and it’s nice to see her enjoying herself. Dan’s other housemates turned up and we eventually left just before 11pm leaving the young ones to get on with it. Harriet went straight to bed when we got in but Phil and me stayed up talking into the early hours which wasn’t good because we had an appointment the following morning at 9am at the Lion Hearts Cruising Club.

Phil comes out with such crap that sometimes I just have to let it go in one ear and out the over and the Lion Hearts saga just went over my head. Phil has often said that he would like to live on a barge on the canal and I suppose on sunny days when I’ve been sat outside a pub with a glass of wine in my hand, I just may have agreed with him. Anyway, over the last few months, Phil has been pursuing the Lion Hearts CC and submitted an application for us to get a mooring. Our ‘informal’ interview yesterday with Dave the Club’s Commodore and Mike, the Harbourmaster was as a result of Phil’s application.

Phil was tired and hung-over and we really didn’t have a chance to prepare for ‘our interview’ so you can imagine we were like fish out of water. As I sat in the cold clubhouse shivering listening to cruising club bylaws, I thought what the f**k am I doing here???? We stumbled with a few of the questions and I had to ask myself whether I really wanted to commit to AGMS, cleaning clubhouse rotas and other fellow Lion Hearts members but Phil seems keen to go ahead, so I guess that I’m going to be a Lion Heart after all; that is of course, if we’ve passed the interview! Watch this space!!