Life, Death & Shingle

Michael from Harpers Landscaping came along on Monday morning accompanied by his girlfriend’s 14 year old brother who was helping him in his summer holidays. A lorry arrived shortly after with 4 massive bags of stones. Some 5 hours later, Michael and his helper had laid down the membrane in the front and back and between the pair of them they had shoveled all the stones over the black plastic. Me and Phil watched how they did it, it was straight forward bar the manual labour and when we get our next house project we shall do it ourselves.

Shingle is not to everyone’s taste but this has been a ‘quick fix’ to tidy things up and has done the job nicely. We have left a considerable area of grass to the left of the patio so any perspective buyer can do what they wish with this bit. I was loading my car outside Pip’s house and he came out for a chat. He said that he could see we were having stones laid (nosey or what) but he also made a comment that he thought that we ought to get the conifers lopped as they were close to John’s house. John is the neighbour that keeps putting nasty notes on our cars so I’m not inclined to get the trees snipped but the conifers are a bit over-powering so I may give in and get out Will Tricks, the tree surgeon. This is a well kept, tidy little cul-de-sac but the neighbours' are seriously weird!

Phil chose to go to the Thai Modern restaurant in the city centre for his birthday meal. Unfortunately I didn’t have the hindsight to book a table in advance and when we got there we’d already sat down and ordered a drink before being told that the usual ‘eat-all-you-can’ buffet was not on the menu. This was a shame because if we’d have known we would have gone for the 2 course lunch restaurant near Westcroft. Never mind we still enjoyed a very tasty Thai green curry and very nice it was too.

Although it was his birthday, Phil wasn’t much in the mood for a party so we lounged on the sofas and caught up with some episodes of ‘Homes under the Hammer’. Late afternoon I remembered I had brought a tub of cement to lay in the gaps on the patio so I shoveled this in the holes and swept off the surplus. Harriet popped round after work to drop off a card and a present for Phil and Steve Pem also dropped by with a card. We hadn’t seen him or Mads for ages so it was an opportunity to catch up with ‘Pemberton’ news.

Yesterday morning saw me up at 5.00 am and Phil came downstairs just after 6am. He is meant to be finishing off his TMA but instead he spent ages on the internet planning an around the world trip. Phil is getting very excited but I am slightly apprehensive as we have many things to consider before we can just fly away. I also worry about the money aspect; with no income aside from the rental and a hefty lump going out for school fees, we are spending our savings like water. I worry that we won't have much left for when we fully retire but then I reason that with the amount that we drink, its very unlikely we'll live to an old age so we may as well spend it now, you can't take it with you after all.

I have learnt with Phil, that rather than object to his latest plan, its better to listen without objection and generally the idea goes away nearly as soon as it came. If I start arguing in the very first instance, this makes him more determined! I’m not sure if my strategy has worked with his latest plan, and god only knows what country or continent I shall find myself in this winter!

We had a good clean and tidy up ready for the agent to come and carry out a valuation on Jim and Shirley’s house. We’d already discussed what we thought to be a fair price and turns out that the agent agreed. We are trying out Carters because we have used these before in the past and they have been the most helpful in Phil’s latest property hunts. The guy that came round said he recognized our style from the kebab flat which he came out to value. I’m not sure this is such a good thing because our rental agent said the same thing about the OB flat when he came out to value. I emailed the girl we use to carry out the HIP report and it’s a good thing I did because she is £65 cheaper than the agent’s valuation. Just shows you’ve got to shop around. Anyway the agent came back out after lunch to take the photographs and the ball now is well and truly rolling. Rock and roll! Fingers crossed for a good offer with no chain.

Yesterday afternoon I went for my appointment with Gabrielle, the chiropractor that I used a few years ago. Phil said I was cheeky because on the phone I asked to be let off the consultation fee of 50 quid and just pay for the treatment of £35.00. The receptionist said she would check and phoned back to yes that was fine. Okay I may have played the poverty line a bit, but hey, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! My luck was in and she able to see me almost straight away. Gabrielle examined me and said that I had tightness in the lumbar area; apparently this area is connected to the adrenal gland and is an indication of stress! I told Phil I was stressed but he didn’t believe me. Living with Phil is one big stress!! Anyway she did a number of maneuvers and I did feel much looser when I got off the couch. I am going back on Friday and I’m hoping that a handful of sessions will cure me completely.

This morning we’re off to the gym, this will be the first time in months that Phil has been so I can imagine it’s going to be painful for him. Later Phil needs to go food shopping and also he needs to cook a chicken casserole with rice for our lunch. We are also having the HIP inspection today, so there is much to do on this very miserable wet Wednesday.