The House Husband

We had a builder come over today to get another quote for possible work on the house. His name is Mark and he’s just finishing a job for someone Mirinda used to work for. She recommended him. And he seems a very nice chap.

He wandered around, was suitable astonished at the shoddy work from previous builders, admired the garden and played My Chair, Your Chair, with Carmen. This is a game she loves. While Day-z has her celebration toy, Carmen has this game.

The object of the game is to remain on a dining room chair for longer than your opponent. The rules are simple – when your opponent gets up for whatever reason, the other player must seize the opportunity to claim the chair. This means sitting on it. Carmen is of an Olympic standard in this competition. Mark didn’t stand a chance.

While we talked, the weather changed from sun to rain, to wind and back again. It really turned out to be a useless day. One moment we were tempted out of the house only to be chased back inside the next. Ghastly weather. Particularly during a drought.

We did manage to get out as far as the garden centre in the afternoon where we (read Mirinda) bought enough plants to keep me busy next week. This is how the patio table looked upon our return:

A table full of work

That’s me sorted then.

Today was the day before the night of the giant moon. Apparently it is the biggest it’s been for 19 years. We were lucky indeed that it wasn’t cloudy so we could gaze upon it’s magnificence. It was very bright. I’m sure Mr Astronomer (Nicktor) could tell me why.

Today was also beautiful. Blue skies, cold with no wind, perfect. I thought the entrance to the park looked quite attractive. Apparently the park volunteers (they meet on Wednesdays and do all manner of things to improve the park for us) are going to work on this entrance to improve it. I have slipped over here a few times in the snow because it’s quite a slope!

Entrance to Farnham Park

We took advantage of the wonderful weather to be very English and visit the garden centre today. I made the mistake of saying how next week I’d be home every day (even Wednesday because Mirinda is visiting Harlow – not Jean) so, of course, we had to buy enough plants to keep me occupied. Now I just have to hope for good weather or I’m going to spend the week wet.

We went to Badshot Lea. Mirinda sometimes goes into automatic pilot when she’s driving somewhere she thinks she knows. She will be in mid discussion about something frightfully interesting and I’ll say “didn’t you want to turn there?” If, like today, this happens in one of those very narrow English roads where traffic has to dodge in and out of parked cars, Mirinda will do anything not to go down it twice.

Of course, this sometimes means we have to hike across country, travelling about 35 miles to get back on track, returning to the original route by way of open farmland. We always manage to find our way to somewhere and today we discovered quite a circuitous route to an antiques place we sometimes visit by the short and direct way. Our surprise and delight saw us drive passed and onto the garden centre.

Badshot Lea is renowned for it’s fish. Odd, but true. It’s also well stocked with conservatories. Mirinda decided we really wanted to ask this woman about them. We wandered through them all and then asked her a bunch of questions relating to the possibility of having one built for us. Not that we’re ever going to put ourselves through the horror of doing so. It’s just that Mirinda likes to go out on Saturdays and tease salespeople with vague hopes of a sale.

Eventually we made it into the actual garden centre bit of the Badshot Lea Garden Centre and Just About Everything Else Emporium. Mirinda wanted to buy the two heaviest things that would still fit in Sidney just to see if I could actually pick them up. I managed to talk her out of the metal plant holders.

We bought two huge pots that were very heavy. I could have slept in one of them. Actually, having dragged them around the garden centre, up to the car, into the boot and finally into the back garden, I’d have been more than happy to curl up on the bottom of the smaller one.

We also bought about 460 plants for planting. A lot of them were on special. I’m not expecting these ones to grow. This is what they do: They have a plant they know will not grow – maybe they grew it on purpose, I don’t know – and they put it in two pots. They then get two other plants they know will grow which look exactly like the two that won’t. Now, here’s the clever bit – they now sell all four for the price of three. This means they can’t help but make money AND they get the customer to take away their rubbish as well! Pure genius. Not that I’m cynical.

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
And now for a playground update…it’s looking very good for an Easter opening. It helped that it rained this week.

The new playground in Farnham Park

The poodles woke me at 6am, damn them! This meant that by 4pm I was ready for bed. I was also not feeling too well so that may have had something to do with it.

We had a day at home today; a bit of gardening, some study, some sleep. The weather wasn’t too hot and the clouds kept hiding the sun. I planted the remaining snapdragons then started digging the hole for the green cone while Mirinda pottered about between reading articles for her degree.

At about 3 we popped up to the garden centre for some sweet peas. WE FOUND SOME! Yay, finally we can see them growing up the obelisks. We also bought a few other plants and a couple of strange tools that Mirinda insists we need.

I gradually felt worse as we approached home so I went to bed while Mirinda took the poodles up to Frensham. I was asleep about four minutes before I closed my eyes and put my head on the pillow.

I woke at 6:30 feeling a lot better, though the cough is still driving me mad. Tonight we watched Midsomer Murders, which is always a cack. A bonus in this episode as Cally was in it!

I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. As usually happens when I’ve had a few drinks, I woke up at 6am feeling a bit rubbish. I managed to drag myself down to the kitchen and made a coffee. I then staggered, poodles clinging to my legs, into the lounge room where I collapsed in front of the TV. I watched Breakfast long enough to hear that the British entrant in Eurovision came last this year, while the German entry won. The next thing I knew it was 8:30am and my coffee was cold. The same news item was on the TV. It was like I’d been sucked into some time vortex thing where time moved but TV didn’t. I thought about this for a bit, thinking, perhaps I was in a Simpsons episode, and then went and made another cup of coffee.

After shopping and Mirinda’s weekly phone call, we spent a lot of the day in the garden except for the big slice we spent at the garden centre at Secretts. Mirinda loves walking right around the entire place before deciding what to buy. This takes about three days. Everything is then repeated with a trolley, loading it impossibly high. As usual we managed to buy everything except the one thing we had originally gone to buy – sweet peas for the obelisks.

We did overhear a woman who hates radishes to the exclusion of everything else. Radishes are the only thing she hates. Not world poverty, not stupid politicians, not even traffic wardens. No. The only thing, in the entire universe, that she hates…RADISHES. What a fantastic life she has.

I made pork with a pear and apple sauce for dinner and we watched two episodes of Dr Who before retiring. Lovely day.