This is going to be a post of total trivia. No book reviews, no serious discussion - nothing. You have been warned.
Saturday morning awoke at 6 am as usual, bit of a pain that, so rolled over and thought I will have another half an hour. To my total astonishment I awoke at 11 am. I shot out of bed and stood quivering in the middle of the bedroom, not knowing what I was supposed to be doing, even what day it was and in a blind panic and thinking of all the things I had to do. Then I remembered it was Saturday so I did not have to go to work, I had no agenda for the day so therefore, no timetable, I lived on my own so I could do what I liked and my children have long gone and I don't have to take/collect or look after them. This took all of 30 seconds and then my heart stopped thundering and I calmed down. You stupid woman I thought and put the kettle on as one always does in moments of stress.
Rest of day consisted of supermarket shopping, popping into the DIY store to get the yellow paint as I wanted to paint one of my all white walls in my newly painted kitchen yellow, called on a friend and sat in her lovely garden surrounded by her roses, drank tea, came home, lay on sofa, watched a free DVD that came with the Daily Mail months ago (Little Lord Fauntleroy with Rick Schroder and Alec Guinness - pretty dire but could have been so much worse) and went to bed.
OK are you still with me?
Work up on Sunday at 5 am wide awake and this time no need to go back to sleep as I had obviously caught up. Decided to finish reading My Family and other Animals by Gerald Durrell and stayed in bed and spent two hours totally helpless with laughter. Deserves a post all on its own so will do that later. This put me in such a good mood that at 7 am I decided to start painting the kitchen and get it done nice and early.
(Mem: interesting effect funny book can have on one's attitude for the rest of the day. Wonder if I would have been quite so ready to paint the kitchen if I had been reading Wuthering Heights? I would probably have painted it black)
Well, I painted one wall yellow and it looked so fetching I decided to paint another one and then that looked good and....yes, you have guessed it, I now have a yellow kitchen and as the sun has been streaming in the window all day it is light and sunshiny and cheery. Flushed with success, I then started laying the floor tiles. These are not exactly your Tuscan Terracotta (Sainsbury Home Base stick on £5 a pack) but they looked good and I merrily started laying them, totally ignoring the bit on the back about plumb lines and measurements and boring things like that. They all dovetailed quite beautifully except at the end of a row when they had a slight list to starboard but as I had arranged it that any such tiles would be hidden by the cooker/fridge/freezer I was not too worried. (Just hope that the Master Craftsman down in Devon AKA the Bookhound is not reading this). Had just pulled out washing machine and crawled behind, reared back quickly when two very large spiders scuttled out when the phone rang and there was my daughter Kathryn:
'Mum, had to ring you - Sophie's pregnant!'
'Darling how wonderful' (who was Sophie I asked myself - hadn't the faintest idea but reacted with what I hoped was suitable delight and amazement. Realised after a few minutes conversation that she was one of Kathryn's ex-house mates who I had met so was then able to respond in a more positive fashion)
'Are you having a good weekend - what are you doing?'
'I'm laying the kitchen floor'
'Oh.....ok fine'
Ended up having one of those totally inane but hilarious mother/daughter conversations which would sound
like the cacklings of lunatics to an outsider and then being even more cheered up that I was already, I finished the tiling. Have just added these peppers to the pic to make it look a bit more interesting. I mean what can you do with a picture of a white tile? Have to say that though I know nothing about patchwork, anybody viewing the hidden area behind the washing machine would think I was an expert at same.
So, there you go. If you are still reading and well done if you are, I have just emerged from the bath. I am beautifully shampooed (did not realise until I came back from buying the newspaper in the morning that my hair was liberally splashed with Dulux Emulsion Sunshine Yellow - thank goodness it was a silk finish), I reek of Lime and Lemon Verbena Body Cream, my feet have been scraped and scrubbed and are now residing, soaked in foot cream, in a pair of lime green flight sox, courtesy of Virgin Atlantic and I look an absolute sight. Here is a picture of the sox - they have a certain elusive charm do they not?
And now, having finished this total self-indulgent blog I am off. I discovered that the original Ocean's 11 was on TV earlier today and have taped it so may look at that now, and then later on this evening, one of my favourite progs is back, Midsomer Murders. I am surprised that there is anybody left to murder in the villages in Midsomer but I am sure a body or three will turn up on the village green or thrown down Ye Olde Wishing Well and I love John Nettles. OK, so he has put on a few stone and is not the dashing young man he used to be, but when I look at him I remember him 20+ years ago as Bergerac, roaring around Jersey in his wonderful open topped car and looking luscious and gorgeous in his leather jacket.
After the sturm und drang of the last few days, I am having a lovely weekend.
