week off

This week has been my long awaited week off work, though as ever, nothing is quite what it seems, or says on the tin.

I did end up going into work on Wednesday for a job interview, which I suspect I was not successful in, although the interview went okay, there is a lot of tough competition these days.

While most people have moved over to stay-cations, where they don't leave the country, we have barely left the house. It has given us a chance to catch up on things, though the nature of the things you catch up on, is that they still never get entirely finished! There are just too many things, and big things beget small things and perspective means that ever bigger things can hide behind the visible things, so that when you deal with the visible things, other equally big things, though slightly more distant things, hove into view.

So, I have been dealing with things, but having got some of the great looming / depressing things done, it is at least possible to see the landscape of things more clearly, and get a better grasp of the lay of the land, thing-wise

We have -

• painted the bathroom
• found a skip load of what can only really be described as rubbish, in the loft. I think when you cannot be bothered to get rid of things, you just kind of think, ohh, it might come in handy, lets just stick it up the loft. Still a work in progress, but it is like finding a whole new room up there, now that the big indeterminate piles of stuff have got sorted through and in part, thrown out.
• put mdf panels on the back of a couple of cheap shelves, so that they don't wobble about all over the place, and they now hold all my wife's jams, chutneys, and associated paraphanalia.
• emptied out one of my composters, and blitzed the garden, trimming hedges, pulling out weeds, and regaining control of some of the bits that were getting totally lost beneath weeds. My fruit trees and bushes and now looking much happier, now they can get some light and air in about them.
• We have modestly cropped the garden, using redcurrents for a crumble, volunteer potatoes, as well as dill and parsley. A bumper crop of apples is not far off, I've also foraged for Billberries, as per my last blog.
• Number two daughter has been appointed soux chef, to my wife, and has been spending afternoons in the kitchen helping her to prepare some really splendid meals,
• we have been buying the odd copy of the Mail for the free DVDs, and the girls have been getting into costume dramas, Pride and Prejudice was a huge hit, they have also seen Emma, and are all now half way through Rebecca.
• I've sorted through the bulk of my clothes, getting rid of stuff that I have not worn since University, with all my stuff now sorted into neat piles, weekend tee shirts, polo shirts, smart jerseys, not so smart jerseys, trousers for the garden (the biggest pile), smart casual trousers (ie trousers that I have not yet spilt paint on) and office trousers.
• I've made major in roads into a foot tall pile of old newspapers, and recent magazines,
• the dog has had plenty of good walks
• I have also been setting the girls little projects, to try and get their imaginations working, building robots from Lego, recording music on Garageband, researching how to use crops from the garden, mini projects on a garden plant of their choice,

All in all, it has been very pleasant to have a bit of time together with a modicum of purpose.

Finally I'll include some Chic Murray jokes that were in the Sunday Times found in that big foot high pile, because,

(a) I think that he is just hilarious, and;
(b) they make me smile

Doctor, I've got butterflies in my stomach
Oh, what have you been eating?
Butterflies.

Sergeant, get those screaming women into my tent this minute.
But they're not screaming, sir.
They're not in my tent yet.

Good evening madam, I'm from the environmental health department pest control division,
Aye well, you'd better come in, he's not home from the pub yet.

Colour television, whatever next? I won't believe it till I see it in black and white.

It was so boring six empty seats walked out.

For years, I've admired you from afar.
Mmmm, that's about the right distance.