Paint

I have put two litres of paint on my walls, but the room doesn't seem to be any smaller.

DIY

I have discovered that redecorating a room is a lot easier than dying hair. I think this is because you are supposed to get the colour on the walls.

It does, however, take an awful lot longer. For those of you who are not aware, the previous owner of my house had his bedroom painted Piccadilly Line Blue. I'm expecting it to require more than one coat of paint to obscure it.

In other matters, I now have a sturdy coffee table, a TV into which I can plug things, some other bits and pieces (thanks to stv and p for all those) and Mr. Chunky is, once again, appearing in my dreams.

Cheesecake

A lot of things happened over the weekend and most of them involved lovely people. Here is a brief summary (of the things, not of the lovely people (you know who you are)):

There's a woman (albeit a hypothetical one) who goes around murdering close members of her family with feeble motives. She is quite clearly a psychopath.

I had some walnut and toffee cheesecake without the walnut and toffee and with coconut on it. It was the best cheesecake in the world and I need never eat cheesecake again.

I gave an awful lot of money to B&Q. In return, they gave to me a lawnmower (Bravo!), a rake, some doorknobs, a tin of white paint, my own bodyweight in paint tester pots, some polyfiller, some black bin bags, some light bulbs, a light fitting and some primer.

My garden looks like a runaway mower veered onto it wreaking havoc with my lawn.

I have uncovered not three, but nine Mr. Chunky hills.

I have a friendly robin in my garden which I have decided to call Robin.

My lawnmower squeaks at me when it gets grass cuttings stuck in its blades (I would have thought lawnmowers would be prepared for such eventualities).

Finally, cats featured quite heavily. From a disabled cat on rollerskates, through disrespectful cats in my garden to nearly sitting on a cat in the Black Bull.

Mr. Chunky

I had a dream about Mr. Chunky last night. Instead of living in my garden, he was living in my Mum's living room.

He was quite a nice sort of chap, but my Mum had to ask if he would mind burrowing a little deeper in future as it was ruining her carpet.

Operation Tangled Mess - Day 3

No progress made.

Operation Toilet Paper and Operation Eat Food demanded my attention.

Operation Tangled Mess - Day 2

Little practical activity was made yesterday. That is to say, none. However, the lawnmower is due to be in my possession on 23rd May. This year.

Simultaneous rake buying will also take place.

And some other things too, that I will need to buy from B&Q. Like paint. And stuff.

Operation Tangled Mess

I bought a pair of garden shears on the way home last night with the aim of attacking my lawn so that the lawnmower (when I get it) stands a chance.

Unfortunately my neighbours, having been away for the weekend, were back and having a barbecue. Obviously, I couldn't carry out Operation Tangled Mess with all that sort of thing going on. They might think I was a looney, effectively cutting my lawn with a pair of scissors. So I waited.

I shimmied out of my house an hour later. Snip, snip, snip.

Snip, snip, snip, snip, snip.

Snip, snip.

It got dark.

I have learnt the following:

1) The neighbours will think I'm a looney for gardening in the dark.
2) Gardening in the dark is a bad idea because you can't see what you're doing.
3) I need a rake.
4) The job takes more than half an hour.

I was a little disappointed that when I tried to pick up the chopped off bits of grass, most of the blades were still attached to the ground.

My Garden

Summertime is here (just about) so I thought I would tell you about the features of my garden:

Mr. Chunky is my resident mole. He makes molehills on my lawn.

Birds die in it when you least expect it (I suspect this is courtesy of Winston, the cat that belongs to a neighbour three doors down) (or maybe it's Mr. Chunky, the 100 ft. mole).

There are lots of weeds.

I don't own a lawnmower. This is actually getting me down a bit as the lawn is hideously overgrown and I feel embarrassed by it. I could attempt to cut it without a lawnmower, but I only have a pair of secateurs so that could take some time.

It is a good place to make fairy trumpets. (Don't look at the grass!)

It is very green.

I have a nice purple/blue bush.

I have a 'shed'. It has been suggested that I turn it into a kennel for Mr. Chunky or into a shed.

Hmm. That's about it for now. If I think of anything else worth telling you about my garden, I will.

Things that definitely did not happen

There were in no way clouds of black smoke in my kitchen last night (when I was making advance preparations for this evening's food thing) due to putting too much water in my casserole dish which I didn't do. So there was nothing burning on the floor of the oven when it didn't spill over.

Nor did I chop off any parts of my anatomy while peeling squash.

I have definitely not discovered that my smoke alarm doesn't work because there were no clouds of black smoke at all to test it out.

Fluorescent

I have four days of holiday to take before the end of June otherwise they will be confiscated which will put me in quite a predicament.

But, when should I take them and what should I do with them?

Suggestions are welcome.

Spellcheck

The spellcheck suggests "Westfield" as a replacement for "Hostiple".

It understands the word "hospital", though.

It also recommends "Splices" for "Spellcheck".

Hostiple

I went to the hospital today. The automatic doors to my outpatient department were broken so I had to go via the main entrance. The porter gave me directions:

"Go through these doors, turn right, turn right again and go through children's outpatients. Keep going and when you see the reception desk, go through the door beyond it. Go past the refreshment stand and turn right. The reception desk is on the right."

They have no signs in these places.

Radiator rule

I remembered what it was! I rearranged my dining room table yesterday. I got fed up with it sitting in the corner looking as though it's in the wrong place so I gave in and broke my never-put-furniture-in-front-of-radiators rule and put it in front of the radiator.

See, I said it was wildly interesting and amusing!

Steady on!

I was going to post something wildly interesting and amusing, but I've been thrown off course by the new look Blogger.

I've completely forgotten what I was going to tell the world.

Near Death Experience

Due to my bizarre eating habits, I sometimes like to purchase (and eat) the blackberry and apple Alpen due to its fruitiness yet lack of grape related ingredients.

Imagine my horror, then, when I discovered not one but two rogue raisins in my current packet!

What should I do? As I see it, I have the following options (that won't result in a ludicrous death or illness):

1) Sue the trousers off Weetabix for negligence. This could end up with companies having to put looney messages on their packaging such as "Warning: the wheat used in the production of this bread was grown in a field within a five mile radius of the home of someone who once met a man who was eating Garibaldies."

2) Don't buy Alpen again.

3) Tut, roll my eyes skywards and don't buy Alpen again.

4) Get some rubber gloves and spend an evening fishing out any other rogue fruits from the museli. (Might be worth waiting until shortly before the next set of exams to do that one.)

5) stv and p have got married!

Hmm... . I seem to have drifted a bit, there.

Tea

My new seat at work means that I have a different bunch of people for whom to make cups of tea (for "tea", feel free to read "coffee" or any other word describing beverages). The fact that I have access to a tray gives me no excuse not to carry out my duties.

I have never made so many cups of tea at once. This is exacerbated (made worse) by someone ordering more than one cup of tea and by it being the 11 o'clock round.

Notes:
1) Don't offer to make cups of tea at 11 am.
2) Only offer to make cups of tea when there aren't many people around.
3) Only offer to make cups of tea when someone has just carried out the task.
4) Only offer to make cups of tea when the tray has mysteriously disappeared.
5) Keep quiet and hope that no-one has noticed that I haven't offered to make cups of tea for the past three months.

Panic Over

The drugs just about work if they are combined with tea and salmon noodle soup.

The drugs aren't working!!!!

Bank Holiday Weekend

I thought it would be easier to list the not very good things about the weekend, rather than how brilliant it was. I could attempt to list the brilliant things, but time is limited and I am sure to miss things out that are deserving of a place. So, in no particular order, here are the things that weren't good:

1) Engineering works x2
2) Feeling underdressed at the Electric Ballroom
3) Rain on the way home on Monday morning
4) Sunburnt nose
5) The good things came to an end

I think that's about it. The rest of the weekend was rather darned good (note typical English understatement).