4th August 2009
After successfully laying the flooring in my study, Jamie went on to spend another three days fitting flooring and hanging doors for Roger Woolnough. Once done, he returned to Willow Bank and laid a new floor in the sunroom, a trickier task, as he had to craft a drain cover. He then spent the weekend camping with friends at Santa Pod for drag racing and general revving of loud engines. However, in his haste to leave at 6.00 am on Friday, he left his kit bag with a change of clothes on his bedroom floor. He did, however, remember his packed lunch,  priorities! When he returned on Sunday evening, he announced he’d had a “wicked” time… albeit looking rather tatty and smelling like a week-old sandwich.

Next week, Sarah starts a part-time summer job at a chip shop in Fleckney. With luck, this will reduce her dependency on the Bank of Dad,  though I’m not holding my breath.

I rang Nan on Sunday, only to be told she’d been trying to change the fuse in the main fuse box after her cooker “blew up.” I instructed her, firmly, to leave it alone, and headed up the next morning. Upon inspection, it turned out the oven element had indeed gone kaput, and rather than faff about trying to source a new part, we drove into Rotherham and bought a whole new oven. I wired it in that afternoon.

In between the showers, I dug up half the potatoes for her, bagged them up, mowed the lawn and pruned the bushes. That evening, we visited Aunty Hilda, who sadly has pancreatic cancer. The doctor has handed her care over to the Macmillan nurses. She looked very unwell and was clearly in some pain. I stayed with Nan for three days and left her looking forward to the Ashes, which start on Thursday,  sweets at the ready for a good suck during the match.

Sue is looking much better,  moving around more easily, and the chesty cough has cleared. She’s been to Kettering Hospital for a pre-op talk, with Sarah in tow. She seems quite happy with the planned procedure. During the week, Sue once again persuaded me to see a film at the Odeon in Kettering (will I never learn?). This one, The Visitor, was torturously dull. The storyline followed a disillusioned American teacher,  and so was I, after 90 minutes. I yawned throughout; Sue thought it was lovely. Each to their own.

Suraj found a Dell computer on eBay which could be converted into a Media Centre. I bought it, and after some wizardry on his part, it now works splendidly. Charlotte and her family looked fit and well when I called in en route to Nan’s. They’re looking forward to their holiday in the Dominican Republic at the end of August. They surprised Sue and me on Sunday, as Suraj’s sister had cancelled her visit due to the miserable weather, so they came to us instead. Suraj brought a PC and a laptop with him, both for a friend of mine. I cooked a curry before they left later that evening.

I’m still riding my bike daily and have been dabbling in moviemaking with old photos. Whenever family members go on holiday, I make a little video as a keepsake. I’ve also made two for Roger Woolnough. Our deal: he supplies the photo album, I make the film, and he buys me lunch. A win-win.

For years, I’ve more or less ignored my stepbrother David,  not out of spite, but because he’s always kept himself to himself and wasn’t one much for communication. However, during a recent visit to Bulgaria, we hit it off rather well. We now email regularly. His life with Genya in Ritya is quite the saga: it’s currently very hot (the weather, not the marriage), the mosquitoes are in top form, and he’s been rebuilding walls, installing CCTV, and cleaning the pool. They’ve also sunk a borehole for water. This week was their 10th wedding anniversary; they had plans for a fancy restaurant, but the heat drove them to celebrate next to the air conditioning instead. Amid all this, they’re also contending with diarrhoea, which rounds off the Bulgarian experience quite vividly.

Health and Safety Chronicles

1. The Incredible Shrinking Loft
Last week, we were due for extra loft insulation. We dutifully spent a whole day emptying both lofts in preparation. The men arrived on time, poked their heads in, and promptly left, declaring they couldn’t work in one of the lofts because it was only 1.4m high. Health and Safety dictates no work under 1.6m. Quite how that works with sloping roofs (which, by definition, taper to zero) is anyone’s guess. It’s a mathematical certainty, hypotenuses and all that. I complained to head office, who apologised, blamed their team, and rebooked us for 17th August. Meanwhile, our bedroom now looks like a jumble sale explosion.

2. Window Pain
I also arranged for twenty windows to be replaced. Many are already double-glazed, but we decided to do the lot. The quote was good, and a surveyor arrived to measure up. While prodding one sill with a knife, he pronounced that they couldn’t replace the concrete-asbestos composite sills, Health and Safety again. A quick check with the previous owner confirmed it. So, they’ll fit the new windows but leave the old sills. I’m not thrilled, but I suppose I’ll learn to live with it. Probably.

3. Bump in the Road (Literally)
On the way to Nan’s, I drove over one of Harborough’s award-winning road humps, and my rear suspension spring snapped. The car’s only done 17,000 miles! The town is now riddled with “traffic calming” measures, which mostly enrage drivers and punish suspensions. Welland Park Road boasts six different bumps in just 150 metres. Prior to this so-called improvement, there hadn’t been a single pedestrian fatality. Now, we’ve got weekly accidents and knocked-over bollards galore. With posts planted dead-centre in the road, dark or rainy nights become a dangerous obstacle course. Confusion over priority at the pinch points causes frequent collisions. Emergency services are now regular visitors. Those of us who live here can at least avoid some of the nonsense, but the toll on our cars is inescapable. Roger Woolnough had two springs snap on his recently. Naturally, it’s we poor motorists who foot the bill.