Irony

The snow has gone, as has Mr WithaY's sinus infection, also his scary red vampyre eyes. Relief all round, I can tell you.

We only had a couple of days of snow, but the temperatures rarely went above freezing for at least a week.  According to the thermometer in my car, it was -7 (Centigrade, sorry, American readers) at 9.30 one morning.  A neighbour had a reading of -10 on their garden thermometer, so it was pretty brisk outside.

Mr WithaY eventually went off to his bushcraft course 24 hours late, having spoken to the trainers about it, and also booked himself into the nearest hotel, rather than camp in the snow.  Ordinarily he would have done, along with the rest of the course attendees, but given the fact that he was still on antibiotics for his sinuses, the likelihood of developing pneumonia was too high.

So, he went off, did all his bushcrafty things in the snow, passed the exams relating to this part of the course, and came home triumphant and decidedly less snotty and septic than he had been when he left.  Result.

I spent the few days while he was away frantically boiling anything and everything possible, for fear of infection.  It was like a Victorian cholera hospital.  Bedding, towels, clothes, dressing gown, scarves, gloves, pretty much anything that had had any chance of touching his conjuctivitus-y skin was put through the washing machine at environmentally-destroying temperatures.  Sorry about that, environment.

I got it all washed and dried, and then thought "I'll get some of this ironing done, as it's too cold to go out today."

Things escalated.

By the end of the afternoon, I had ironed everything in the basket.  I was deedily putting my clothes away when it occurred to me that I ought to put Mr WithaY's away too.  There were two reasons for this burst of domestic philanthropy:

1)  He was away for a few days, so unless I wanted to leave them on the floor, I'd have to climb under them to get into bed that night.

2)  It was fairly likely, on past performance, that even when he did get home, his clothes would remain in a tidy heap in the corner of the bedroom for some time to come.

So, I started putting things in drawers and on hangers.  But wait...what's this?  A wardrobe with non categorised clothing hanging in it?  Shameful.  I moved a few things, just to make it look tidier...all the trousers hung at one end of the rail.  Oh, and the dark trousers hung at one side, and the lighter trousers hung at the other.  But if you do that, then the shirts ought to be sorted out, with all the white shirts hung together, and then all the countryman check ones, and then all the heavy green moleskin ones.   And the short-sleeved ones should all be up together so that when the weather improves they're easy to find.

Gah.

Other news:  Remember my friend I mentioned?  The one who had been all-but-given-up-hope-of just before Christmas?  I went to see her last week.  She is making remarkable progress.  There's still a very long way to go, but she is sitting up, talking - albeit a bit mixed up at times - but able to chat, eating "proper" food, and will hopefully begin physiotherapy shortly.  It's pretty damn close to a miracle.

So hurrah for unlikely and unexpected recoveries, I say.

Flower power

In my last post I meant to talk about my big night out, but got sidetracked by the whole phone idiocy thing.

So.

What with the lighter evenings, my newfound confidence in finding my way when walking around London, and a bit less stress and anxiety in general, a mid-week social life seemed to be a good idea.

Monday nights are now officially "stay in Chelsea" nights, with my lovely mate, but things aren't ending there. No, indeed.

I had a call from a former colleague who was in London for a couple of days, suggesting we meet for a chat and a catch-up after work. So we did. And it was lovely. We met, went to a pub, had a drink, caught up on all the stuff that is going on in our work lives respectively, then I dashed off to catch my train and he headed off to a late meeting. How civilised.

When we were arranging where to meet he said "I'll wear a red carnation." Sure enough, when I arrived, he had a flower in his lapel, albeit a rose, not a carnation. Anyway, he gave it to me, once the joke was over.

I walked back to Waterloo Station admiring the lovely riverside views, and smelling my flower, which has kept the scent right up till now. I think it's the same variety as one we have in the garden, which lasts for ages and smells wonderful.

The old chap sat next to me on the train noticed it, so I let him have a sniff*.

When he showed his ticket to the conductor there was a lot of banter. He had used an automatic ticket machine, and pressed the Young Person button instead of the Senior button. The conductor asked him for evidence that he was under 25. It was all very good-natured, and made people smile.

But oh lordy, that conductor liked the sound of his own voice. He made announcements over the intercom system roughly every five minutes, detailing what the next station stop was, where you could go from there, what the chief local attractions were, who he knew that used to live there. It went on for bloody ever.

The train divides at Salisbury. The front half half continues trundling on to Exeter, the rest of the train gets detached and stays in Salisbury. It's not complicated.

We had every single possible permutation of that information that you can imagine over the 90 minutes between Waterloo and Salisbury. At least ten times.

Other news: Mr WithaY and one of our neighbours were moving a shed** around this afternoon, which was awkward, so they apparently ended up "turning it into a sedan chair." Now they think they have the basis for a sound business venture - sedan chairs to take you home from the pub.

I'll let you know if they make a million on the back of that.




*That's not something you get to say every day.

**"It's liftable by two people, but not by one" was how it was described over the phone. I am guessing that appies to most sheds, surely? If one person can lift it, it's a playhouse. A small one.

Porkers

That's what we are, here in the WithaY household. We decided to have a slightly impromptu* dinner party on Saturday night, and Mr WithaY did the most fantastic "belly pork with stuff on it" dish.

It's a Rick Stein Mediterranean recipe, and basically involves making up a marinade/paste thing out of garlic, rosemary, chilli, loads of black peppercorns and olive oil, rubbing it all over the meat, leaving it to itself for many hours, then roasting it slowly in the oven. Bloody great, it is.

I did my becoming-famous Indian baked yoghurt pudding, and we got through a lot of port. Great fun.

This morning (even allowing for the clock change) has been very lazy and relaxing. We lounged about on our respective sofas and watched "Paint Your Wagon" on TV, which was excellent. Perfect lazy Sunday morning viewing.

No other plans for today except doing the washing-up as and when I feel like it, and possibly doing some sewing if I can be arsed.

Other news: Got my car back, after having to fork out over £240 for a service, new brake bits and some other stuff. Gah. And it still has to have the mystery possibly-terminal problem looked at.

Most depressing.

On the bright side, the weather today is glorious, and I think we have a lot of birds nesting in the garden. Hurrah.



*i.e: Invited people on Friday night if they happened to be free on Saturday.