Battlestar Gallactica and Dan Brown for company

I spoke to Diane and she sounded cheerful and busy. I did my morning chores and then went for a walk and later cut the grass in the garden. Mas set up our new video player, and having taken our old one to pieces, recovered the Battlestar Gallactica that he had been watching when it went wrong. Once set up he began to watch Battlestar Gallactica again.


Today I spruced up the inside of the conservatory again by re painting it in white (not the glass bits though). I also spent some time gardening and happened to see Wynford. He told me he was 'home alone' as his family has gone off on holiday, and his Fiancee is also away.

I finished off the Dan Brown book I had been reading. It held my attention all the way through, but on reflection was a bit too much like a James Bond story.

I had another disturbed night as Salty and the Tabby kept pouncing on each other and rushing about.

Cat dust

We let Salty out into the garden, and he spent a long time outside climbing trees, and calling plaintively from time to time. Mas fixed a new washing line for me, and I cleared out the largest planter in the conservatory as Salty had been using it as litter tray as the soil is nice and soft.

I spoke to Diane and later we watched The Bill again, and Mas is watching Battlestar Gallactica when he is having rest breaks.

Today was very dreary dull weather. My computer began the horribly familiar clicking problem, turning itself off to protect itself frequently. We have already taken it to be fixed for this, but evidently the problem just retreated for a while, only to pounce out again when least expected. I heard from Joan and Chris, and spoke to Pete.

Mas began drilling and cutting a hole in the cavity wall of the conservatory to put in a cat door. We could not put it in the kitchen door as it is made of hardened glass. I am going for walks every day to keep fit, and have a break from the cat, and hopefully next week I will have the time to do longer ones.

We continued in this way all weekend until the whole house was filled with first grey and then red brick dust, and Mas having many changes of cloths and showers. I swept up, and vacuumed dust up, but the curtains, walls and every surface was dusty including the air. Once the dust finally settles I will have to do an intense early spring cleaning session. Who would have thought that having a kitten would make so much work!

We watched some 'Dead or Alives' and an old funny film that we like with John Candy in it called The Great Outdoors, we also began watching a new series called Hunter

Nitwits with blinds and other misadventures.

We had a very humiliating time today.
We have a conservatory attached to our sitting room, and it is fitted with blinds which we pull up rather like the sails of a boat, except for one blind which is pulled up by a small motor. The motor for this blind ceased working about a week ago, so we thought the remote control gizmo's batteries had gone, and we bought some new(expensive) batteries, but when we tried it the engine still did not work.

We phoned the company who had fitted the blinds, and they said they would fix it for us. On cue, one of the men, who we knew, arrived, and we explained our problem, and also told him that the spring on one of the blinds was not working well.

The man looked at the motor for a few moments, then looked at the electric plug on the wall, and turned it on! Of course the blind worked immediately. He then tried the blind with weak spring, and that worked perfectly as well!

Mas and I were overcome by our stupidity and could have given ourselves a good kicking! Needless to say, the blind man laughed, and was still laughing as he left us and drove away.

In the same vein, here is a worse story that happened many years ago: Various heads of department in a large London hospital were having a board meeting when one of them fell face down on the desk with what appeared to be a heart attack.

Someone rushed to get a stretcher, only to find that the poles had been stolen from it! They managed to get him into a treatment room to treat his cardiac arrest by electric shock. The electric pad terminals were placed on his chest and he was zapped, except it did not happen! All were stunned; someone then turned on the electric plug, and tried again, and he was saved! Phew!

In the evening I went with some friends to an introduction to the Landmark Forum. We did not sign up for a course, but it was fun catching up with each others news and talking for a while.