Full Metal Wheelbarrow

The plan for today and Monday was for Rob to ride out to his parents' house (about 90 miles away on the route he uses) today, stay overnight and come back the following day. Meanwhile I was to stay here and finish painting the skirting board in the bedroom, among other small jobs.

What actually happened was that I got a phone call at about one pm from Rob, who'd made it as far as Cranwell in Lincolnshire (about 60 miles into the journey) when one of the steering rods had given way. So I piled into the van with Brian the satnav to go and rescue him. Took me a couple of hours to get there, by which time he'd located a Spar shop and acquired a bottle of pop. I think he was quite pleased to see me when I arrived :-)

We debated whether to go on to his parents' but decided to go home instead - then he could spend some time tomorrow examining the damage and working out what was needed to mend it.

Some consolation was derived from the fact that he'd managed a 14mph average speed over a distance of 60 miles into a screaming headwind before the part failed and a bit more from a stop at East Bridgeford garden centre on the way home which involved tea and chocolate cake - and they had one of the weed-pokey-sticks I'd failed to buy yesterday, which we carried home in triumph. She has already slain her first dandelion and been christened Wilma Weedbasher.

Meanwhile, upstairs is freezing as we have all the windows open to clear the paint smell from the bedroom. Happy days....

Yesterday I painted the skirting board at the end of the room where the new bed will live, because I don't expect to be able to move the bed to do it later and anyway it's just easier. Stinky gloss paint is stinky.

Tomorrow the new bed should be arriving. I'm looking forward to it, but on the other hand, sleeping on the mattress on the floor has been surprisingly comfortable too :-)

This morning's first job was a trip to B&Q where I bought gloss paint, paintbrushes and masking tape for tomorrow's job of painting the new skirting board. (Joy.). I also mostly failed at buying screwdrivers*, which you'd think would be easy, but as it turned out, B&Q were having a rejig of most of their shelves and their supplies of Stanley screwdrivers were sadly depleted and I only managed to find one of the three types I'd been tasked with purchasing.

( PIctures! )

Yesterday we removed the carpet from the bedroom, which is more of a job than it sounds - as with the bathroom, they'd stapled down the underlay and there was gripparod all round the edge of the room on which I, surprisingly only punctured my fingers once. We also got rid of the old divan base, because there's nowhere indoors to store it while the new  floor is done.  So we kept part of the carpet to put the mattress on so that it doesn't get damaged in the meantime.

After doing all that we decided a bath was in order, with a nice Lush bath ballistic. Unfortunately, after the bath Rob became quite wheezy for the rest of the day.  He feels much better today, thankfully, but  it seems as if his favourite Butterball bath might be off the menu now.

Neither of us slept all that well last night, but not because we were sleeping on a mattress on the floor - it was actually quieter than the divan, which had a tendency to creak if we (and especially me) moved about.

Hopefully by this time tomorrow the new floor will be down and I can start putting most of the bedroom back together again in readiness for thenew bed arriving. I think I'll have a sort out of my clothes as I do that too - I have  a few things that I don't really wear any more and are just taking up space.

Painted the other half of the bedroom today. I was going cross-eyed trying to see if I'd missed any pink bits on the ceiling by the time I'd finished, but I think it looks OK.

So now we're ready for the new floor on the ninth and the new bed on the eighteenth. Yay!

We now have a date for having the bedroom floor done - November the 9th, the day after my next hospital appointment. So when they call to organise delivery of the new bed, I have to make sure it's after that. We'll probably be painting the bedroom walls and ceiling before the floor man gets started - white, because we have a big tub of that :-)

the new floor should be good for Rob especially - when we had the wooden floors in ourt last house he seemed to sneeze significantly less often.

Today I have mostly been building Ikea furniture.

And, no offence to anyone reading this, but the torque spanner is my best friend today :-)

I spent about an hour trying to tighten the bolts on the Gorm shelves with the ordinary socket spanner and then called Rob, who pointed me towards the torque socket spanner, which let me finish the job in about ten minutes and limited the damage to my paws to two small blisters (from the ordinary spanner).

The shelves fit into the gap between the wardrobes and the shower room wall, but it's a very close thing.

Next job was to make the Helmer mini filing cabinet that Rob bought to put some of his electrical stuff in. It was very cleverly designed, but I found it a bit daunting to fold sheets of metal to make the drawers...

I managed it without breaking it or me though :-)

This weekend was a quiet one - the weather was pretty horrible so we didn't go walking.

Saturday I used the stain/varnish on the banister rail and it looks much nicer. For some reason the woodwork in the house was coloured in a reddish-brown stain that makes the wood look artificial. The dark walnut stain is a much better colour. We're planning to do the railing on the landing in the same colour, but that'll involve taking up the carpet to get at the lower bits properly and we'll probably take the opportunity to repaint the doorframes as well.

Meanwhile Rob started making the frame for a protective case for the wormeries to protect them when the frosts start. Last year we brought them indoors, but they take up a lot of space in the kitchen and bring a zillion fruit flies with them, so we want to keep them outdoors this time.

We watched two films this weekend, and I can now confirm that I am an utter Philistine because I enjoyed Hellboy II quite a lot more than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Even though the former had Luke Goss in it. There is clearly no hope for me :-)

We also watched Doctor Who. ( Not really spoilery, but better safe than sorry. )

No obvious visible progress on the bathrooms to show you today, but the plumber was here this morning and the good news is, we can haz shower! Yay! Now the neighbours can take the clothespegs off their noses :-)

( Painting! )

I was hoovering the bathroom and shower room this morning, to make sure there weren't any bits to get trapped nder the new lino and unbelievably I found more staples. I swear the wretched things are breeding....

And just to prove I'm not making it up, here's a picture:-