Full Metal Wheelbarrow

Back from vet's, cat has had two injections (painkillers and antibiotics) and has Little White Pills to start taking tomorrow. When we got in , he went straight to his food dish and started eating, as if to say "Look! All better now! No need to go back there!"

I hope he's right, as this morning's excursion cost us over fifty quid! Good thing we're fond of him!

Rob didn't go in to work today, being still poorly from yesterday's paint poisoning - he's feeling a lot better now though.

At intervals during the day, he called the rowing machine company and finally got to speak to the "technical man" at five to five….

Instructions were to put the thing together, see if the dent interfered with the fan and meanwhile the "technical man" would check if the fan cover was a user-replaceable part. If so, he'd send us a new one, and if not, he'd organise a technician to come and replace it.

After tea Rob, with occasional assistance from me, put it together, and found there's a bolt missing as well, but he was still able to test it. Does the dent get in the way of the fan? Well, judging by the noise it makes, which Rob compares to an old Qualcast push-lawnmower (other lawnmower brands are available), that'll be a yes, then.

So tomorrow it's my turn to ring the technical man :)

 Rob has had the day off sick today, as he has somehow managed, during the hottest week of the year so far, to catch a cold. 

This weekend we has mostly been having a cold. Bloody stupid thing to be doing in June, I know, but there it is.

Rob had been on a course all week and came home on Thursday feeling rough. He was too poorly to go to work on Friday. I know he was feeling particularly rotten because he actually asked me for a Lemsip. In the words of Douglas Adams, "This Never Happens".  He's beginning to feel a bit better now, I think. Of course, i started to feel poorly on Saturday evening and have now progressed to the runny nose stage of proceedings. Joy.

We did manage to muster enough energy between us today to dispose of the Flag Iris From Heck which used to dominate the pond in the back garden and is now filling the brown compost wheelie bin to the brim, but that's more or less all that has been achieved. Blah.

Rob has now got to Waterlooville near Portsmouth, where he's again staying with a kind fellow cyclist for the night. Tomorrow he's heading over to the Isle of Wight and the plan is then for me to drive down and collect him at Lyme Regis on Thursday. He's suffering from tendonitis in his right ankle and while it's OK if he doesn't pedal too hard, he doesn't think he'll be able to cope with the hills of Devon and Cornwall to any great extent, so he's calling it a day while he's still enjoying himself.

He had another puncture in his rear tyre today, but again managed to patch it without taking the tyre off the wheel. He had a scare when he thought there was a strip hanging off the tyre, but fortunately it turned out to be one of the reflective strips from the sidewall peeling off :-)

The van now has a new tyre - on the right hand front wheel.  I apparently failed to spot a gigantic bulge in the old tyre, as did the Kwikfit man yesterday. Admittedly, I told him I thought it was the left one, but you'd think, having found nothing on that side, he might have had a quick peek at the other one. Apparently not.

Meanwhile, I have a cold. Again. Bah.

Feeling rather better today, and have manged to eat small amounts of food washed down with copious amounts of tea.

But we were both still distinctly under par today and spent much of the time watching telly, including the first four episodes of The Dresden Files on DVD. I think, if we hadn't read the book, we might have thought it was OK, but as it was they seem to have changed everything they possibly could except Harry's name and profession and we were constantly picking up on things they'd done "wrong". Bah.

We are going on holiday quite soon. This involves me doing a considerable amount of driving.

So of course now I start to get a sore throat. Buggrit sideways!