Memorandum Monday - Dips, that's plural right?

We went out for lunch on Saturday because I can sit in the front of the hire car provided while our car is being fixed. We like the Hungry Horse chain and there is one in our twon now so we thought that while breakfast wasn't so good there a few weeks ago, they could be better at lunch.

NOPE, nope definitely not.

Make no mistake the food is good - except for the dips and I will get to those - but the service is just AWFUL.

We arrived at the place at 12.40pm it was Saturday so we expected to find the place full. it was just about half full and most tables had at least one child crying. OK so we can cope with screaming kids as long as they stay at their own table.
We chose from the menu and Mr M went to the bar to order and pay. The till receipt was timed at 12.58pm Mr M came back to the table with his cold drink and five minutes later the barman walked past and tried to give my coffee to another customer. Then we waited.

and waited

and waited.

at 1.40pm Mr M went back to the bar and asked how much longer we had to wait and they said "Your meals are being plated up now"

It took another ten minutes before the food arrived and then we had to wait for them to bring us the cutlery to be able to eat it.

Mr M had the Tikka Banquet which comes with poppadoms and dips. Usually, in other Hungry Horse pubs he gets a sourcream and mint dip and a mango chutney dip. This time he got two dishes of the same stuff. It tasted like a mixture of vinegar and mustard and was swimming in oil.

I have sent my thoughts to Green KIng, the brewery company that owns the chain and we will not be returning to that particular venue until they have done serious staff training.

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing

Me on Monday - Coping

We are into week three of the great refurbishment and Mr M has learned that he can cope with strangers in his house and I have learned that I can cope with him coping.
The new kitchen window is now fitted and looks wonderful. The bonus is that this one can be opened, something we had forgotten could happen because the old one bent one of its metal bits. Opening it wasn't a problem but closing it, well, that took The Big Screwdriver, The Smaller Screwdriver and The Funny Metal Bar thingy (sorry about the technical terms) together with brute force and ignorance and a lot of swearing.
Now I have a window that I can open and close with one hand - luxury!

The cellar continues to improve and will be decidedly better when they fix the leaky drain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The door has now been fitted and sealed with insulation and the floor is nearly completely dry after its jet-washing and scraping.

YS has started decorating the bathroom and the new bathroom door will be fitted tomorrow. Did I mention that I went into the bathroom at 5am one day last week and because it is a bi-fold door I did the customary flick of the wrist to shut it and it came off in my hand. I believe I said on Farcebook that I... "didn't cry, I just leaned it against the wall, had a wee and got on with my life"

I have found somewhere for all the tools that my Dad brought here that no one wants a charity called Tools for Self Reliance Cwmru. The take old and neglected tools and stuff and refurbish them for sale and also they make up kits and take them to Africa where they teach people how to use them so they can be self reliant - sewing machines and blacksmithing and mechanics tools. I have so much for them.

Dinner on Sunday evening with Lady B, It was a good evening. We understand each other so well and we trust each other with confidences so I could tell her the latest news without having to watch my word in case something upset her. When it got hard she said "Right, change of subject" and we moved on.I suppose its at times like these that you discover just how much you care about people. I knew I loved her, just didn't realise how much

My Thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing

Fank FFF it's Friday

we are coping , no honestly we are coping. Mr M is getting used to having builders in our house and we are at that point where everything is beginning to come together.

New window, waiting. You can see the barricade around the hole
where the handrail and spindles will go next week

Window fitter removing old window. Brave man, he is 15 feet above
the ground there

New window, fitted. beautiful

Meanwhile down in the cellar we have a new door. waiting for finishing

Me on Monday - Discovering the source

Stage one: removing floorboards

Stage two: removing the ends of the joists

Respite from the builders meant that Mr M and I did very little over the weekend. Saturday was a sleazy day when I sat in my chair with my legs elevated and knitted and dozed and tried to make my mind stop with the "where-shall-I-put-all-the-boxes" kind of circular thoughts.

Sunday Mr M decided he had to go shopping and I decided I didn't. He remembered that Delectable Daughter was without a car so he took her with him. She said he forced her to spend too much money. What he actually did was point things out to her, like he does to me.
"Oh, look" he says, "They have packs of little Mars Bars on special offer" I have learned over the course of 36 years together to say "Lovely" and move on. She was out of practice.

Monday morning The Builders were back and it was time to roll back the carpet and start lifting floorboards.

Stage Three: preparation for hand rails and spindles

They make it look so effortless. They soon had all the boards up and out and the ends of the joists were close behind. Then they did some neat fitting with the plywood to cover the ugly stone wall and make the stairway look just beautiful. They have put up a temporary rail to stop me falling into the hole and tomorrow they will do the floor in the cellar and then they can move the freezer down and then they can put the proper rail and spindles in place.

My new kitchen arrives on 25th November, by which time I will have emptied the cupboards and they will all be in the cellar.

The really annoying thng? well, a few weeks ago we sold our tent. We decided that we were never going to be able to go camping again as neither of us can get up off the floor without a crane. With the tent we sold the camping stove and the gas bottle. It would have come in handy when the new kitchen is being fitted - sigh -.
The builders called me into the cellar while Youngest Son was having a shower and showed me the water pouring into the cellar through the wall. He turned the shower off and the flow of water slowed down. So now the back yard has to be dug up to fix the pipes that the council inspector said were not damaged.
We have proved once again that we are right, and the council inspectors are ... well, the word sounds like Bankers

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing

I had a dream

Stairs all closed in and the door from the understair cupboard
now fitted at the bottom of the new staircase

The new floor looking good. Youngest son will be
painting walls and skirting boards as soon as the paint arrives.

I had a dream on Thursday night. I was going to keep it and tell you on Monday but it made me laugh myself awake so I decided to share. After all it might brighten your day too.

I had a dream about the new staircase and how the floorboards and joists will be cut sometime this week to make the new entry to our cellar.
In my dream the floor was opened up and the rail and spindles put around the top to stop me falling down the hole. To mark the occasion a ribbon was placed across the entrance and a hand with a pair of scissors cut the ribbon at a Grand Opening Ceremony

When I told "my" builder he had a mouthful of hot tea and for some reason my tale caused him to snort with laughter and he said some tea went down his nose.
Now that was definitely a TMI moment.

As it woke me up laughing and the builder laughed I thought for most of the day and when I told Mr M and my Daughter it kind of gelled in my mind that this is a
Thing That Must Be Done.

Therefore there really will be a Grand Opening Ceremony for the new staircase. I am a quilter so I have ribbon and good sharp scissors. I also have a Granddaughter who has inherited the acting gene. Should I bake a cake? or should I make cupcakes?
I am not a good cake maker. Ask the girls I went to college with they'll tell you the tale of the rock cake and the kitchen window. Perhaps I should make a cup of tea or coffee and take lots of pictures.

The refurbished bathroom is just fabulous.

Me on Monday - towards a new kitchen

The top of the staircase just peeking through the small hole.
It will get bigger eventually

 It's been a long week this weekend. Mr M doesn't like changes in his home, he hates it if I move the furniture so he is pretty darned stressed. Add to this the fact that some really nasty foreign truck driver reversed his huge articulated truck into the side of our car last Monday and you can kind of imagine how Mr M feels about "change"

Anyhooooo, We progressed quite rapidly from cellar full of cra stuff to staircase fixed top and bottom and then I said something.
"Because of all the woodworm in the wood we are chucking out," I said, "could you check all the joists in the floor above you?"

The staircase fixed top and bottom

"Yes" said Mike, and produced the technical testing equipment ( a cross-head screwdriver. You poke the joists, if the point sinks into the wood you have a problem if it doesn't you don't)
He called me down to see what he had found. Three of the joists were affected so this meant stripping the ceiling off the rest of the cellar and checking right across then replacing those affected joists and treating everything with anti-woodworm venom chemicals.
The new ceiling will be plywood with insulation between the joists so the ply has to be treated too. All good stuff for stress right? We still need to get vinyl flooring into the bathroom so we went to a place recommended to us by a satisfied customer and arranged for the man to come and measure.
Then we popped up the hill to see Lady B. She seems to think that she should have stopped crying by now, after all it has been three weeks (her words not mine). I have told her that we would all worry if she wasn't still dissolving and that it is to be expected for the next several years. She doesn't agree. I wish there was some way to convince her that it is not weakness it is human. I mean you don't live with your soul-mate for fifty years and not dissolve into tears unexpectedly when someone says a particular word or a memory fills your mind - do you?
She will be very cross with me for writing this but it is simply my way of coping with the ache I feel for her.

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing

PS two more rat bodies were found between the joists so it was A Good Thing we had to strip the ceiling

Me on Monday - no Tuesday, sorry

Birthday boy, anniversary couple and Miss Boo all listening
 to Grandpa (or WSD* as my daughter calls him)

Some of the contents of the cellar in the garden before it
 travels on to the tip

 This weekend has been like the curates egg, good and bad. We had a lovely birthday/anniversary lunch with my Daughter and her family. They celebrated 17 years of marriage and also the birthday of S-i-L. They figured that if he got married on his birthday he wouldn't forget, so far this has been right. Miss Boo made us all laugh .... need to give background here... Mr M is diabetic and I have just been upgraded with new dentures. He can't eat sugary stuff and I was still learning to chew without biting my own face, so.
Miss Boo made us all laugh when she refused to give Grandpa any of her raspberry ripple ice cream and said she would make sure that she always had dessert that was too sweet for Grandpa and too chewy for Grandma.
It was a lovely lunch.

Sunday I continued putting the contents of my larder into boxes ready for the builders to come and do the stairs into the cellar. Paused briefly when Lady B arrived with some stuff. She is not a great one for hugging but I so wanted to wrap her in my arms. I knew it would finish us both completely so I stiffened my upper lip and so did she.

one corner of the nearly empty cellar

Monday and Mr M went off to work at silly o'clock. I continued slowly moving stuff out of the way and when the builders arrived we went down into the cellar. O.M.Goodness! Some of the stuff has been quietly mouldering there for thirty years. After an hour and a half most of it was out in the rain in the garden. We had discovered the dead rat, taken precautions with gloves and stuff because of the rat sh*t and I had condemned most of the stuff to the tip.
The builders are really good. They treat me like a little old lady...... which I am, and they shifted everything.
Mr M came home and showed me the photograph of our little car after a nasty foreign truck driver had reversed into it in the works. Yes he signed a letter saying he was responsible, no Mr M wasn't in the car when it was hit, it was parked and yes I still feel really nauseous every time I think of it. We haven't had the darned thing very long, it is the newest car we have ever had and this is the second time it has been bumped. What a b*tch of a start to the week eh?

My Thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing (and sane)
*WSD... Wicked Step Dad