All over the place

 There is progress on the patio, thought it's taking a LOT longer to get done than I'd anticipated. We're 2 weeks in now. We have new steps and the walls have been prepared for rendering. One of the rat holes has been covered as well (they are not actually rat holes, they are drainage holes because the wall is essentially holding up a cliff!). The ground is all prepared and ready for the paving slabs to go down.

I'm not sure how much will be achieved this week because they can't put down the paving slabs until the rendering is done and I think the person doing the rendering is different from the people laying the slabs - so I'm guessing it's about timing more than anything. I'm desperate to get things finished and to get my house back to myself. 

Husband seems to think the builder will do the painting of the rendering, I think he's dreaming. I very much anticipate it being us. I wait to be pleasantly surprised though.

Looking at the front of my house with my parents this weekend I suddenly noticed that when they put the solar panels up they left a huge white hose pipe down the front of the house. Not by mistake - they've actually attached it to the wall. I point out that this is as well as breaking six of our roof tiles. Husband is talking to them about the tiles and they appear to have taken it seriously. He's now got to speak to them about the hose pipe. 

I'm really irritated. It's one of those moments where you know it was just laziness. I mean would they have done that if it was their house. It's a bendy hose, it would have taken them just a small amount of extra effort to take around the side of the house, rather than actually ruining the whole look of the front (not that the front is massively attractive). They also did a slapdash job so the pipe doesn't even run in a straight line. It just bends all over the place. I'm super irritated by it. If they don't sort it I will actually do what you threaten to do and go onto social media about them.

It's important we get the tiles sorted quickly - you will recall that when a tile got broken before we ended up with a massive leak in the sun room. I sorted that by fixing it myself - so worst case scenario if they are not here by the end of the week I can sort it myself, but I'd rather not go out on the roof again. Especially because of the next thing I'm going to talk about......

I physically broke myself last week - On Monday night I was getting ready for an early start to go into the office on Tuesday. I was going through my shoes (there are a lot), to find the perfect pair of sandals. When suddenly this shock of pain went across my back. I stopped what I was doing and sat down and had to call husband in to ask if he'd kindly pack away my shoes.

After this I had a shocking night's sleep. I ended up asleep sitting at the dining table with my head on my arms. When my alarm went off at 05:00 I felt like I'd been hit by a hammer. My back was so bad I could barely move. I wanted to go to the office for 2 reasons, the first being that I rarely go and so it' good to show that I will. The second being I really wanted to chat to my boss about some of the issues I've had with the team recently. Not to resolve them, but really just in a problem shared kind of way.

I managed to get dressed, the irony being I could not wear the sandals I'd found the night before because they had a heel. I ended up going in in trainer sandals! I still wasn't sure I could do the 3 hour drive, but in the end I got a hot water bottle put it against my back and set off. The idea being, if necessary I could always turn around and come home. 

Turns out that sitting in a fixed position with a hot water bottle on my back was the best thing that ever happened. By the time I got to Lee-On-The-Solent I was able to whizz into Asda to buy some Deep Heat.

I managed the day quite well in the end, I made a nest in a chair with a pillow and a hot water bottle at my back. The rest of the management team pretended they didn't notice!

I also managed to have the conversation I wanted with boss and immediately felt better. I feel like I've been carrying the weight on my shoulders and just having somebody to chat it through with has made a huge amount of difference.

I also got accepted for my companies coaching programme, this is quite exciting it's something I've wanted to do formally for a long time. During lockdown I did a cheap course, but it was quite rubbish and I've had no opportunity to properly put it into practice. I now get to work towards a formal qualification and the conversations are going to be really interesting. I love helping people learn so it's good to have another string to my bow.

On top of this tomorrow I have my first training session for the Girls Network. This is quite cool, this is where old farts like myself mentor a schoolgirl who has been nominated by her school. The idea being that it gives them knowledge and confidence to go out into the world and be a huge success. I wish I'd had somebody to do this with me when I was at school and I'm thrilled to have the chance to offer that to somebody else. Watch this space.

Oooh back to breaking myself..... Aaaanyway. Because I was so focussed on my back I didn't realise my feet were in an odd position and I managed to give myself tendinitis in my ankle (something I have to watch out for - I sat cross legged all the time for years and it put strain on the joint). Plus on top of that I have been given some new exercises for my physio and these made my knee feel worse (worse before better moment). 

So on Saturday night I was gurning around the house like one of Dracula's minions, hunched limping and moaning.

I'm now feeling a lot better, except I still haven't had a full night's sleep for over a week because every time I turn around my back wakes me up. But I'm getting there.

The best fun I'm having is taking the dog out and picking up dog poo. I can't bend over to pick it up - if I try the bend is about 4 inches too short and I'm flailing my arms around in mid air like a crane achieving nothing. I've worked out that the only way I can get down far enough is to pretty much do box splits. Personally I'm quite impressed with myself that I can do that.

Son went out on Friday and one of his friends came back for a sleepover. When I went out to the butchers on Saturday morning I asked them if they wanted to join me and to go out for breakfast at the cafe by the beach. They took me up on my offer. 

Obviously dog came too and it was one of those annoying walks where the dog was constantly covered in grass seed. You have to get them out because with her fur they quickly get embedded and matted into her coat and then she tries to pull them out with her teeth and she ends up with fuzzy grass seeds matted into the fur around her mouth (she has a moustache and beard - not the most feminine of dogs). If we can't get these out ourselves we have to go to the vet and then it gets super expensive!

So what with the dog doing poos and getting covered in grass seed, during the walk I spent most of my time on the floor de seeding or picking up Poo. Each time the only way I could stand up was by doing the box splits and walking my legs together sideways so I could stand up without bending my back. (actually I wonder if that's what gave me the tendinitis).

Today's quiz question - on how many occasions do you think the 2 fit 14 year old boys offered to help so I didn't have to do this.......... In fact I'll leave that one with you - a conundrum shall we say.

Finally, I have eventually gone over to the local gym to take a look. It looks ok - no rowing machine which is a shame, but everything else I would want and not to busy. But horror of horrors they are only open from 08:00 to 20:00. So how the bejibbers am I going to fit that in with a job! So I'm just working out the logistics before joining. But I've at least done the first step of that. I'll share the excitement of my logistics when I have (or haven't) worked them through.

Stupid timings for something like a gym to be open. Basically open normal working hours when you couldn't go.

Turns out a lot has irritated me this week! 

Mum and Dad came over for lunch yesterday. It was lovely to see them and they were both on great form. This I know is very tough on Mum - Dad has dementia and he seems to rally around when he is out and about, so we definitely see the best of him. At home I think he goes into himself and can be argumentative. So whilst Mum enjoys seeing him happy I think she feels that nobody understands how tough it can be for her. I have to admit that I can't appreciate how tough it is because I only see the chipper side of it, but I do believe her when she talks about how difficult it can be.

It must also be very hard when you've had somebody capable around you, who suddenly changes behaviour completely. There are huge areas of their life that he no longer remembers, but importantly he is still at a point he remembers his family.

I used the money they gave me for my birthday to make an Alice in Wonderland decoupage picture, that now hangs in the sun room. As yesterday was so positive I used it as an opportunity to get the whole family involved. I gave my parents and son and husband the choice of a bumble bee or a butterfly to add to it and then gave them a quick lesson. Dad took to it like a duck to water - the others not so easily. But I'm really pleased that they are part of it - I'll always have that.