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So Tuesday was going to be harder than Monday, it had to be, I did almost nothing on Monday! When I went to work I had a rough idea of what was entailed but not an exact knowledge. I was prepared for work, I was feeling much, much better and I knew I would be alright. Did I tell you that E likes to run over walls with her car? If you look at one of my earlier posts, a few weeks ago, I posted a picture showing the older garage at the right of the house. To the left of the garage is a wall which slopes down to ground level over the last few feet. My van is parked in that garage overnight so I had to pass the wall to get to it. The first thing I noticed was the bottom two bricks had been dislodged and moved about a foot from the wall. Now E has always parked her car in front of the shrubbery to the left of that wall. She drives into the driveway and heads for the garage then reverses back around the wall to park ready to drive off by turning right, out of the driveway. She must have driven over the bottom two bricks and loosened them. When I got back home at 2.00 after my job, I mentioned that she must have dislodged the bricks. She looked a bit perplexed, she hadn’t noticed that she had done that. It is a simple matter to reset the bricks and we do have a small amount of ready-mixed mortar so it isn’t a problem. Many times in the past I have suggested she not park quite so close to the shrubbery as there is plenty of room to do so. She might also have less spiders and cobwebs on her vehicle and possibly less scratches (from the shrubbery when the wind is high). The funniest thing is she didn’t know she’d run over the wall! Strangely enough, a couple of months ago we had various pieces of concrete and stone standing alongside the perimeter wall which is the wall on the right-hand-side of the garage. There was space in front of them (along the wall) to park a vehicle. Now at that time my van was parked in the garage as usual and as work was going on around the front of the house E decided to park her car in this space to keep it out-of-the-way although she could have parked it in front of the garage or even in it (that would have meant moving some stuff but the garage is built for two cars after all). I was behind her car whilst she parked it, ready to stop her from hitting the pile of concrete standing there. This I did but she wanted to manoeuvre the car more precisely. I was shouting stop, stop and banging on the back of the car for her to cease letting it creep any further backwards. Too late! She backed into the concrete and dented the skirt beneath the rear bumper. Fortunately it is a plastic skirt and it was easy to pop back into shape. she does crazy stuff like that sometimes! That’s probably one of the reasons I love her. Incidentally, I park my van in the garage by reversing it all the way from the street so that I can simply drive out in the morning, or any other time. I have yet to hit a brick wall though…LOL!
I got to my electrical job and the lady and I discussed her needs. All the work was in her bedroom, fitting extra power points but the job itself wasn’t all that easy to actually do. I spent four hours there and was quite tired when I’d finished. whilst the lady had gone to get some cash to pay me I walked up the road to where her mom lives, a mere 50 metres or so. I had done some work for her mom last year when she had employed this guy to do all sorts of general joinery and plumbing jobs. She had also asked him to do some alterations to the electrics upstairs but he made a mess of it (well he wasn’t an electrician and shouldn’t really have been doing it). My job had been to correct those mistakes. Later she told me that she had been stupid to allow him to fiddle with the electrics (what can I say?). Anyhow this time she was asking about installing a supply to a water feature in her front garden. I told her what she might expect depending on what materials and fittings came with the water feature and to buy what she wanted (from the reputable supplier she had chosen) and I would make a better assessment having seen what was involved. Personally I don’t think it will be difficult or expensive, quite the opposite and she will be happy about that!
At home, after a quick snack I fixed myself a drink, took my guitar onto the patio and sat playing random songs for an hour. I simply let the songs come into my head, a mixture of pop melodies, Christian songs and some of my own stuff. E had gone to her moms for an hour or two so I was left undisturbed. So the day wasn’t quite exactly as planned. I didn’t do any more work in the other garage (I was too tired!), the electrical job put paid to that. Now today?
Just a point of interest, that is of course if you are interested, many are not! Tuesday or to be precise 12th July (actual date is 11th July and in the old calendar 1st July) marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne here in the UK (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne ) and in Southport (as in a few towns and cities) there are marching bands dressed in their orange regalia who visit the town from places like Liverpool just down the coast. I remember every year walking into Liverpool where I lived as a youngster, to see them. Some feel these events are an excuse for drunkenness and violence and indeed that is often the result during the day so they are against them being held. It is also an excuse for religious hatred and bigotry between Catholics and Protestants. If you read the short history you will understand why this is so. One would think that to continue to celebrate an event that happened 321 years ago should now cease but in fact it seems to get stronger year by year! It appears that another brick has been put in the wall between Catholics and Protestants.
Shirley Anne