TILES OF THE UNEXPECTED

While we were on holiday, the carpenter and tiler were hard at work in the roomFKA the scullery.  Before we came home (and too late to do anything about it), I discovered that the tiler was going to fix the tiles in a brickwork pattern.  Aaaagh!  I thought.  (At least it wasn't aaaaaaagh! so it can't have been too serious).  But had I been asked before we went away, I'd probably have said we wanted them fixed the usual way ie in columns and rows.  But what do I find, when I eventually see them?  They look great!  And what's more, I think this is actually the 'normal' way to fix this sort of tile.

So here's the next stage in the great kitchen revival.

The worktop looks rather good too.  Just my painting left to do then . . .

HOME MADE COOKING

I have finally finished my part of the kitchen remodelling.  It's been a labour of love, so I thought I had to share it with you.  You can go overboard with your praise and admiration if you like.  But no orders please. 

Here's how it was

 

and now.

 

 Then

 

and now.

Now we just have to get the worktop and tiles fitted . . .

HYPEROPIC VISION

You may remember that I stood on a chair before Christmas to put up some decorations and, as a friend pointed out, not having first conducted a health and safety audit, succeeded in putting my head through the pendant lamp.  It didn't hurt me.  But it destroyed the lamp.

Today, after weeks of negotiation and disagreement, we chose a new lamp - one that is almost flush with the ceiling and thus well away from my head.  Even standing on a chair.  And I fitted it!

The problem is, I can't really see.  From a distance, I'm fine.  From here, I can read a car number plate in the next village.  I can see the slightest movement of a cat in my shrubbery (and am not a bad shot with a potato gun either).  But look at a newspaper and, no matter how much I screw up my face and squint, I can't read anything past the headlines without a magnifying glass.  Or at times a telescope.

So rewiring the ceiling light, in the half dark of course with the power turned off, standing on a chair to reach, with screws the size of an ant's head (without the useful antennae markers), and my neck bent back 90 degrees, was a bit of a challenge.  Discovering the fitting instructions were in Dutch didn't help.  Anyway, I finally connected the schroefs to the draads and  . . . we have light.

But it occurred to me, as I sat here trying to ease my neck joints back into shape and swallowing Paracetamol to ease the incipient headache, that this is a great metaphor for life.  I don't mean that having guidance in an incomprehensible foreign tongue and eventually seeing the light is what life is all about, although it might be.  But that sometimes we have to step back to see properly what's going on.

It doesn't matter how strong my binoculars are, it doesn't matter how high the chair is, it certainly doesn't matter how far back I force my head nor into what grotesque shape I contort my body, I can't see that damn screw and take in what is required until I retreat a little.  And shouldn't we all do that more often to get a fix on how the detail relates to the broad picture? 

Sometimes small things become too important.  At times what is just a part of the whole takes on the appearance and significance of the whole of the whole.  Sometimes we have to back off to see what's really important.  And then we hit the stupid thing with a big hammer and it's done.

TYING UP LOOSE ENDS

I had my final visit to the hospital today.  All I could get out of the consultant was, 'wow, you look well'.  I thought he might actually examine me or ask highly personal questions, as he usually does.  But, no, that seems to be that.  So I must be expected to survive then.

I also went to see the dietitian.  She seemed happy with my diet and added 'wow, you look well'.  I guess I look well.  She also, rather surreally, gave me a B&Q paint chart and asked which colour most matched that of my stool.  As I have said, there is not much left of your personal life that hasn't been picked over and I gave up on dignity a long time ago, but I thought the colour chart unnecessarily coy, if rather amusing.  Splendid Sienna BTW.  Or was it Brilliant Barbaresco?

Anyway, enthused, and energised by NHS cappuccino, I came home and chiseled out some drainage holes in a retaining wall, cleared out the drain in the patio and brushed up all the moss from the pointing, cleared the leaves from the side entrance, trimmed a bit of hedge I'd missed last month, composted the flower bed, touched up some painting on the stairs, fitted doorstops to two new doors, repaired a wall where one of them had been knocking and repaired the front doorstep where someone had tripped and pulled off the moulding.

I think I'll go to bed now. 

Not sure why I'm doing all this, but I start Spanish lessons tomorrow.  Actually, I made it a New Year resolution to learn Spanish this year because I thought I was going walking in South America.  Clearly I had to cancel all that.  But, ever hopeful, I thought I might still continue with the lessons.  I have been reading the text book 'Spanish In 15 Minutes' for the last 6 months.  I think I can safely say it doesn't work.

One last thing (I really am going now) - surely today's Google doodle is the best they've done?