Z's kitchen is nearly usable

 I spoke too soon about my resignation from all things educational.  For legal reasons, it'll be simpler if I carry on until the end of the school year.  Of course, it's fine - though now I'll have to do the online training.  I'll look it up today and maybe manage some of it this evening.

The auction went really well and was a delightful occasion.  It was just so good to have enthusiastic, friendly people there - one pleasure has always been that knowledgeable people are very happy to explain details to newcomers - and there were more people in the salesroom (and bidding) than has been the case since before Covid.  Prices are not what they were, but that's great for collectors.  

A the fitter, having said he'd come on Tuesday and then that he'd send D on Tuesday afternoon, finally rocked up at 5.30 on Friday, having had a tart reminder that there were things he needed to do before Ed the Corian fitter turned up on Monday morning.  And then there were a couple of minor jobs he hadn't done, one of which Ed did and another that A came to finish later and told me he'd fixed the Corian in place in that spot.  When Scott the decorator came along, turned out that he hadn't.  He'd done half the job but I'd put spices in the drawer he needed to take out and, for no reason I can think of, he didn't ask me to move them. So I did, Scott fixed the worktop and then carried on painting the kitchen.  Shaun the plumber spent a day here doing both his own job and A's.  The electric socket needs to be put in place and then I can use the dishwasher.  I told Steve the electrician that there was no hurry, whenever he has time.  Now Glen the flooring guy is on his second day doing the floor - it's two rooms plus the lobby. Then A needs to do a few finishing touches and remove all the rubbish that's been building up outside over the last two months - no point in removing some of it, it's not in the way.  Finally, the new water softener will be fixed, I think that's the week after next, but I need to phone and check.  Scott will come back and put up some shelves, when I've decided on their height.  

Taking everything out of the study and putting it wherever there was space has finally confused me completely.  I can't find anything any more.  Everything has been moved too many times.  However, one adapts.  I found orzo when I couldn't find pasta and a sieve when I couldn't find a colander.  I know where the plates are, but I have to just wash and reuse two of them, because there's a chest of drawers in front of the cupboard.  I realise that I don't know where I'm going to keep everyday glasses, so they're in a drawer at present.

Unsurprisingly, the kitchen looks bigger, both because it's lighter and because I've moved the dresser out.  And the fridges.  I can't focus on how I like it all until it's finished, I don't want to think about that yet.  I know I love the doorway through to the ex-study.  I don't know what furniture I'm going to have in there yet and I've a horrid feeling that I don't have the exact table that I want. For now, I'll just use what I already have.  

The family - most of them - will come over on Saturday for supper and quiet fireworks.  We don't think it's fair to make a lot of noise when it isn't Bonfire Night, on 5th November.

I'm still doing the auction accounts.  I pride myself on paying everyone within a week of the auction, but I've slipped this time.  I'll get it done by close of play tomorrow.  

Z zzzzzs

 It's been 7 weeks since the kitchen was started and it hasn't gone well.  That's why I haven't said much.  My lovely sister has borne my frustration - as well as doing my washing up - but talking about it just makes it worse.  However, the worktops are being fitted on Monday, so maybe the end is in the far distance, but in faint sight.

So let's leave that for now.  What I want to talk about is sleep.  It's been a long time since I slept well - in fact, it's always been difficult for me to fall asleep as I've always been a thorough owl.  I came into my own in the evening, even as a child.  My poor sister - yes, saintly Wink - and I shared a room as children and, though I'm 5 years younger, I was still chatting away when she was desperate for sleep.  But when my mother was unwell and incredibly difficult to live with, I started waking in the small hours, head bound tight with worry and this became a habitual problem.  I gradually coped better, but it's normal for a lot of people to wake in the night, as they get older, so wakefulness for several hours became part of my life.  

It was always advised that tv and screentime in general were Bad Things, so I stopped watching television or looking at the computer in the evening, for the most part.  Earlier meals, so I had at least three hours without food before bedtime.  It didn't help.  One or two good nights a week, but nothing better overall.  Recently however, I've been watching television again.  Nothing very engaging, just background words and pictures, on the whole.  I don't have a tv downstairs any more, nor in my bedroom, so I watch on the computer.  Since then, I've slept better than I have done for years.  In short, no one knows everything and what works for one person may not work for another.

The L'toft auction is on Wednesday.  By the end of the month, I'll have no excuse not to blog regularly.  

And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest

 1st September 1988 - 8th October 2025

I started as a school governor when I had a phone call from the Rector.  A little surprised, but flattered, I agreed - and then found that being the clerk to the governors came with the job.  That was all right, I could take minutes and touch type and it was a good way to get involved from the start.

First school governor, high school governor, academy trustee, member of multi-academy trust, some jobs overlapping, all voluntary, all taking a lot of time, expertise and dedication.  But last school year, I didn't have the time and wasn't doing the job as it should have been done and I knew I had to step up or bow out.  I chose the second option.  

I sometimes just kept things going, along with the rest and sometimes made a real difference.  I made one poor decision and learned a lot from it.  All forgotten now, it's a long time ago.

 

Z is still an unreliable blogger

 I've just found some comments that needed approval.  Sorry - no idea why they didn't go through automatically.

I now have, supposedly, got back my other blog - the .co.uk one - but I have to do more to be able to get it visible and it's beyond me.  I'm going to have to bother Ronan, which I really hate to do.  But I don't understand anything.  

September has been tricky.  I haven't wanted to talk about it, because I use blogging to be a positive and cheerful Z, for the most part and that wouldn't really be possible.  However, the short holiday was really excellent and I finally did get the catalogue finished - typing on a coach is difficult and a strain on the eyes, but it's possible.  

I really want to whinge, but it'll be much better to write it down when it's all sorted out and I can look back and pretend it wasn't that bad after all.

We did finally find both tortoises.  Wince searched out one while I was away and I found the other when I came home.  They weren't buried very deep, but camouflage is good.  Now, both are in their autumn indoor quarters, but Leo (the tortoise formerly known as Anastasia) is just as determined to go to sleep and  burrows down as far as he can.  Fyodor (ex Natasha) is eating enthusiastically and is active.  I'm not quite sure what to do, it still seems too early for full hibernation.

Scrabble, the oldest bantam, died last month.  She was ten and a half years old and, until the last week or so, had been very well, but I think she had a mild stroke or a seizure, because she seemed confused one evening and didn't know how to eat.  After a couple of days, she managed again, but she kept twitching her head to one side.  I left her in the henhouse, she wasn't distressed and seemed happier with the other chickens, going out every day and then onto the perch at night, but I didn't really expect her to recover.  Eventually, she retreated to a nest box at night - still enjoying mealworms, fed by hand as usual - but for the last couple of days she couldn't even get up there.  I brought her indoors for her last day - which was my birthday, as it happens.  It's par for the course.  Russell died on a grandchild's birthday and Tim died on my son-in-law's.  Rotten timing all round.

Now, I have ten bantams, all 5 or 6 years old.  I need to decide in the next six months whether to get another cockerel or not.  These are all descended from our original flock, dumped in the churchyard more than 35 years ago and, if they die out, I won't necessarily stop having chickens but I won't have chicks.  I honestly don't know.  It's easier without a cockerel - simply because my lovely little girls are such good mothers, they vanish and then turn up 3 weeks later with a brood of chicks.  So, if I don't want chicks, I can't let them free range.  And then there's the problem of surplus cocks.  But they are such dear little hens and I don't want to lose the family.  I suspect I'll regret either decision.

The days grow short, when you reach September, but what about the tortoises?

 The tortoises have been pretty quiet for a few weeks.  But they woke up and were interested in life a few days ago, so I bathed them and fed them - one wasn't interested in the food, but the other ate.  I've looked for them every day since but, other than Fyodor the next day, they've stayed out of sight.  Yesterday, Wince spent the whole morning building them an inside run and I, today, bought a whole lot of topsoil and got it ready for them.  Then went tortoise hunting.  I've found one of them, the top of his shell being 3 inches underground, the other must be close by as the earth is hard or grassed over in the rest of their secure run.  

I'm hesitating.  It might be quite a shock to a sleeping tortoise, to be dug up.  Yet they stopped eating 3 or 4 weeks ago and it's a long time until March, if they hibernate the whole time.  I was hoping to feed them up for a month or six weeks, gradually wind them down for another month and then let them sleep.  I'll decide tomorrow.  Ronan and the children are coming over, so I'll ask him to help me take their cold frame away, so I can get to them more easily, if I want to wake them up.

We had thought of meeting in Norwich, but it's more time efficient for me if they come over here, I'll have an extra hour or so to get on with things.  I've got so much to do before I go away on Sunday.  But there's no point in fussing about it.  I'll do whatever I can and take my laptop with me.  Can one type on a coach?  I'm thinking of squirrelling myself away at the back and working throughout the journey to Cheltenham.

On another subject entirely, I have a nail that starts to split when it grows much beyond the nail bed.  I can't remember ever damaging it, so it's quite odd.  There isn't a visible crack, but it goes at the same place every time.  So annoying.  However, the success story of the summer is my eyelashes.

I'm going all girly on you, so apologies and I'll totally understand if you quietly leave at this point.  But it's one of the things, when you get old, that your previously lovely eyelashes stop being lovely, but are short and stubby.  Then I heard about eyelash serum - on the comments page of the Times (I've a feeling I've written about this, have I?) and bought some and, well, it's spectacular.  It took a few weeks, but they are now magnificent.  The other thing is eyebrows, which either get bristly and beetling or else pretty well vanish - mine were somewhere in the middle, but I'd resorted to filling in the gaps.  Friends, eyelash serum works on eyebrows too.  Only problem is that I now need them professionally tidied up as they're so thick. I've actually turned back time.  Three cheers for eyelash serum, which is actually one of the ingredients for a treatment for glaucoma.  I've stopped using it, because I was starting to feel like Dumbo, but with lashes rather than ears.  I'm not sorry that I haven't found a growth serum for ears.  I wouldn't mind having ears that rotated like a hare's, though.  Wouldn't it be great?

I have a lot of eggs, but I also have a small, but tempting cauliflower and a lot of milk.  Cauliflower cheese and a hardboiled egg?  I've also got runner beans.  I don't want to cook because of the difficulty of washing up, but - well, it sounds tasty.  And cooking is what Z does.

November is looking more promising...

 My darling friend Lynn's birthday is a fortnight after mine, so today is the midway spot between the two of us.  I have not yet bought her a present, nor thanked her for mine.  There was an exhibition of spinning and weaving in Yagnub the week before last and I'd hoped I might find her something there - sadly, I didn't make it there until the last day and everything that I thought would have really suited her was already sold.  I suspect I know what I'll send, but it's perishable, so I hope her beloved hasn't whisked her away on holiday.  I must deal with it soon, anyway.

Absolute chaos still at the Zedery.  I'm mightily pissed off with the kitchen fitter, who has been an arse.  Quite simply, because he hasn't kept anyone informed, so the kitchen units turned up the morning after the old kitchen had been stripped and he hadn't told Magnet - who had employed him on my behalf - that he had no intention of coming that morning.  He has been awkward and obstructive and he has one more chance, next week.  And I can't really talk about it because it takes a lot to make me angry and he has and I don't need to fan the flames.  I'd rather calm myself down.

My friends Pam and Peter have moved into a very luxurious nursing home in the town a few miles away.  I went to visit them the other day - I felt very bad, that I hadn't been before, but they're too stressed to want unannounced visitors and they haven't been answering their phone.  Anyway, they have a very nice room, but it absolutely won't do in the long term.  Poor Pam has a bed tucked in a corner, because Peter needs so much care that his has to take centre position, with room for a hoist and a wheelchair too.  I've talked to their daughter about the situation - Pam is woken every night when they come to look after Peter.  She's seriously thinking of going back to their house for a couple of nights, just to get some sleep.  For what they're paying, they should have a bedroom and a sitting room, at the least.  

In the midst of all, I'm working on the auction catalogue.  I've never been so behind, but I'll have to try very hard to spot all mistakes before the catalogue itself is formatted, so that it'll just be tweaking at that stage.  I'm running out of time, however.  I need the first draft ready by Saturday night, but I'm out most of tomorrow, on Friday morning and on Saturday; then I'm going away from Sunday morning to Thursday evening.  I used to be able to do paperwork in the evenings after everyday work all day, but I simply can't now.  Our old friend Dave East kindly came over to help with the photography yesterday, as I'd sounded so distressed on Facebook.  I don't usually show it when I'm that agitated any more, but I'm glad I did, because I appreciated his help and friendship and enjoyed his company.  And today, I didn't cancel my visit to Norwich - which I would have done, back in the day, when I put work first - but then stayed on for lunch (I've learned to like going into a nice restaurant and asking for a table for one) and then bought clothes - nothing interesting, just jeans and sensible shoes for my trip away next week, which will involve a lot of walking.  

I also dealt with some bank admin.  I now need to write a covering letter and post stuff off.  I've also got to book Tim's car's MOT and, before that, get a chip in the windscreen repaired.

In short, I'm coping, but there's a lot to do.  

Z will be back

 Thank you, I'm sorry I've worried you lovely friends.  I'm fine, I'm quite harassed and I'm also very busy.  At one time, I'd still have blogged, even if it had been from my phone at 11.55 pm and I'd been nearly asleep.  It's not a bad thing that I've moved on from that.  

In short, I don't have a kitchen yet, I do have a bathroom and a cloakroom floor, I'm okay, my family is okay, I'll blog as soon as the catalogue for the next auction is under control.