h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Booo, Monday morning again. Still, I console myself with the fact that I only have a two day week this week. I went to Homebase yesterday and got the rest of the stuff I need for the decorating so I shall be able to get stuck in on Wednesday morning.

I like painting but I hate all the preparation. The likelihood is that it will be gone lunchtime by the time I have stripped the paper and sanded the woodwork.

I hope your brother's trip is not wasted tomorrow. I haven't heard anything yet about any strikes at the college where I work. One of my colleagues has a partner who lectures here, so I will ask her later if she knows anything.

Liz
~

It may be Monday but it was a very good day; lots of sunshine and the smell of daffodils. I have three days of lectures this week, but I've lots of work to do on the remaining days.

It does take ages to get wallpaper off. There's always lots of small bits that stay stuck to the wall and take ages to peel. Hopefully the paper will come off in one go.

My brother's here; the interviews are going ahead anyway. I just set the bed up for him and left him to get some sleep. The strike is going ahead; my morning lecture has been cancelled but the afternoon ones are probably still on. The first one is being given by a guest speaker so will definitely run and the other one probably will as it didn't last week due to the lecturer thinking it was Thursday.

If your lecturers don't know what day it is, then I think you're in trouble

I hope your brothers interview goes well.

I'm not exactly rushed of my feet at work today, which is probably a good thing. I expect to be VERY busy at home tomorrow.

Why does the weather have to go and turn so chuffing cold? I'm going to have to turn off the gas heater in my bathroom so that I can cover it to avoid getting it full of dust and paint. I'm gonna freeze

I found it slightly reasuring that 'm not the only one who can't handle days of the week. I've not missed lectures as a result though.

My brother's interview did go well he says; will jsut have to wait and see what offer he gets now.

It's a little chilly certainly . The sun's stronger now though (when it's out) so it feels a bit warmer in the sun.

All the best for the painting opertaions.

Well, painting not going too well so far. I spent all morning masking things up, ripping off wallpaper etc, but hit two problems. One was that one of the walls is not as good as I had hoped, so I had to do a lot of filling, which delayed things. The other problem was that I could not turn the screws to detatch the loo roll holder from the wall (and I have a bruised hand to prove it), so had to wait for Chris to get home from work at about 3 o'clock. He couldn't undo the screws either, so he just ripped the thing off the wall, taking a large chunk of wall with him.

Chris was duly despatched to the DIY shop to buy plaster to repair the wall, while I got on with the sanding (I HATE sanding). He has put one lot of filler into the holes he made, but it is still not dry. He plans to do the next lot when he gets home from playing snooker tonight (at about 11:30!!!) and hopefully it will be dry enough for me to sand and paint it tomorrow.

So, as we ended up with holes in the wall, I wasn't able to start the emulsioning. I have done the first coat of gloss though, so now the whole house stinks. Tomorrow, I will have to do AT LEAST two coats of emulsion as well as the second gloss coat. Luckily, it is a small room (8'x6'), so it should only take an hour or so to do each coat, and emulsion dries fairly quickly. If I start early and finish late, I reckon I could do three coats tomorrow, or alternatively I can get up early on Friday and do another coat then, which should still be dry by the time the floor man comes at 1pm. I'll be going back to work for a holiday at this rate!

Holes in the wall can't be a good thing. Last time I had to mix up some plaster to fill them up as polyfiller just wasn't enough. Sanding certainlytakes it; I find it very annoying when the plaster dust keeps clogging up the sandpaper.

I hope tomorrow's painting involves more paint.

I got loads of painting done yesterday, three coats of emulsion and the final gloss coat, done in three shifts finally finishing at 9pm last night. This morning I started clearing up ready for the floor man to come this afternoon. But nothing is ever that straight forward is it?
As I was tidying up this morning, I looked at the state of the hardboard that covers the floorboards in my bathroom and a brief, fleeting thought passed through my mind “Do they need to lay something over this mess before they lay the vinyl?” It was a thought that I should have paid more attention to, for lo, when the nice men arrived (an hour and a half late, but we’ll let that pass), Mr Chief Floor Layer said “I wouldn’t recommend laying vinyl over this, it needs re-boarding. So they are coming back on Tuesday to re-board the bathroom and lay the vinyl. So, I now have another three-and-a-bit days of walking on manky old hardboard.

On the plus side, it does look much cleaner in there now it is painted and I shall nag Chris to put my nice new blind up tomorrow, so it will look better then anyway. I’ve now got to suck up to my boss to see if I can have the day off on Tuesday.

Oh no! All that work an you have to wait until Tuesday to get it finished off. Hope you do manage to get the day off .

There was a bit of snow on the ground this morning. Not much though, and it's melted already.

We had a little bit of snow overnight here too, but it was all melted by about eleven o'clock. Some horrible sleety stuff has been falling for the last hour. Not nice. I'm very glad I don't have to go out today.

Anyway, I had better get off here and go and finish cleaning the bathroom - it would be really nice to have a bath tonight, or at least wash my hair.

Have a good weekend.

Now sleet is horrible stuff. Sticky, wet, cold and no good for making snowballs out of.

A long soak in the bath is a very good idea, especially on a cold day like today.

I didn't stay too long in the bath - I had re-glued two tiles and I didn't want to get things too steamy in case the glue wasn't properly dry - but I felt a million times better for a quick dip and a hair wash. I spent an-hour-and-a-half trying to fit a new toilet seat and gave up in the end. The trouble was, you have to completely remove it in order to adjust the locking screws on the hinges, but every time I took it off, I couldn't remember what I needed to do to adjust it so progress was slow. So I had to manage with no loo seat until Chris came home today. He took four goes to get it to sit in place and not wobble about, but it still doesn't sit right. I think I've got a defective toilet It seems to be a bit wonky

Anyway, I did such a good job with my tile repairs that Chris couldn't tell which two I had re-fixed, so at least that worked out OK.

I haven't done much today - too tired! I'm not used to all this hard work. I've finished off the housework that I didn't do last night because I was bogging about with the, er, bog! I've also tidied up my computer workstation so that piles of paperwork don't keep falling onto my keyboard while I am trying to type. What an exciting life I lead.

I can hear that the tumble dryer has stopped and so has the washing machine, so I had better go and empty them. A woman's work is never done!

Liz
~

Well, it could instead be a woky toilet seat.

Good that the tiles worked out fine anyway.

Been out most of the day myself. Went to play badminton (for the first time since school) with some friends and then went to one of their houses. It was one of those times when stay for a cup of tea and don't actually leave for another five hours. Concequently I haven't done my bit of housework. I'm meant to clean the bathroom this week, will have to do it after the walk tomorrow.

There's always something else to do.

I'm not sure which would be the worst job really, cleaning the bathroom or doing homework

Did you go somewhere nice for your walk? I won another tenner on the lotto so I walked to the papershop to collect my winnings. Apart from going to the supermarket this morning, that's the only fresh air I've had today.

Both together generally.

The last time wasn't long ago. Went to the Roaches, in the Peaks. It's a very nice area and there was even a little snow in places so we had the odd snowball fight. Went to Ludd's Church (basically a fault line but a very nice one as far as holes in the ground go).

I'm glad you had a nice walk. We've had some more snow here overnight but it has already melted.

I'm back at work today and I'm exhausted

I don't think I am going to get much done tomorrow. I have plans to go out tomorrow afternoon after the flooring people have been, but the way I feel at the moment, I think I will be spending the day asleep.

Today was bright and sunny; no snow but a lovely spring day.

A cup of perhaps?

Fortunately I've had a reasonable dossage of fresh air, which is essential in keeping me awake so I've got quite a lot of work done. Just as well seeing as I did practically nothing work wise over the weekend. Hope you're able to do tomorrow what you wanted, though a day of lollaping doesn't seem too bad a substitute.

Well, I got a big pile of ironing done yesterday morning (how thrilling). The floor blokes didn't arrive until midday and they took two hours to do the work, so by the time I had cleaned up after them, I didn't have much time to run my errands. I did pop out briefly to do one or two things locally, but I didn't have time to go into town.

The new flooring in the bathroom looks very nice. The damage to my fresh paintwork doesn't look so great though and neither does the kitchen ceiling. The hammering upstairs has caused some plaster to fall down in the kitchen so I now have a three week wait for the ceiling man to come and sort that out. That is why the tidying up operations took so long, I had to do two rooms. While I was wiping up all the plaster dust in the kitchen, I managed to break two of my storage jars, so it really wasn't a good day.

And I still feel exhausted.

Ah well, musn't grumble

It's like that song, argh, what's it called? 'It all makes a work for the working man to do'? Something on those lines anyway. At least the bathroom floor looks good.

I believe the song you are refering to is "The Gas Man Cometh" by Flanders and Swan (which my Dad used to play to us far too often when we were growing up). The first verse goes:

It was on a Monday morning that the gas man came to call
The gas tap wouldn't turn, I wasn't getting gas at all
He tore out all the skirting boards to try and find the main
And I had to call a carpenter to put them back again
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do

Yes, the bathroom floor does look good. The toilet seat has come loose again though (the old one used to work itself loose about once a week too)

Ah that's the one. I've only heard it once and didn't know what it was called.

Maybe you do have a wonkey toilet.