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| Auditorium, February 2019 |
LTRP
The carpet fitters were due on Monday, so on Sunday I moved all the furniture out that hadn't already been moved and took up the remaining remnants of carpet and underlay, cutting them up to make it easier to shift them. This was much harder work and took much longer than I was expecting.
Monday: carpet time! for the Auditorium and upstairs hall. The two fitters arrived as scheduled and the work went without a hitch, although as anticipated they had to take the door off because it needs shaving a little off the bottom to go over the carpet. We had a useful discussion about how to manage the join at the top of the stairs and access to the cellar trapdoor in the Auditorium, they cleaned up after themselves and I made some brownies for them.
I'd been wondering for a while how difficult it was to make vegan cake, so I got a brownie recipe off the Vegan Society website and had a go. I had to make several substitutions - golden caster sugar for brown sugar, black treacle for golden syrup and ground almonds for desiccated coconut, but it was dead easy, quick, and tasted fine.
The carpet fitters also helped me move the enormous TV back into the Auditorium - I could do the rest myself, except for the piano. The carpet looks and feels absolutely wonderful, but no time to admire it on Monday night - straight out to badminton.
No time to admire the carpet on Tuesday either because I'd got in touch with Olf the builder - he who took on the garage, the first job of the LTRP, so long ago. He came round first thing to talk about various outside jobs - paving, pointing, rendering, brickwork and the 'verandah' - the sloping roof attached to the garden side of the house, which has started to disintegrate. We spent an hour going round assessing what's needed and I'm now waiting for his estimate.
Apart from the usual club night and a match, there was a badminton Chinese meal social event. I love a Chinese meal as a group because you simply can't have a decent selection of dishes when there's just one of you. The match: we lost, and it included a game that my partner and I agreed was the worst we'd ever played.
I planned on doing a load of 'shopping in person' (as opposed to online) on Thursday, and I succeeded in buying a suitcase (my first!), ski socks, casters for the sofabad (now that it's standing on carpet), a protective cover for my tablet, and the binding of two carpet offcuts so they can be used as mats to cover the trapdoor to the cellar in the Auditorium. While I was out in town, as usual I found a reason to visit the greengrocer, only to discover that he was planning to close the shop in only a few weeks' time. This is indeed tragic news.
Friday was for online jobs. I made some progress towards buying a widget that will connect my hosepipe to the external tap, hoover bags and pull rings for the trapdoor. I still have to attack the holiday insurance and the energy supplier, but the biggest job of all that has been hanging over me since last July is my big trip to Brazil. If I'd known how much work it would entail I might have thought twice.
I've spent hours on this, and so has the travel agent, but it is now settled. I made a quick dash to the doctor's surgery to fill in the form about travel health and vaccinations which acquired a sense of urgency when I realised there are only seven weeks to go, along with a realisation that I have to put in my request for leave for work because they can get very shirty if lead times are less than six weeks, especially if patients' appointments have to be moved.
Tuesday was the usual meditation group. In my absence the introductory course had attracted twelve newcomers, of whom five returned this week - almost as many as the old timers. They benefited from the brownies that the carpet fitters left.
Earlier that day I had visited the school where I play badminton on Mondays to look at hiring one of their rooms for the Buddhist group, and here is where I admit that I have been co-opted onto the Committee, despite my resolution not to get too involved in the organisation. The trouble is that the group was dwindling - although many people are associated with it, attendance at Tuesday meetings was down to an average of six, which isn't enough to meet the cost of the hall if everyone gave the suggested donation. Anyway, all involved in the Committee are very glad to have fresh blood, and I am drawing upon my advanced skills acquired in organising social events for the badminton club in order to organise social events for the Buddhists, as well as offering my house as an alternative meditation location.
The first social event was tea and cake in a cafe on Saturday afternoon. Despite my advanced organising skills the event attracted only myself, the other social organiser with whom I'm sharing the job, his wife (who isn't part of the practising group), and another couple of committee members and their four year old son. Not a huge success, and it seems likely that there are far fewer people than I hoped who are interested in the social aspect of the group. Our second social event is going to be a walk, so we'll see how we get on with that.
Off up the horrible M6 I went on Wednesday to visit lovely H+B, where I was royally treated to lunch and cake as well as reading some of H's recent forays into creative writing, which were all very good, rather entertaining, and as his group has commented, 'clever'. A bit too clever for me; H had to accompany me on one particular piece to explain all the jokes (I think I got about two thirds of them on my own). Would anyone else know that Prior Art is a reason not to award a patent? Or recognise a line from the poem 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'?
Films: due to the large amount of admin and other activities I hardly had time for the film-fest that a whole week off work at home should have produced. I did manage to get to the cinema to watch the Oscar-nominated film Green Book about a black pianist touring the Deep South of America in the 1950s, and I watched The Commune on iPlayer - a Danish film set in the 1970s about a bunch of people who decide to cohabit in a large house one of them has inherited. The last film was from my DVD subscription: Journey's End - a first world war story that was originally a play, ending as most first world war stories do.
And to complete the account of almost everything I did for a week, there was also the first music group of the year, which was a little disappointing as I'm not that keen on the choice of music this time, or the arrangement. My fellow baritone sax player, however, is very pleased at the simpler arrangement - he is an improviser and struggled with all the notes in previous arrangements.
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