Lola II to the rescue

Stuff, December 2018

I only took one day off work apart from Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, and spent three out of those four days away from home so I'm still very behind on reporting my pre-Christmas activity, and it's 2019 already! Happy New Year!

Lola II paid me a mercy visit for a day in December because I had (and still have) so many niggling jobs to be done and was finding it almost impossible to concentrate on making a start on them. She was very effective - not by doing anything much more than making it more interesting for me to do all these jobs, although she did come up with a few really useful suggestions.

We started by sorting out some of the stuff in boxes that have been in my hall for about a year, waiting for me to decide whether to take them to a car boot, or auction them on eBay, or give them away through Freegle, or sell them with shpock, Facebook marketplace or NextDoor. So many choices, so much procrastination. What I actually did with Lola II's support was take them to the municipal tip, where there is an Age UK shop. They took the good stuff and I sent the rest into landfill or recycling. There is still more to do on this front, but at least some of it has disappeared from my hallway.

Then we went off to the carpet shop to confirm my preferences for the Auditorium and find out why there were no online options to book a visit for estimation purposes. The man in the huge showroom was difficult to pin down - all his colleagues were away and he was responsible for the whole warehouse on his own - and he winced when I told him my postcode. With some difficulty he found someone to come out just after Christmas, in the evening, and I handed over a deposit. Result.

Carpet salesman confused at why we would want to take a photo of him

Subsequently I received a call saying that there had been a mistake and unfortunately the estimate couldn't be done that day, but they would re-arrange a visit. Which they did, scheduling it for 9.30 a.m. on New Year's Day. So I had to rearrange it again.

Coming back to Leamington from the carpet showroom I left the car with the car wash people because of an unfortunate incident with some dog poo outside my garage. Lola II and I had lunch in a new steakhouse in town, returning to the car wash via the cake shop. The beef industry has coined the term 'surf and turf' in order to pair steak with seafood; the Lola department has found a better combination in 'steak and cake'.

In a nicely cleaned car I drove Lola II to an art supplies shop so she could buy something for this year's Christmas card manufacturing effort - despite this being a day all about me, I felt it was only fair to give her just a moment for herself. Then it was back home and more of my odd jobs until it was time to stop working and have some fun. We watched a film in the Auditorium, wrapped in a duvet because without any flooring or carpet the room is seriously draughty, and ate chestnuts.