Renovation and transformation

Graveyard, Salzburg, October 2012

There may not be anything about diabetes in this post! I can't guarantee it - in fact, I think there will be a brief reference to diabetes, because of Mr M. But apart from that, maybe none.

The last week has been most interesting. Mr A and I travelled south to see off his mother in a moving ceremony at the crematorium, marred only by a mobile phone ringing at the very moment when the celebrant (vicar? priest?) pressed the button that lowered the coffin at the climax of the proceedings. Mr A commented afterwards that it was in keeping with the course of his mother's life.

In less sombre mood, Lola Towers is undergoing a transformation. At the moment, it is transformed into a dirty, messy pigsty, but that is only because we have not yet cleaned up after the workers. As soon as we apply a few cleaning products to a few surfaces, things will be different.

First there was the hall and shower room. Those of you who have been around a while may remember my attempts at DIY, which went quite well. Over the intervening period, it has become clear that I should have used bathroom paint on the ceiling in the shower room, and I never did get round to painting the woodwork. The wall between the shower room and the hall has never dried out, and presumably never will unless we find the source of the dampness, which would probably mean the replacement of the entire shower and cubicle. The hall has had unpainted patches of repaired plaster for several years, but all of that is in the past - Lady Decorator did a fine job painting all of the walls, ceiling and woodwork. It looks great.

Then, following our recent assistance to Lola II and Mr M with their household DIY, they repaid the favour by spending the last weekend helping us with ours. The first thing we did was jump in the car and set off for the big DIY store, where Mr A and I bought the light switches and plug sockets that we wanted, and failed to find any suitable door handles. Then, to demonstrate further our commitment to a weekend fundamentally focused on DIY, we all went out for lunch, then Lola II and I visited one of the top ten fabric shops in the UK. On our return, Mr A and Mr M were enthusiastically replacing switches and sockets, and Lola II had a fine time with the industrial strength descaling fluid. I mostly supplied catering and support services.

[Diabetes note (I thought there would be one) - Mr M has a new tubeless insulin pump, with a handheld wireless controller. At lunch, he gave me the controller and insisted I was in charge of insulin delivery. Half way through the afternoon I caught him with glucose meter in hand and a lovely hypo in progress. I blame the higher level of activity and the fact that he didn't set a lower temporary basal rate (i.e. turn down the insulin).]

Obviously the power had been off all afternoon while the boys were tinkering with the electrics. Switching the power back on was accompanied by a tiny explosion, and it became clear that something was not right with the lighting circuit. Lola Towers is equipped with a prehistoric fuse box (none of your fancy trip switches here), and because it was getting late we decided we could live with a blown fuse and no downstairs lights for one night, and the wiring fault could be fixed the following day.

How wrong that decision turned out to be was demonstrated at about 2 a.m. when we were woken by a burglar alarm. It was quite loud - loud enough to wake us up and make us look out of the window to see if there was any suspicious activity in neighbours houses. It took several minutes for us to realise that it was our own burglar alarm, and the suspicious activity had taken place in our house earlier in the day when the power had been turned off to the alarm circuit. It had taken several hours for the backup battery to be drained, but now there wasn't anything we could do to stop the racket short of fixing the wiring, and that wasn't going to happen in the middle of the night. Eventually (and it seemed like hours) the bell stopped of its own accord, we all went back to bed, and hoped that it wouldn't go off again, which it didn't.

Sunday dawned, and we surveyed the scene afresh. Mr A decided to focus on the electrical issue, while I directed Lola II and Mr M to clean the velux windows, mow and strim the lawn, and deal with the weeds on the patio, where Mr M discovered the hard way that bees are nesting in our compost bin. Mr A made heroic efforts to untangle the mysteries of the multiple black and red wires, otherwise known as the two 2-way lighting circuits for the stairs. After several attempts and a great deal of hard thinking and help from the Internet, he triumphed. I managed to avoid most of the hard work again, because someone has to make the drinks/cook supper/provide cleaning equipment/wash up/hoover etc., haven't they?

Just as Lola II and Mr M had gone home, all was quiet, and the delight in switching lights on and off was beginning to wear off, Alf rang to say he was coming next day to do the plastering and the drains. We suspect the plaster near the fireplace had decayed from long leakage of water from the bathroom before we had the bath and pipes replaced. The drain problem came to light more recently, when we finally deduced that the damp wall was probably caused by water rising from outside (rather than descending from inside). This was confirmed when Alf told us that the two drains in question were both cracked, exposing the bottom of the wall to pretty much constant water contact. By Monday night the new drains were in, we were banned from using the bath, sinks and shower for 24 hours, and the burglar alarm was still out of action (although mercifully silent).

So in the space of a week we have acquired a newly decorated hall, new switches and sockets, sparkling velux windows (for the first time in more than ten years), a freshly mowed and strimmed lawn, descaled bathroom fixtures and fittings, another newly plastered wall, two new drains, and a layer of dust and dirt over most of the downstairs floors and furniture. But we are allowed to wash again, and, although braced for a burglar alarm service call-out charge, we have even managed to re-set the alarm to normal working. All we have to do now is a lot of cleaning up, and wait for the plaster and damp walls to dry out, and then it will be time for more decorating.

A post that very nearly isn't about diabetes

Sculpture in Austrian monastery garden, October 2012

Anyone would think that the only things I get up to are work, reading and blogging. But there are a few other aspects to life, although I have to admit, they are mainly based around badminton and commuting.

I played in a one-off Ladies doubles handicapped competition, which means that there were teams of all standards playing one another with an attempt to even things up by giving one side lots of points to start with. We were given a head start of 12 (out of 21) and didn't do too badly, although we didn't win any prizes. Then there was the local badminton League dinner dance, which is a social evening that includes presentation of all the trophies for teams that have come first in their divisions and in competitions. Our club has won nothing this year, not even the plate for the friendliest club, but we occupied more than one table and more than our fair share of the dance floor. And just to follow up this enthusiastic participation, the club actually held an AGM this year (primarily because I am the club Secretary at the moment), and people were keen enough to attend, and even vote! And, even better, there are volunteers to attend the League AGM, which I would probably have had to do if nobody had volunteered, and which I hate.

Moving on to life that is not badminton, we have started to take steps towards resumption of house preservation and restoration. Not the most enthusiastic pair when it comes to DIY, Mr A and I have reviewed the battleground and made progress in attempting certain tasks ourselves while delegating others to the reliable Alf and a badminton-playing friend who has business cards calling herself 'Lady Decorator', which I find most amusing. Mr A is hoping to build a new door for the airing cupboard, while I will permanently shorten the curtains that I tacked up temporarily ten years ago, and attempt to descale all the bathroom fixtures and fittings. We have also performed some DIY support to Lola II and Mr M, who are similarly disinclined to do it themselves, and who also lack some essential skills. Mr A provided sawing, screwing and wood shaping support, while I made Lola II strip the wallpaper that was coming away from the wall rather than painting over it. Mr A made things look much better, and I made things look much worse, but I am confident they will be better in the long run.

In relation to work, I am finding the commute to be long but tolerable, especially when I have a good book to listen to, although the car is wheezing a little at the moment and will need some attention this week. I attended a talk given by our specialist obesity dietitian, which confirmed much of what I already know. The consensus of evidence seems to be that it doesn't much matter how one loses weight (as long as nutritional balance is not compromised), but the focus must always be how that weight loss can be maintained. And that it is almost impossible for most people to use exercise and activity alone to lose weight, because we simply don't have the time - but activity is highly effective in supporting weight loss that is achieved by eating fewer calories.

That's about it when it comes to stuff that isn't about diabetes. I can report that I attended another local Diabetes UK meeting, and Mr M has kindly donated some insulin pump supplies for me to stab into my fleshier parts as an experiment, because he is getting a new pump. I have commissioned a blog post from him and Lola II about the new pump, and some photos were taken at the weekend, but we'll have to wait and see whether they can find enough time to fulfil the commission.

I still love Leamington Spa

I really do love Leamington Spa

A quick update on Leamington Spa, where it has been raining a lot recently.

Our garden

Is overflowing with goodness due to the recent rain. Mr A did mow the lawn once, and has been keeping the bird table topped up, but weeds are legion. The tulips always look beautiful as the buds mature, but the rain did what it always does: as soon as the buds open the blowsy flowers are destroyed, petals bend back and fall off and they look a mess. Mr A says they looked nice for quite some time, but I must have missed it. Bluebells are out, though the wisteria is still in bud, unlike in London last time I was there a month ago: there, the wisteria was well into flower. Weeds are flowering well, as always.

Leamington Spa

That previous blog post about the town is still pretty accurate, although there are a few amendments:

4. The skateboard ramp has been removed from the park because it was deemed unsafe. When our local Councillor came round recently to talk about expanding the bowling facility, Mr A took him to task about when skateboarding facilities might be replaced. Sports for the middle class wealthy - what about the yoof?

5. Pubs: I was going to add the Somerville Arms because it was really nice when we went there by chance one time, but the second time we went, last Sunday, it was closed. We went round the corner to the Cask and Bottle instead, which was just as nice, and more importantly, open. Although there was football on a number of screens, the commentary was in Italian (who knows why) so it wasn't too intrusive.

7. Music venues: The Assembly. Great place. Wish we went there more too, but I'm now holding back because Mr A's knees don't hold up to dancing like they used to.

11. The sushi bar came and went, and there's now a noodle restaurant there called Wofon that I have been to so many times that they have given me a 20% off loyalty card that lasts to the end of June. There's also a big banner advertising Wagamama coming soon round the corner, but the hoarding has been there for weeks and no sign of an opening date. If Wofon hadn't opened I'd be gagging for a bit of Wagamama, but I'll still be going to Wofon even when Wagamama opens.

15. The town's restaurants have changed: Wofon as above, Eleven is still the place for a treat, and Casa Valle has been replaced by Kayal which is South Indian rather than Italian but just as good. We haven't been to any of the others for ages due to austerity measures.

Our house

Not much has changed, although a significant event has been the hanging of the mirror and the installation of the light fitting in the shower room. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I eventually asked Mr A if he would do it for me. While I am certain I could have done it alone had I been a single person, it was a much more enjoyable experience providing Lola-style assistance to Mr A. I hate DIY with a passion, except for really simple straightforward things like painting, and even that didn't go without a hitch last time.

The pub

Just as good as ever, although we don't eat there much any more because of the lack of vegetable accompaniments to the relentlessly meat-and-carbohydrate nature of the food options. I tentatively asked Smurf if he would be interested in some constructive criticism of the menu, but he wasn't really interested, after all, his way is working fine. The beer is as good as ever, though, and the atmosphere always welcoming.