A week where it's all going wrong

Well the week certainly started off with a bang. When I got up on Monday morning and ventured into the garage to put some washing on, I found a complete mess. During the early hours sometime between going to bed and awakening, the wall mounted kitchen cupboards had fallen off the walls. We use these cupboard to store our stockpiles of food and the entire contents were scattered all over the garage floor. I even found tins behind the washing machine! My first impression was that we'd been burgled but on closer inspection I saw that the fixings had come right out of the wall. The fittings were not strong enough to support the cupboards and over a period of time have obviously come loose and finally given way. One of the units looks fairly smashed up so lets hope Phil can repair and make good and restore my garage to its former glory. Lets hope so.

 

Phil managed to get the shower to work on Sunday afternoon by simply turning on the hot water tap upstairs while I turned on the kitchen taps. He then tried the shower and whoopee it worked. Maybe it was air in the pump, I don't know but thankfully the pump hasn't been making anymore whirring noises since but me feels its only a matter of time before the pump burns out . But so far, so good, especially as we've had Christine staying for a couple of nights and it would have been a little bit awkward not having a working shower. Christine arrived at ours just after 7pm on Monday evening, Phil went to bed early so it gave us a chance to catch up. However, she had an event in London on Tuesday evening so by the time she got back, we were all just about to go to sleep.

We got an invite in the post last week inviting us to Mads 50^th birthday celebrations, a dinner-cum-dance at Robinsons in Newport. The invitation requested that the ladies wear pink and the gents dress to compliment their partners. Basically I do not have a pink dress in my wardrobe so I decided to dye my cream (wedding) dress bright pink. It wasn't an expensive dress, although very sentimental to me, but to be honest I haven't worn it since my big day so if it was a disaster then it wouldn't be the end of my world.

 

I haven't done any dyeing for years and had forgotten what a pa lava it is; actually its come a long way since I first tried my hand at changing the colour of stuff and after all the dipping and stirring it worked and the pink looked very even. The trouble was, I didn't like the vibrant pink as much as the cream. I cut the bows and stuff off with nail scissors (bit of a bodge job) and now its dry but the pattern in the material looks like an old fashioned pub carpet thats been vomited on by someone that's drunk too much red wine. I don't know whether I can convince myself that it looks good enough to get away with but if not I shall have to buy a new dress; Cinderella will be going to the ball!

 

Sue emailed me and then followed up with a telephone call on Monday afternoon. I was pleased to hear from her and happy to hear that Alan had actually managed to get out of Willen for an hour last Thursday. He expressed a wish to go to M&S for a sticky bun and Sue managed to get him in the car and they parked up in a disabled space right outside M&S using their newly acquired disabled sticker. Sue wheeled Alan into the store for his treat but they got back to the car only to discover they'd been issued with a parking ticket. It was the first time they'd used the disabled permit and Sue hadn't realised she'd put it in the wrong way round. Naturally, this didn't make them very happy especially in the circumstances and as Sue told me, later that day they were able to laugh about it. As she said, if you don't laugh you'd cry.

I nearly cried myself on Tuesday afternoon; I'd put on the dishwasher on a normal cycle when I got back from the gym, meant to do it first thing but I clean forgot. Anyway, after Phil went back to work after lunch I noticed some strange brown liquid underneath the dishwasher. I got down on my hands and knees and because our machine is in a raised unit, I could see and feel a pool of water underneath. I then noticed that the mat by the back door felt damp and after mopping up the water underneath the dishwasher unit I lifted the map up and underneath was soaking wet. I promptly slung it out the back garden to dry and then cleaned up the water. Once it was all dry I felt the pipes and they were dry but lying out vertical on the kitchen floor, I could see that the base of the dishwasher was seriously split. My suspicion is that the dishwasher itself is leaking underneath and its a big job to get it out, we know from the last time, when we ended up having to replace the dishwasher the day before we moved out. That's why I am surprised because the dishwasher is not that old. What with the shower pump, the kitchen units and the dishwasher leaking, I feel that this house is falling apart. Bit like me really; lets hope we can sell up and move out before it all comes tumbling down around us.

On Tuesday afternoon I had to wait in for Phil's delivery, a box of tools being delivered any time after 12pm from Tool Box. As my bad luck would have it, Fed Ex didn't turn up until quarter to four but I don't suppose it mattered that much as my afternoon was busy tidying up the debris in the garage and mopping up the water in the kitchen. Both my garage and kitchen tiled floors are so squeaky clean that you could eat your dinner off them. I was knackered and after a late night on Monday evening and all my exertions from cleaning I went to bed at 7pm to read.

 

Oh dear its all moans and groans this week and the week is not yet over. This morning after removing all the bottles of booze from the top off the dishwasher unit and cleaning that and then all the sticky bottles, I went to the gym and tried my very first ever Zumba class. It was, as Emma recently commented, very up-tempo but great fun. I managed to keep up no problem but my technique was way out. Try as I did, I couldn't co-ordinate, bum wiggling, rotating the hips and jumping around the studio and don't even go there on the arm movements. So much for sexy Latin American dancing, when I saw myself in the mirrors I looked like I was doing a modern version of the Funky Chicken dance! I think had I of had several glasses of wine before the class, myZumba technique would have been perfect but that would defeated the object. I won't be doing Zumba dancing again in a hurry; next up for experiment is Body Combat. There must be something out there in the exercise class universe that I can do, surely?