We had some shock news at the end of last week, in amongst all the deaths that have suddenly happened. A politician that I didn’t agree with at all was found dead in her home. At first it appeared she’d ‘died suddenly’, but as Fridayrolled out, so too did the news that she’d actually been murdered.
As I say, I didn’t agree with anything this woman stood for or championed. But the amount of posts I’ve seen where folk are gleeful that she’s died make me feel sick to the stomach. Honestly, people. A 78-year-old woman who lived alone died in what appears to be a horrific manner. And the police are saying she was attacked 24 hours before she was discovered with serious injuries.
Dreadful news, dreadful behaviour. And the fact that most of the hate speech is coming from the far left makes me ashamed to be a socialist. I’m not far left, I’m left of centre. But I hate, detest, being tarred with the same brush.
The mobile internet here is patchy at best and we’re struggling to get online other than via social media or a bit of browsing on our phones. We’re watching satellite television and we have all the channels. But we don’t have streaming, we don’t have boxed sets, and we don’t have catch-up. It’s okay, we’re actually catching up with a few old films we’ve not seen for a while, and a brand-new one premiered on Friday that we have yet to watch. But we will be glad when we’re connected to the internet.
The temperatures dropped a little at the weekend and we had some respite from the heatwave. But they’re on the way up again this week. We did have rain forecast for this coming Friday, so I hope that still comes. We’ve been walking the dog of an evening, and getting bitten to bits in the process by night insects. It’s much cooler, though, and hardly anyone is still out at 9:30pm or 10pm.
On Saturday afternoon we went to look at some tiles for the new bathroom, and we brought the poet’s mum over to see the house. We had bacon sandwiches and iced (frosted?) bakewell slices with ice-cold pop (soda). The poet did the shopping on his way home from taking his mum back, and we took the dog on a slightly different walk.
He’s loving the meadow, but there’s a big rabbit colony living there. It’s been lovely to see them scampering around at twilight. However, the dog wants to play with them and keeps yanking at his lead trying to get to them. So we took him on a different walk in the neighbourhood on Saturday night. We were going to have fish and chips from our new local chippy, but it was too hot and the poet picked up lots of salad instead.
On Sunday, the new curtain pole went up in what will be the office, and a pair of blackout curtains we brought with us were hung at the window. Then the poet went around adding tieback hooks and matching tiebacks to all the curtains we brought with us now in use, something that never got done at any of the houses we lived in previously! I was amazed we still had them all.
The poet’s mum asked us to get her a floor fan like one of ours and we spent a good chunk of the day looking for one. But they were all out of stock, or USB-connection only. She doesn’t want one with a USB on it. The poet tried the Zon, who could deliver one in January… I went through several other retailers – Argos, Dunelm Mill, Curry’s, Tesco, ScrewFix – until I finally found one at Tool Station that the poet could pick up on Monday. I passed the details over to him and he placed the order.
We replaced two lampshades with shades we’d brought with us, and we made a bit more room in the junk room-come future office. I also browsed through a few paint brochures and narrowed down the colours we’ll be painting the house. I think the walls and ceilings will be a very pale jade wash in a ‘colour drench’, apart from two feature walls and the chimney wall, which will all have wallpaper. The woodwork will all be brilliant white satin. And the decorative plasterwork will be brilliant white eggshell.
Having more of our own things around us is making it all feel a bit more like home. It’s also helping us envisage how we want it all to look by the end of this first phase.
On Monday, the new fridge/freezer arrived and was installed in the garage. I had to leave it turned off for four hours, then turn it on for two hours before we could start using it. We’d planned to go ‘freezer shopping’ on Tuesday, but if it’s ready Monday evening, we might have decided to go then instead. The car port at the side of the house came down on Monday too. We hope the campervan will fit alongside the house now, in front of the garage. The car port roof was too low for the high-top van.
The poet had a work cancellation and was able to go and collect that fan for his mother and take it round before going back to work. She loved it.
I didn’t get a lot of time to do much work on Monday, due to the workers and the delivery men, but I did manage to post yesterday’s blog post, which the internet refused to upload last week. And I wrote and scheduled today’s. I’ve also started to learn about writing horror stories, which have never really been my forte, but I did enjoy writing the story about the clown puppet a couple of years ago as part of my publishing challenge. I think I may narrow it down to ghost stories and cosy horror stories, the latter sub-genre wasn’t even one I knew existed. I see more reading in my future…
Today, the workmen are coming back to dress the brickwork where the car port damaged it, to cap the chimney, and to replace some roof and ridge tiles. Fortunately, we found spare roof tiles in the garden and the only thing we have to buy extra is a single ridge tile. The new oven is also coming today, but we won’t be able to use it until the poet has made a suitable gap in the kitchen worktop. There’s currently a hob (stove) sitting in the worktop and a big gap below (we still need to eat). He wants to tidy up the edges after he’s cut the counter.
This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.
