Coping with chaos

Head Rambles Posted on by 15

I am living in a world of chaos.

I was looking forward to a quieter day today but again the fates were out to get me.

To give an idea of the chaos, I give you a glimpse of our house [what’s left of it] –

A hole

Now that is not a dud photograph, nor is there low cloud in the vicinity. No, that’s pure unadulterated dust. It is coating everything and everyone. The hole also involved just a little bit of noise. But that eventually became –

A bigger hole
A bigger hole

After yet more noise, consisting mainly of banging, drilling and jack-hammering with a little pinch of screwdrivering, the hole became this –

A door
A filled hole

There is still a ton of work to be done. Plastering, wallpaper stripping, painting, shifting, cleaning and possibly a lot more shifting

To add to the confusion we suddenly had a house full of visitors of various shapes forms and ages. The poor dog nearly had a nervous breakdown, especially as there was a visiting dog as well. The cat just retreated to her/his/its bed and refused to budge.

I dream that some day in the future all the work will be finished and I can return to a normal life. But that dream is a bit like Brexit.

It should be coming but we don’t know when.

Foretelling my future

Head Rambles Posted on by 2

Yesterday was a little on the hectic side.

Herself had an appointment in the hospital but she wasn’t sure what for. It is things like that that make life interesting?

It transpired that the appointment was for injections which was fine though it meant a bit of waiting which didn’t bother me as they have free wifi and I have a decent phone. Herself wasn’t too pleased at being ignored but that’s life.

Apparently she has to go in again next week for xrays and various tests and things and then back yet again in a fortnight [or so] for her operation. After that she’ll spend maybe a week in the hospital and then another week in a rehabilitation nursing home.

So it looks like I’ll be all on my own for two weeks with just Penny and Cat for company.

I sent a message to Daughter with the proposed timetable, as she had expressed a passing interest.

I got a one word reply.

“PARTY!!!!!””

She knows me too well.

Slow Motion Explosion

Head Rambles Posted on by 16

There is something oddly fascinating watching a political system self destruct.

Right from the very start it was obvious that Brexit wasn’t going to work. Norn Iron is part of the UK. That isn’t going to change. There can be no customs barrier between Norn Iron and the Republic. That cannot change with all the agreements that have been signed.

The options therefore are that Britain leaves the EU but breaks with Norn Iron. The Unionists will promptly rise up and probably start another war up there. Or the UK leaves in its entirety in which case customs posts will reappear and the IRA will have something to say about that.

To do anything other than those two options will mean only a partial break with the EU which will probably lead to an uprising in Britain. So Tessie May is running around like a headless chicken desperately trying to satisfy everyone which is impossible. She is stuck between democracy on one side and a morass of treaties, laws and obligations on the other.

In the meantime the entire political system in the UK has torn itself apart and is going to have one hell of a job reassembling itself before the next election, if it ever does.

Down here [in the real Ireland] we will be affected by the eventual outcome. There is little doubt that the UK will in all likelihood crash out spectacularly. Customs posts aside, that means that prices here will go up. There may not be a reason for those price hikes, but the opportunity for business to shriek that price rises are necessary just because of Brexit will be too good to miss. It’s a bit like all the prices going up when we decimalised and again when we joined the Euro.

The whole process is the true definition of a Right Royal Fuckup.



Working shift

Head Rambles Posted on by 5

Today is my work day.

I seem to have settled into a pattern of doing a day’s hard graft and then taking the following day off.

Sunday was my last work day. I managed to shift the filing cabinet out to the front garden. That may sound like a simple job but for one thing – I had forgotten how fucking heavy filing cabinets can be, even after removing all the drawers.

Neighbour gave me a loan of a trolley thing [are they called sack carriers?]. The only problem is that it had been living unused in their garden for the last twenty years or so. It was rusted solid. So for the previous couple of days I had been squirting WD40 and oil into the axle at regular intervals, and on Sunday I finally got the wheels to turn, but only just. They are still very stiff.

So my filing cabinet now resides on the front lawn beside the front door. I might leave it there as it would be a handy spot for the postman to leave parcels instead of waking me up in the early hours. He dropped in some letters [through the letterbox] this morning and I would love to know what he thought of it.

Also in the front garden there is now a pile of desk. I got sick of checking the on-line advertisements so I just took a hammer to it. Very satisfying!

I started painting the floor too. It’s cheaper and easier than laying a new floor, or putting down carpet. It gives me a chance to constantly admire my handiwork too – I laid that floor around fifty years ago and there is hardly a gap in it.

I finally found someone to insert a door as well. It’s going to be a messy job but Herself wants a door so it has to be done. The noise and mess are preferable to herself in a strop. That’s to be started next weekend.

Today I would hope to nearly finish the painting [still a lot of shit to move first]. I’ll be glad when the whole fucking exercise is finished.

Tomorrow I shall rest!

Watch what I did

Head Rambles Posted on by 8

It happens every time.

I think that switching time won’t affect me and that it is a mere blip on my daily routine but then Summer Time arrives.

So I sit here with my morning cuppa and I glance at the time on my laptop. Fuck! It’s later than I thought it was. The day is half over and I haven’t even started yet.

The physical aspect of clock changing isn’t too bad. My laptop, my mobile and even the central heating have all reset themselves. The clocks just need their hands moved a bit. The time on the kitchen equipment such as the oven and the microwave are dead easy.

Then it comes to my watch.

My watch is a bastard to adjust. For a start it’s like most modern stuff – it does a ton of things that I would never use and are only there to confuse me. Apart from analogue and digital displays it is a stopwatch and a timer. It has a World Time [?] function. There is a telememo thing that apparently lets me store phone numbers or something. It has a countdown timer and probably a host of other irritations. And to control all of this, there are just four buttons.

So I have to delve back into my archives to find the instructions for setting digital and analogue times. Luckily I have said instructions in digital format so I know where to find them.

It took about a quarter of an hour but I finally cracked it. My watch now tells approximately the right time. I can forget it for another six months or so.

Roll on the abolition of this biannual nonsense..