Last Weekend
Easter was a bit of a weird one this year. Usually it would consist of various church services, starting with communion on Thursday evening, but I just haven't been able to settle in to the church here. The services make me cringe and are just too long - it's one of those places that repeats the same song 4 or 5 times in a row during their more freeform worship times and so it's not unusual for an ordinary service to take nearly 2 hours! I also am just old fashioned, as I really don't like Common Worship, give me the Book of Common Prayer any day. I realise that the archaic language is not going to appeal to the majority of people today, and is not a good way of attracting new people in, but it has something that the ASB didn't reproduce, and that Common Worship lacks too. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what it is, possibly it's because its more formal, structured and solemn - though not solemn in a bad way, maybe reverent is a better word. I think it inspires more awe and a feeling of the greatness of God, the more modern services give more of a feeling of God being like one of your mates, which doesn't quite sit right with me. Anyway the point of that was my excuse for not going to Church over the one weekend where there should be no excuses for not going and yes I am aware that not liking the church isn't really a good excuse, but hey it's the only one I have apart from extreme laziness.
Instead of going to Church, I took the opportunity to sleep in and I didn't get dressed until after midday everyday. I had intended to do DIY, de-clutter and generally make good use of 4 days off in a row. Well, that didn't happen, though I did do some gardening. Not as much as I hoped to though thanks to the weather :-( Admittedly if I had got up earlier on Good Friday instead of 11am, I would not, as my Mother is so fond of telling, have missed the best of the day. As it was I braved rain on Saturday to start digging the trench for the hedge, but I gave up once it started to hail on me. I put the plants to soak on the Saturday though, so that meant I had no choice but to plant them out on the Sunday, whatever the weather :-( Consequently I got rained on very hard and then snowed on :-( I also just went for the option of digging a big enough trench to fit them in, and so I will have to finish digging the rest of it when it's fine and replant some of them in the correct positions. I do hope they survive this, they should, being weed-like British hedging plants, I will be exceedingly disgusted with them if they don't! The grass badly needs cutting and I would have done that too, if it hadn't been so wet. I do hope this isn’t going to end up like last summer when I didn’t get the grass cut for months due to the weather always being wet when I was free to do it.
Apart from my feeble attempts to garden, I did a lot of cooking and therefore a lot of washing up. I failed to find my little cake cases, so I made a large rum, raisin and chocolate Easter nest cake, which was very nice when served with a generous portion of Baileys (or 'Chubby Juice' as it is known as in The Trade) poured over it. I also did some cleaning and the one bit of de-cluttering I did do was to tidy up under the sink in the kitchen. I was pleased that I didn't end up throwing anything out from there, as there was nothing that needed throwing out. There are a few bottles of stuff that won't be replaced once I've finished them, but I thankfully seem to be immune to the buying of inordinate amounts of cleaning products of various different types, an affliction that my Mother suffers from badly. I have moved over to Ecover products and they seem to be very sensible, in that a few products will clean anything and everything. The cupboard is not a jumble anymore, it is clean and my plastic cake containers are neatly stacked. I have the next bit in my de-cluttering plan decided too, I need to finish clearing out the built-in cupboard in the front bedroom, so I can get it cleaned out and painted. It can then be used to house a lot of my newly acquired LARP kit, sewing bits and pieces and mail. The only thing I am a bit concerned about is that the cupboard always smells damp, I think it could do with some holes for ventilation in the door.
All in all the weekend felt like a bit of a waste from my point of view, considering the valiant efforts Bacchus put into the marking. I'd use the excuse that I was supporting him by providing nice meals & snacks for him, but I could have done that in between being useful myself. I shall be good this weekend though and do lots of de-cluttering and tidying (honest). I just hope I don't get a repeat of last Saturday night when the phone rang at 10.45pm. Bacchus was all for leaving it to ring, but because of the situation with my Dad, I feel that late phone calls will probably be bringing bad news and so need to be answered. I didn't think I was wrong either, when I answered it and it was my Mum saying "Thank goodness you’re there!" However my fears were not confirmed when she following this up with "I can't get the HDD to turn off!" I went through the various options, including "are you recording anything at the moment?" when she said that there were these numbers constantly moving on the display. To which I got "Of course not! What would I be recording at this time of night?!?" I didn't want to tell them to turn it off at the wall as I wasn't sure if that would mean they would have to completely set it up again and I didn't think I could talk them through that on the phone, so I told them to leave it and if on Tuesday, they still had problems, to phone the customer helpline. Anyway the next day Mum phoned to wish me a Happy Easter and so I asked if they'd managed to turn it off. "Oh that? Yes it’s fine I was recording a film."
*headdesk*
Instead of going to Church, I took the opportunity to sleep in and I didn't get dressed until after midday everyday. I had intended to do DIY, de-clutter and generally make good use of 4 days off in a row. Well, that didn't happen, though I did do some gardening. Not as much as I hoped to though thanks to the weather :-( Admittedly if I had got up earlier on Good Friday instead of 11am, I would not, as my Mother is so fond of telling, have missed the best of the day. As it was I braved rain on Saturday to start digging the trench for the hedge, but I gave up once it started to hail on me. I put the plants to soak on the Saturday though, so that meant I had no choice but to plant them out on the Sunday, whatever the weather :-( Consequently I got rained on very hard and then snowed on :-( I also just went for the option of digging a big enough trench to fit them in, and so I will have to finish digging the rest of it when it's fine and replant some of them in the correct positions. I do hope they survive this, they should, being weed-like British hedging plants, I will be exceedingly disgusted with them if they don't! The grass badly needs cutting and I would have done that too, if it hadn't been so wet. I do hope this isn’t going to end up like last summer when I didn’t get the grass cut for months due to the weather always being wet when I was free to do it.
Apart from my feeble attempts to garden, I did a lot of cooking and therefore a lot of washing up. I failed to find my little cake cases, so I made a large rum, raisin and chocolate Easter nest cake, which was very nice when served with a generous portion of Baileys (or 'Chubby Juice' as it is known as in The Trade) poured over it. I also did some cleaning and the one bit of de-cluttering I did do was to tidy up under the sink in the kitchen. I was pleased that I didn't end up throwing anything out from there, as there was nothing that needed throwing out. There are a few bottles of stuff that won't be replaced once I've finished them, but I thankfully seem to be immune to the buying of inordinate amounts of cleaning products of various different types, an affliction that my Mother suffers from badly. I have moved over to Ecover products and they seem to be very sensible, in that a few products will clean anything and everything. The cupboard is not a jumble anymore, it is clean and my plastic cake containers are neatly stacked. I have the next bit in my de-cluttering plan decided too, I need to finish clearing out the built-in cupboard in the front bedroom, so I can get it cleaned out and painted. It can then be used to house a lot of my newly acquired LARP kit, sewing bits and pieces and mail. The only thing I am a bit concerned about is that the cupboard always smells damp, I think it could do with some holes for ventilation in the door.
All in all the weekend felt like a bit of a waste from my point of view, considering the valiant efforts Bacchus put into the marking. I'd use the excuse that I was supporting him by providing nice meals & snacks for him, but I could have done that in between being useful myself. I shall be good this weekend though and do lots of de-cluttering and tidying (honest). I just hope I don't get a repeat of last Saturday night when the phone rang at 10.45pm. Bacchus was all for leaving it to ring, but because of the situation with my Dad, I feel that late phone calls will probably be bringing bad news and so need to be answered. I didn't think I was wrong either, when I answered it and it was my Mum saying "Thank goodness you’re there!" However my fears were not confirmed when she following this up with "I can't get the HDD to turn off!" I went through the various options, including "are you recording anything at the moment?" when she said that there were these numbers constantly moving on the display. To which I got "Of course not! What would I be recording at this time of night?!?" I didn't want to tell them to turn it off at the wall as I wasn't sure if that would mean they would have to completely set it up again and I didn't think I could talk them through that on the phone, so I told them to leave it and if on Tuesday, they still had problems, to phone the customer helpline. Anyway the next day Mum phoned to wish me a Happy Easter and so I asked if they'd managed to turn it off. "Oh that? Yes it’s fine I was recording a film."
*headdesk*