The Eclectic Interweb

I put forward my suggestion about the gods ‘having a laugh’ at my expense a couple of days back but the extent of this became even more apparent yesterday.

To reiterate so of the points, I knew the daughter and family would be coming to stay so made sure I had a full week clear to go over the house to get it tidied and respectable looking. Most of that week was taken up by ‘things’ suddenly appearing to undermine my resolve and make it impossible for me to get much completed.

This left me on Sunday evening with three days left to get stuck in. As you’ll remember, Monday morning found me doubled over in pain because somehow I’d managed to strain my back on the Sunday. Nevertheless I told myself Tuesday I’d get into it… but again found myself in too much pain to get a lot done. Wednesday was the last chance so I told myself *this is it* and decided I’d take lots of painkillers and just ignore the pain and *do* it.

Morning started baly with me having to take the eldest daughter to get an ultrasound… not problems as it turned out but needed doing. This made her late for her lifesaving course so I had to take her to the swimming pool and wait for the school bus to arrive. But off she went, and off *I* went to get on with the work. Ok it was 10:00 a.m. by then but still I had time to make a large dent in the work.

Just after I arrived home… we had a power cut. Total power outage over the district. No vacuum… no dishwasher… nothing.

So I sat there muttering to myself all morning because I knew that at 2:00 p.m. I’d have to be at the kids school for a ‘co-curricular assembly’ which I’d promised to attend. At 1:00 p.m. the power came back! Yaayy… I thought I have an hour to do *some* cleaning. Then the phone rang.

The eldest daughter on the phone asking for flute and music for her performance. Some screaming into a cushion took place and off I went.

Saw the assembly… and the youngest decided she would come home so had to get her school bag. More time gone.

Came home… power had gone again. Sat there muttering for a while before realising the click on the oven had restarted. Realising we must have *some* power I went out to the power board and discovered that one of the outages had simply tripped the safety switches. Turned it on… and there was power at last… just in time for me to go back up to the school to get the eldest daughter.

While this was happening the wife called to say she was coming home early so could I collect her from the train station. After negotiating the traffic *she* wascollected and home we went arriving *just* in time for me to have to turn straight round to go fetch the UK clan.

Just before I left I had a quiet whinge to the wife asking her to please try and do *something* to make the place look liveable again and away I went.

Naturally collecting the family created it’s own small adventures. One was the panic when I thought I’d left home without my money… meaning I’d have had to borrow money off the visitors even before we’d left the airport!! 🙂 Luckily I found it secreted in the bowels of my bag amongst broken Rennies, and assorted detritus so all was well and we set off for home.

When we arrived… the wife had worked a miracle! The place was both clean *and* tidy!! All the boxes had miraculously vanished and all was well.

Well… it was until I went up to the spare bedroom (where the *next* set of visitors will be sleeping in a week or two) and discovered it was now floor to ceiling filled with boxes of rubbish I’d been intending to sort through. Oh well it will give me something else to panic over next week… and at least it’s clear downstairs *now* which is important.. sorta.