I knew it! Football is bad for your health

I've never been a huge fan of any sport. I like to watch the odd frame of snooker or gymnastics or athletics on the telly, but I wouldn't usually stay in for it or build my life around it, and I've never understood people who do. The thing I find hardest to understand is the national obsession with football. It's hard to avoid - even at work it's there in a fair proportion of the coffee machine conversations. Sorry, but it bores the hell out of me.

Now this morning comes news that it's actually bad for your health! Yes! Vindication at last! A study has proven a direct link between the incidence of heart attacks in men and the dates when their team are playing a "big" match. Apparently there's a three-fold increase in heart attacks among supporters on match days. The worry and the stress kills them off! How mad is that?

In a world where there are already way too many things conspiring to make us keel over, I'm happy to avoid the totally unnecessary ones, and this is a prime example. What's more, I now have the perfect rejoinder for anyone trying to engage me in a football conversation: "Watch out! That stuff can kill you!"

Pole 2 (pole)

Those nice people at Housing Units opted to replace our broken finial with the one from their display rather than make us wait while they re-ordered a pair, so I arrived home yesterday feeling well chuffed with the world. Here's the offending finial. Well, not the offending one, because that was broken. This is the replacement. It suffers from not having anything protecting the glass-brass interface, so you have to be really careful when screwing the glass ball onto the pole collar not to tighten it too tightly. The collar then slips over the pole end and is fastened by a small grub screw. Look nice, don't they? Although I think on balance I would go for one of the many varieties of metal finial if I had the choice over again. If we end up breaking any when we do any more decorating in here, I'll definitely replace them all.

Finding myself with a spare few minutes at the end of the afternoon today I thought I'd give Nikki a pleasant surprise and put the second pole up. Having already fitted the first one, I knew the drill (haha!) and it took less than half-an-hour to get the pole up and hang the curtains.

And here they are. It confused me for a while that, even though I thought I'd fixed the pole at exactly the same distance from the ceiling as in Nikki's side of the study, and the curtains are the same length, these hang almost to the bottom of the radiator while on her side they're about halfway down. Sometimes I can be sooooo sloooow. Nikki pointed out that she has no cornice on her side. I'd measured from the ceiling on her side, and from the bottom edge of the cornice on mine. Doh! But I couldn't have put my pole any higher without it looking silly. Maybe we'll have to hem these so they look the same. I don't really like them hanging over the radiator and sending all the heat out through the windows anyway. Still, another tick in the box and the study is one step closer to being "really" finished.

Book Review: The Life of Pi

After a month off for Christmas, the book club meeting beckons this coming Wednesday. This month's choice is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Unusually for me, I started it over Christmas. Normally with two months to get through it, I would have left it until halfway through January, but I had some spare time during the holidays when there wasn't anything much on the telly, I'd had enough of being on the computer (yes, it does happen) and no other distraction presented itself, so I made a start.

Well pretty soon I'd decided I wasn't going to enjoy it. Martel's writing style seemed typically "Booker Prize" (this had won it in 2002), by which I mean reams and reams of pointlessly detailed description; over-complicated rationalisations and hidden meanings. He seemed incapable of describing any one thing without including a list of similar things. When talking about animals in the zoo he would list countless examples. When smells reminded him of something? Again, a huge long list. Forgive me, anyone who is familiar with the book, if these are not accurate examples. I use them as illustrations only, since I've long ago left that part of the book behind and can't be arsed to re-read it to find the real material.

But then something unusual happened. I put the book down and left it alone for a couple of weeks. Whether it was that break, or that I'd happened to reach the point in the story where the action takes off, I don't know. When I picked it back up again, I started to enjoy it. This was long before the ship sank and Pi was stranded in the lifeboat with only a crotchety Bengal tiger for company. When that happened, I enjoyed it even more. Some sections of the prose are positively delightful. Wonderfully crafted, deeply evocative, taughtly written and interesting.

Hard to imagine that there would be enough going on during the many weeks aboard a tiny vessel in the middle of the Pacific to hold one's interest, but it certainly does. For once I can say I think a book deserved its Booker Prize. It reminds me very much of another famous "survival" epic I read - oh - about thirty years ago (OK, this is getting beyond a joke now). It was recommended to me by my mother. The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. That had a very similar flavour to it, as I recall. I also remember being quite upset when I discovered that its veracity had been called into question, as I'd believed implicitly it was an accurate and true story.

I don't read this kind of story very often, but I'd thoroughly recommend Pi to anyone looking for something a bit different.

An experiment: whisky vs gin

We have a cupboard full of booze. Not that we're mad drinkers or anything. It's been garnered slowly over years. Duty free gifts from family members; remains of interesting things left over from parties; even one or two bottles I brought home from helping a mate clear out his Mum's place when she went into sheltered accommodation.

Thing is, with all this choice, we tend to drink the same stuff. Gin and tonic, mainly, and the odd vodka and coke when I can get my hands on a bottle of vanilla vodka. So when the tipple of choice is exhausted, we buy another bottle, and the stock of other stuff sits there gathering dust.

So I decided after Christmas that this was a daft situation. I was driven by my sudden inability to stash a bottle of Eiswein we received as a Christmas present owing to the drinks cupboard being chocca. In a moment of clarity that is probably the nearest thing I'll get to a New Year's Resolution this year, I determined to drink up "the other stuff" before buying any "new stuff."

Since I prefer, in the main, long drinks (as you'll have noticed by the mention of G&T and VAC above) tonight was the first evening that I was on whisky and gingers. It must be about...oh, let me see...thirty years (*vbg*) since I last drank this particular tipple, preferring as I have recently, single malts with just a cube or two.

Anyway, here's the thing. Drink for drink it's apparent that whisky and ginger gets me drunker than G&T! Who'd 'a' thunk it? Three WAGs was way more potent than the FIVE G&Ts I've been known to put away on the odd Sunday when I feel like I don't want the weekend to end. I'll have to slow down if I'm to see this mopping up exercise through, or it'll be me needing mopping up!

Now it really is curtains

Finally, finally got around to putting up the new curtain poles in the study this afternoon. Or curtain pole I should say, because the larger of the two may require a little more study (lol) since we're not sure if it needs a central support bracket and if it does, I'll need to make a block to screw it into. Even more disappointing, upon opening the boxes one of the glass finials was cracked and will have to be returned. Yeah, I know, nothing is ever straightforward in this house!

We maybe should have ironed the curtains before hanging - they've been folded up in their packets since we bought them several months ago - but we'll see if they drop out first. For now, it's enough to have them - one set at least - up.

Hoorayyyyy......oh.

Having spent the last two weeks clambering in and out of the bath, Nikki gave me the nudge yesterday to check the bathroom suppliers for progress. I'd called the manufacturers as promised to be told that I needed to go back to the suppliers and have them fax the original order details through to the manufacturers to confirm the warranty and the part number, and they'd send a replacement right away.

As luck would have it the suppliers showroom is right along the road to my office, so I dropped in on that Monday morning, did the deed, and they told me they'd see to it right away and be in touch by Friday to let me know what was happening.

As in ... last Friday.

So I called them yesterday. "Oh yes Mr. Beresford. We've got your replacement valve here." Right. And you were going to tell me that when?

I dropped in on the way home. The guy must have seen me park up because as I approached the counter he approached from the opposite side carrying a shower valve that he placed on said counter. He smiled proudly. I looked at the valve. Looked at him.

"That...doesn't look...anything...like my shower valve."

His face fell. "Just a moment," he mumbled, and disappeared into the showroom, returning after a full five minutes brandishing two brochures.

"HSK?" he asked tentatively. I had no idea what he was on about, but slowly it dawned on me that he was probably asking what manufacturer it was.
"Imperial?" I offered, hoping I'd made the right assumption.

He brightened up and opened the second brochure, pointing immediately to the correct shower unit. For once his virtually eidetic memory had let him down. He'd remembered that we'd had something from HSK and assumed it was the shower (it was actually the hinged door panel). So we have another week to wait before we can shower again.

Friday Five

1. What do you need?
Potatoes. Nah, that's just an in joke really. All you need is love, The Beatles reckoned, and I'd go along with that. Throw in a home that you look forward to coming back to at the end of the day, where you feel safe and can entertain family and friends and that'll do me.

2. What won't you share?
I'd share anything, but don't leave it until the last minute to ask. If I get to the point where there's only those nice curled-over crisps left in the bag, you're not having one!

3. What do you hurry through?
The working day. I used to love it, now I can't wait for it to be over.

4. Who is worth waiting for?
The right person. Sometimes the wait can be long. Sometimes you think you've missed them. You haven't. You don't need to stick with someone just because it looks like they're the only thing on offer. If it doesn't feel right, it isn't right. You have to wait a while longer.

5. Friday fill-in:
I can't bear to ______.
be hot.

I heart you? Gimme a break

I've bemoaned the parlous state of English usage on here before, but I've seen this several times recently and for some reason it really bugs me.

OK, OK, I know English is a "living" language and that's part of its strength and yadda yadda, but another part of its strength is its rules. Years ago - why it may even be "thirty years ago" - we started to see these cute little bumper stickers with the heart on. I love New York they said and we all knew it and more to the point we all said it. The heart was just an original and cutesy way of saying love. It wasn't literal.

And now? Everywhere you look people are writing "I heart you." I heart this, I heart that. It's flippin' meaningless you morons. Heart is not a verb. You can no more heart something than you can kidney it. Get a grip. It's not big and it's not clever. And even more importantly, it's not English.

Glug, glug, splooooosh!

Our friendly neighbourhood rooferman came around this afternoon to inspect the problem.

Didn't take him long. I sometimes wish I was more use up a ladder, but above about ten feet I start to quiver and much higher than 15 feet I'm shaking so violently that the ladder starts to walk across the wall. I could never have been a roofer. Luckily for us, he can. And is. Up the ladder he went, returning after a few seconds to retrieve a length of plastic pipe from his van.

"It's either this, or I borrow your wellies," he said. "It's knee-deep up there."

!!!

A few seconds prodding about with his pipe and water began to gurgle down the main downspout. Then with an almighty rush, approximately a bath-full gushed out, overflowed the drain and ran splashing and flooding across the path and down the garden. Crikey. He climbed up into the valley and threw down a few handfuls of muck.

"Leaves, is it?" I asked knowingly.
"No," he said matter-of-factly. "Bits of tile. They're flaking so badly that bits of them are being washed down by the rain."

Eek! I got straight on the phone to the mortgage company to apply for an increased loan. There's no way we can let this go on any longer. :(

4 x 4 doesn't go

I'm amazed there aren't more accidents on the roads around our house, which become completely choked from 8.15 to 9.15 every day, and again at school chucking-out time.

Parents with more money than sense, often driving massive 4x4 wagons, many with personalised plates (yes, I mean you J1 MMY) driving their beloved progeny the few hundred yards to school because they think they're safer than if they walked or took the bus. The difference in traffic levels during half-term and full-term holidays is quite literally incredible. I know from experience that there's rarely more than 20% of my colleagues that take annual leave at half term. And yet there's easily less than half the number of vehicles on the roads during that week. Which means they're all "school run" vehicles.

I don't know what it is about parents doing the school run. Maybe it's the only driving they ever do. But they don't seem to have any road sense, knowledge of the highway code, or even much common sense. They let their kids fling open the doors without checking if there's anything coming. They walk out from between parked cars. They stop on the zig-zag markings at pedestrian crossings. They perform dangerous U-turns against the flow of traffic. They behave as if their journey was the only important one, and everyone else on the road should get out of their way.

An official, properly organised and ubiquitous school bus service is long overdue for this country, especially in the major cities. It would cut rush-hour traffic massively not to mention improving everyone's temper.

Drip, drip, drop

By the early evening yesterday, with no sign of the rain letting up, we were up to four buckets in the bedroom and it was beginning to look like we'd be sleeping in the spare room. Too much noise from the plipping and the plopping to do anything else.

We did have half a plan to put the laundry, some dust sheets and some towels under it all in the hope that it would quieten things down enough for us to get to sleep, but by bedtime as it turned out the rain had stopped and so, eventually, did the drips. Must remember to take the roofer's number with me to work tomorrow.

Paid a flying visit to my Mum today, just to buck her up a bit. She's still feeling very sorry for herself but the good news is the infection is getting better, the wound is not weeping any more and she's off the injected antibiotics. The bad news is she's rubbed her other heel raw with having to have her feet propped up all the time, so she's now bandaged up on both legs. She looks like half a mummy. We had a good laugh about that. She's still very weak and I'm more than a little pissed off that the hospital sent her home and expected her to cope on her own without arranging any help. I'll be calling Social Services tomorrow to see if they can do anything about helping her out with meals and general chores.

The other bad news was posted on the digital signs over the M1 southbound. Carriageway widening is about to start from junctions 28 to 25 and the sign says "Roadworks from Jan 27 until October 2010. Delays expected." October 2010?!?! Deep joy.

Plip, plop

Returning to bed after an early morning "visit" I was startled to hear a noise in the dark.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

I figured it out pretty quickly. The roof is leaking again. I'd found a wet patch on the bedroom floor on Tuesday morning but no signs of drips or leaks. Now there was a definite drip. The only question was - would I be able to get back to sleep with all that racket going on?

I almost managed it after about half an hour, but as I was drifting off Nikki gave me a sharp nudge.
"What's that noise? Is it a leak?"
"Yeah."
"We'd better get up then."

With the light on, two large wet areas were revealed directly under the beam that runs across the bay window, which was dripping merrily. I was puzzled where it was coming from. I'd already checked upstairs on Tuesday and there was no sign of any drips or damp patches.

It didn't take Nikki long to spot the wet patch on the wall though, which made it obvious why there was nothing to see in the upstairs room. There's a valley between us and next door. If the water can't flow down it properly and it backs up, it would overflow through the tiles at the lowest point. That could be because the gutters are blocked or it might simply be the volume of water - we've had torrential rain virtually non-stop for three days or so.

We fetched buckets, which guaranteed I wouldn't get back to sleep. The plopping noises in plastic and steel (we had to use a large cooking utensil too) was much louder than onto bare wood. I left Nikki to try to grab another hour's sleep in the rainforest while I made a coffee and sat worrying about how we'd certainly have to revise our thinking on when the roof needs replacing.

Friday Five and the conspiracy of fate

Why is it only when you're in a hurry that hold-ups occur?

Like the last two nights - we needed to be home early, scoff some dinner as quickly as possible and rush off to help with the panto. Any "regular" day, Nikki will get out of work up to five minutes after finishing time. Both yesterday and today she's had to take a call at the last minute, and not been out until fifteen minutes later than normal.

Then there's the road to the community hall where the Players play. 99 times out of 100 it's empty. We travel that road innumerable times to go shopping, or into Chorlton, to fetch decorating materials. We even go that way occasionally to the Trafford Centre. It's never busy. Tonight, when we're already running late, we find a learner driver trying to turn out into the main road in front of us, and then when we finally lose her there's a blimmin' taxi in front of us doing a three-point turn! Does my head in.

1. Where do you like to walk?
In the park near where we live. It's a traditional Victorian "urban" park with an avenue of trees and a lake. When I lived in Nottingham I used to like to walk by the river, but somehow I don't fancy doing that beside the Irwell.

2. What does your hair look like?
Like I'm bothered. Short, greasy at the moment because I haven't washed it for a while on account of the shower not working, and with increasing amounts of head showing through.

3. What are you jealous of?
I thought for ages about the answer to this. Jealousy is such a negative emotion that I squash it whenever it arises. If I ever feel it, however briefly, it tends to be when someone achieves something that I've been either wanting or trying to achieve and not yet made it. But that's because it was their turn. Being jealous won't help me get there. So I have a pang, occasionally, and then it goes away.

4. What kind of promises do you make?
How many different kinds are there? I tend not to make promises. I don't like letting people down. But if I commit to doing something then I do it. Sometimes reality gets in the way though.

5. What makes you stare?
Bizarre punkish hair-do's or extraordinary body piercings. And being deep in thought.

Panto!

Dress rehearsal for the Chorlton Players panto tonight and as usual I was there to take the production photographs.

I quite enjoy doing this. Getting a preview of the show is great fun, there's a sense of anticipation before the opening night and a great deal of satisfaction in grabbing the really good shots from the performance. Making sure you get a few good shots is a challenge, when the actors are almost constantly moving, the lighting is changing from one scene to the next and, having not been involved in rehearsals, I'm not aware of when the key scenes are coming up, so I have to be constantly on my toes and aware of the action. It's all too easy to slip into the role of "audience" - sitting there being entertained and letting the scenes unfold in front of me until I suddenly realise I've missed photographing a crucial moment. Maintaining concentration becomes ever harder as the evening wears on, since dress rehearsals rarely finish before 11pm.

So I was particularly pleased to capture this one - the moment where the principal boy, having examined his map, declares that everyone has to go "that way." In every production I generally manage 2 or 3 really good shots like this, out of the hundreds I take during the evening (I set a new personal record with this year's panto, taking 435 shots tonight over the course of 3 hours).

But the work doesn't stop when the rehearsal is over. I only have the raw material at that point. On my return home, I copy the contents of my memory card over to the PC (which takes a tad over 5 minutes!) and then perform a first pass selection, removing the motion blurred ones, the really bad facial expressions, and the ones where the actors have moved out of shot or blinked at the last second. On average this gets rid of 25% or so, leaving me with around 300 that are reasonably focussed (given that the primary display format will be on the web) and well framed.

I then do a second pass to select the "best" shots and copy these into a separate folder. These are the ones destined for the website. Normally I've ended up with 50 or so in here, but the last two productions have given me over 100 good shots. Am I getting better or discriminating less?

With the best shots selected, I open them all up and fix any red eye problems. I try to avoid using flash when I can. With a fast lens and the camera set to the equivalent of 400ASA film speed I don't usually need it, but for action scenes flash is essential or I'd end up with a blurry mess, and I also find it helps the colour balance on those scenes that are lit with a preponderence of red (scary scenes in the monster's hideaway, or the guts of the fox, or when the lighting crew dim the floods during a song). For these shots, unless the actors are looking across camera, there's always some degree of red eye.

Finally, I make the posters that hang on the doors of the theatre. I call them posters even though I only print them on A4 sheets. I normally do 6, with somewhere between 4 and 8 shots on the page depending on the content. I arrange them in various ways, some at 15° angles, and print them all off.

Then before going to bed (which I usually manage by about 2.30am) I kick off the FTP transfer of the best photos to the online gallery on the Chorlton Players website so that it will be finished by the time I wake up, and I can create the entry for that particular show.

Roman about & showering

It was back in November I told you that I'd checked out the packaging with our Roman blinds so I didn't get caught out putting them up and finding myself without some essential fixing.

Not wanting to rush into things (*koff*) I finally got round to putting them up this afternoon. You have to larf. What I thought was fixings peeking out at me from the cute little plastic bag was only that capstan thingy you wind the cords round to hold the blinds in one position. I still needed something to hang the buggers from. Sheesh.

Fortunately I inherited from my dear ol' Dad an extensive collection of screws. It didn't take much furtling around in the collection to find the five I needed, and up they went. Not that it's drafty in the bathroom since the windows were seen to; it just looks a little more "finished" now. It also makes using the bath a tad more private, which is important at the moment with the shower out of action.

Oh the leak's been fixed, but the temperature fault is still with us. I called the manufacturers and they decided the most likely explanation was that the shower simply needed recalibrating. I didn't argue. It's one of those situations where you have to follow their programmed fault-finding list before they'll send someone out. Recalibrating is an overblown term for adjusting the point at which the stop-button (anti-scalding device) activates, but since the shower never gets above cold I knew from the off this would not solve the problem. Sure enough with the temperature control knob pulled out so the stop-button could be bypassed, turning the knob fully in either direction did not change the temperature one jot. The only way I knew hot water was reaching the shower at all was that if I ran the hot tap in the wash basin the shower changed from cold to "flippin' freezing." That, and the fact that the chromed pipes coming through the wall were frosted with condensation on the cold side and hot to the touch on the other side. Like I said, it's the coil. I'll be calling them back tomorrow.

It could be a season for curtaining - I had a voice message from Housing Units on Thursday afternoon to tell me the curtain poles for the study had arrived. Something else for tomorrow: picking them up on my way home from the office. Fitting them will no doubt be next weekend's job. Luxury.

Wet wet wet

First time at Euston this year, and first time since they finished that escalator refurbishment. You know what? After all those months of effort, it looks EXACTLY THE SAME as it did before. Presumably it has all new gubbins underneath but the moving bits look just as scabby and the handrails just as worn and tatty. Glad we spent all that money on it.

It was pissing down when I emerged from Westminster tube too. Stupidly I'd seen the forecast but forgotten to bring my brolly. Maybe there'd be a handy taxi? No such luck. It was just shy of 9 o'clock and they were all full. I walked. I got drenched. I sat in the meeting steaming quietly to myself. Both physically and figuratively (it was an annoying and frustrating meeting).

The ultimate irony

My Mum got home from hospital this evening - two days later than originally estimated owing to picking up an infection in her hip from the operating theatre. Presumably it wasn't one of the scary ones - MRSA or C. difficile - or she'd still be in there. Or worse. Anyway, she's home. Still in a lot of pain, but they've given her pain meds for that. And here's where the "ultimate irony" comes in. For a woman with a lifelong phobia against hypodermic needles (she couldn't even watch when I had my inoculations as a child), the pain medication they've given her is morphine. Injectable morphine. Which she has to administer herself. Ouch.

Once a day for the next six days, straight into the stomach. Can she do it? Yes she can. Already done it, to her amazement. If it's true that everyone's on Earth to learn at least one lesson or face one fear, this might just be hers.

School 1957 vs. 2007

Had to share this with you. It was sent to me last week by my brother-in-law (well, the closest thing I've got to one and actually by far the best example of the breed I've had in my life). You may have seen it elsewhere but it's so accurate I thought it bore repeating!

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up mates.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charges them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good caning by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbour's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normally, goes to uni, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy's Mum has affair with psychologist.

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro gets extra tuition, passes English, goes to Uni.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. Class action lawsuit filed by anti discrimination commissioner against Education Dept and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers, puts them in a model aeroplane paint bottle, blows up an ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - Local police & AFP called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, parents investigated, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during morning tea and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in prison while Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

I trip off the road trip

Finally received email confirmation today that I've been credited with the cost of the iPod RoadTrip that I bought by mistake and returned before Christmas. Now I can go ahead and order what I thought I'd ordered in the first place - an iTrip Auto (pictured).

I was surprised (delighted!) that the original company had refunded the full amount including postage. The Amazon charter suggests that they're under no obligation to refund postage if the fault is not theirs, which it wasn't. I'd simply ordered the wrong thing. So top marks to Add-ons World for being an excellent supplier but unfortunately they are ten quid more expensive than anyone else for the iTrip Auto, so I'll be ordering that from another Amazon marketplace vendor. Customer loyalty only stretches as far as the edge of my wallet!

Catch my breath

Pardon us if we feel a bit smug. We feel like we've really achieved something this weekend. Only in a small way, you understand. It's not solving international diplomatic crises or writing the next great philosophical work. No, it's much more mundane than that - we spent the weekend doing those things you always put off because there's something more exciting to do.

Eventually, they mount up until it looks...well...like a mountain of a task. Even more of a disincentive to make a start. Until days like yesterday and today, when you think: "Right. Time to roll my sleeves up."

First order of business for Saturday was a bus ride into town to take back our only duplicate present: a copy of the new Eagles album. We opted to keep Nikki's copy (I'd removed the original packaging when wrapping it, whereas mine was still intact) which meant I had the added bonus of choosing a replacement present. I opted to continue the process of replacing my vinyl collection and chose another digitally remastered Caravan album: If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You. We stopped off for a Starbucks and a skinny muffin but ended up finishing our coffees stood in the street, since the entire building was evacuated when the fire alarm went off. Still, it helped cool the coffee down quicker!

Returning home the second thing on the list was to clean up after Friday's visit from the plumber. Having swept and mopped everywhere we soon realised that the large hole in the kitchen ceiling had a cold howling draught blowing through it which was fetching down dust and small clumps of the debris that always lives in the ceiling void of old houses. Stuff left over from countless previous jobs - floorboard replacements, rewiring, plumbing - all tradesmen leave their shit under the floor where no-one sees it until the next job. That hole needed a temporary plug until we've sorted out what we want to do with the ceiling and hence became the most recent addition to that task list of "things I don't really want to do." A cannibalised cardboard box that had brought Christmas presents from the U.S. did the trick, held in place with a few long nails. It doesn't look pretty, but it's serviceable, quick and cheap.

Next on the list: taking down the Christmas decorations. I've never understood why so many people misinterpret the Twelfth Night superstition and believe that you must wait until then to take decorations down. The "rule" is actually that you mustn't leave them up after January 6, not that you can't take them down earlier. Personally I prefer to have everything back to normal before we go back to work. There's nothing more depressing than coming home from that first day back at work to a house with its Christmas tree and tinsel all still twinkling sadly at you, when you know the holidays are long gone and all stretches before you is the cold dark winter. But this year our last holiday day was New Year's Day itself and I didn't feel like spending that clearing up, so the decorations have hung around all week apart from a few lengths of tinsel that I've collected up when I happened to be passing.

So Saturday afternoon was dedicated to collecting up the hangings, de-decorating and disassembling the tree and putting everything back in its box. I was interrupted with the tree half denuded by the doorbell. One of neighbours computers had "gone all black" and could I help? I headed across the road once I'd boxed up the tree to find a delegation of neighbours watching some bulbs being planted. Perhaps 'delegation' is too strong a word - it was one other guy. When he learned I was there to tend to the sick computer he offered to cook us a meal if I could fix his - which appeared to be suffering from the same problem we had when Nikki's PC was new: one Vista; one XP; and never the twain shall file share.

Well the first examination was concluded fairly quickly. The patient was terminally ill with a blown video card. Hubby was quite happy to invest in a new card while wifey was keener on a new deal. I left them to the debate and re-crossed the road to sort out the file sharing issue. Turned out to be the same problem we had - Norton by default blocks Windows file sharing. Took me an hour to remember that, which was a tad frustrating, but I left neighbour #2 happier than I'd found him.

Today we collected up various piles of Christmas presents that still littered the study and the lounge, put DVDs in the "to watch" pile and ripped CDs onto the PCs, after which the only two jobs remaining for me were the two I hate most: ironing and budgeting.

I always say I'll record credit card transactions in the budget daily so they don't mount up. Then after three months, when my wallet can no longer be closed because of the wodge of credit card slips, I'll "get around" to doing the budget. And it takes hours. You'd think I'd have learned by now. Funny...it's the same with shirts. Iron one or two every time the laundry's done, or wait until there's 10 need doing at once, and you're facing an hour's worth of ironing? Guess.

You wait ages for a story and then three come along at once

In this instalment: Repairs to the shower; I visit my Mum in hospital and meet up with some old friends on the way home.

Busy day yesterday. First off the plumber man, Andy, came to investigate the leak in the shower and why it only runs cold. This has been going on some time, but since we opted for a tiled floor in the bathroom we knew the only way to investigate the leak was from below, which means taking down some of the kitchen ceiling.

The leak was never life-threatening so we decided to leave it until we were ready to start work on the kitchen and would be fixing up the ceiling anyway. We'd been a bit worried that it might have been a badly-fitted drain pipe, because it always seemed to leak worse when the shower trap was beginning to get blocked with hair. The other alternative was a badly sealed shower tray, and this is what it turned out to be (the hair blockage simply caused the water to rise above the lip of the tray, and then pour through the broken seal). But the news was, unfortunately, not as simple as that.

Andy (a man of some experience and also someone who likes doing things the right way) was worried about how the shower tray had been fitted. Cast resin trays that he's installed in the past have always had to be bedded down in sand and concrete so they don't flex. Ours has been mounted directly on the flooring joists. There's not even any floorboard to support the full width of the tray. I remember the original fitter saying he needed to take the boards out, and even shave an inch or so off the joists, so he could fit the tray flush with the floor. I never questioned it at the time, but we've ended up with a tray that is not supported in the inter-joist gaps which is not, apparently, a good thing, and one possible cause of the breakdown in the seal.

Another culprit is the tiling. The fitters tiled directly onto plasterboard. I remember an old plumber friend of mine telling me this was a bad idea ten years ago, but these guys assured me it was fine, so what can you do? For all I knew the intervening years had seen an improvement in materials, both board and tile adhesive, that rendered the old advice irrelevant. My mistake. Tiles mounted on plasterboard will always move, says Andy, which cracks the grout in the corners and allows leaks.

The solution is simple - bucketloads of silicon sealer - but it does mean we're probably now committed to replacing the seal regularly every time it breaks down. And the only indication we get when this has happened is a wet kitchen ceiling :(

Sadly the solution for the cold running shower was not so simple. After checking for blockages and testing that the valves were working OK, Andy concluded the coil is faulty. "Luckily" the shower is still under warranty, but it means more hassle digging out the paperwork and jumping through whatever hoops the manufacturer requires to organise a replacement.

To complete all the plumbing work had taken until after 1.30 which meant I was not going to make the afternoon visiting session at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, where my Mum underwent hip replacement surgery on Thursday. She'd been really suffering with it for some time, but it wasn't until a new GP arrived at her local surgery that she'd been offered a replacement. Can you believe her original GP (of almost 20 years) told her she couldn't have the operation because of her condition? The new guy put the lie to that as soon as he arrived and booked her in as an emergency appointment because she was in such a lot of pain.

I arrived in Nottingham in time for the evening visiting (6-8pm). Although I've visited people at QMC in the past I had no recollection of the parking arrangements and drove around the campus one-way system twice in the dark having missed the turn for the multi-storey car park the first time. I then discovered the car park is on the opposite side of the campus from Mum's ward. QMC is a huge place and it took me almost ten minutes to walk across to West block and find the right ward. Fortunately as with all hospitals everything is well sign-posted so I always knew where I was going.

Mum was feeling very sorry for herself. Propped up in bed with a foam block between her knees to keep her leg in the right position, she was unable to move around at all, although she wasn't in any pain. Just the discomfort of sitting "on the same cheek" for several hours at a time. The nurses to try to "turn" immobile patients regularly, but they are very busy so it's never quite regular enough. I was impressed by the security though. The last time I visited a sick relative - about ten years ago - there was free access to all wards, which simply opened on to public corridors. Some high-profile attack cases have forced improved security, and the most vulnerable wards are now protected with card-swipe entry systems. These are active both ways, so they protect against confused patients wandering off as well as against unauthorised ingress.

They're taking the MRSA/hygiene problem seriously too, with wall-mounted antiseptic gel canisters beside the doors and notices requesting visitors to clean their hands before entering, and upon leaving. I thought this a very positive move and duly cleaned my hands, but my cousin later informed me that their visiting experiences showed that most people ignored the notice.

I spent almost the full two hours with Mum but towards the end she was dropping off to sleep mid-sentence and becoming increasingly confused. She didn't want me to go, but I pointed out they'd be kicking me out anyway in 15 minutes and the nurses were coming round to sort out her position and needed access to both sides, so I said my goodbyes and left. Some of her confusion is probably a result of the meds, but I think a lot of it is simply that she's been knocked out of her routine and can't really cope. She hadn't realised she had a motorised control to change the angles of her bed, or that she had a personal TV, or that she'd been given an exercise sheet, and was confused by the difference between the drugs the hospital were giving her and the ones she takes regularly for chronic emphysema and other conditions. "What's this?" she kept asking, "I don't take this." Quite upsetting really, to see her so frail and vulnerable, but everyone I've spoken to says what a difference hip operations make, and I know she'll recover rapidly once she can get out of hospital.

Leaving Nottingham at that time meant I wasn't going to be home until 10pm so I'd decided to stop on the way home for a bite to eat, and the prospect of returning to the Dog & Partridge seemed very attractive. I had no idea what time they stopped serving food, but their meals were so delicious last time we stopped there I thought it was a risk worth taking and drove past motorway services and other sources of accessible commestibles, arriving at the Dog at 8.55pm. They weren't very pleased with me - meals finish at 9pm - but they took my order with good humour.

Walking in from the car park I'd passed a woman complaining to anyone who would listen about the back door being locked on a night like this (very blustery and rainy). I thought I'd recognised her but it wasn't until I stood next to her at the bar and she was joined by her husband that I realised who it was: Mark and Janet (he used to do all my plumbing when I lived in the village). I hadn't seen them for seven years and we spent a very pleasant hour catching up while we were waiting for our food to be served. I'd expected to have to eat alone, so the prospect of friendly company was a real fillip. We shared news over fish, burger, and lamb respectively. Mark's business is thriving. I remember him asking me, almost exactly ten years ago, whether I thought it was a good idea to branch out on his own or whether he should stay in the comfort and safety of being a paid employee. Well he DID set up his own business back then, and now has 14 people working for him and looks after the plumbing and heating requirements of small businesses across the whole UK. Nice one Mark! Not only that, but he'll be chairman of the Plumbing Foundation this year. A real success story, and an opportunity for me to name-drop!

Friday Five

1. Tell us something you love:
The smell of new rain on concrete.

2. Tell us something you know to be true:
You will see your loved ones again after you "die."

3. Tell us about someone new in your life:
Umm...I think this is supposed to be about a "special someone" and I don't have anyone "new" in that regard. Except that our relationship is so good that it feels new every day. As far as friends go, I guess the most recent new one would be someone at the book club, but I don't know who the newest one is.

4. Who can you never please?
Ah, there was someone. But she's a distant (bad) memory now.

5. Friday fill-in:
You know I ___.
You know I don't like dark mornings!

Waffles

What if John Lennon had sung "and so this is New Year...and what have you done?"

We were invited to three New Year's Eve parties this year, and what did we do? Stayed home and watched Babylon 5. Sorry to everyone who really wanted us to be there, but really, in my heart of hearts, I believe what they said on EastEnders tonight. New Year's Eve parties are for single people. They actually said sad single people, but I don't think it's necessary to be sad, only to hold out a hope for that exciting midnight kiss from someone you've been wanting to put your arms around for a long time but didn't have the courage, excuse, or opportunity.

When you're happy with your own company and your chosen partner, you don't particularly feel like partying, and there's no-one else you've got your eye on, staying home isn't a cop out. It's the real thing. The date doesn't matter. It's only a calendar event. And when midnight comes around, that person you want to put your arms around is right there with you already.

Does that sound like "bah, humbug?" I guess it might. But even when I was single and "celebrating" New Year, I never really felt it. Never felt part of it. I wrote a poem about New Year once, although for some reason I didn't put it up on my poetry pages. Christmas is my favourite time of year, but New Year, only a week later, is probably my least favourite. Part of that is probably because it's when the holiday runs out. I hate that feeling that you get as the time ticks away - the feeling that it's passing ever more quickly and you're struggling to hang on to the last few precious days, then hours, then minutes of holiday. Right now, three minutes past eleven on January 1, when I'm back in work in less than ten hours, I'm wishing I'd booked the rest of the week off.

Part of it is that I feel New Year should be a time for philosophy and reflection, but there's precious little space for that when the horns are hooting, the party is in full swing and, in recent years with increasing volume and duration, the fireworks are exploding all over the place. I never remember fireworks being a big part of New Year in the UK until 2000. Now it's unavoidable. Bah, humbug.

My mate Colleen Patrick thinks New Year is a time for reflection, renewal and rebirth. My mate Diane takes a philospohical approach and says simply that 2008 will have good stuff and bad stuff. Can't argue with that. As for renewal, I'm reminded of a time when I stood and watched the sun rise on a new decade. January 1, 1980, when I spent New Year in the Lakes and got up at 5am to drive out to the hill overlooking Derwent Water with the young man who, later that year, was to become my brother-in-law. Everyone thought we were mad - maybe he did too, a little - but that was one time I really did feel the New Year. Standing freezing our rocks off in the middle of a field in the dark, watching the rosy glow slowly brightening on the horizon, the mist parting and the first knife-edge of brilliant sun turning the dark sky to azure blue, I really felt I was part of the start of something. Well, in a funny way I was right. By the end of that decade (little did I know!) I would be married, divorced, married again, and have a daughter almost one year old. I'd have moved to a new department, made a name for myself and used it as a springboard for two further changes of career, as well as moving house 5 times.

Things have hardly been less hectic since. And now, here I am. Almost thirty years later (damn it, I'm going to invent a new tag to use on here every time I write "thirty years" - remember I started to worry about this over here?) and looking out on the start of another new year. OK it's not a new decade. Not yet. But still, it's daunting. Lots to do. Lots remaining undone that I've made a silent promise to myself to get done in the next twelve months. I've mentioned what CP and Diane say about New Year, but I haven't told you the best part. The most sensible part. Where do I look when I want to make sense of it all? To Nikki. She says no-one needs to wait for New Year to start over. Every day is the start of a new year. It's only that there's one calendar day - today - with the right number. That hackneyed phrase "tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life" may be well-worn but it's also true. While you're still breathing, you can still make a difference. So while for most people, tomorrow will only be the second of January, for me it will also be the new year.