Delivery

We bought a bed.

We do already have one, obviously, but we'll soon be moving up in the world and need a new one to complete the image of high living. So with mates entertainment planned for Easter weekend, we figured we may as well buy the bed early. As promised, the delivery driver called today to confirm that we're on his list for next week.

"You're down for the Tuesday morning delivery. We'll be there before 1."

I thanked him and rang off. When you're talking to a pedant of over forty years' standing, it pays to be careful. Strictly speaking, he's committed to delivering our bed between midnight and 1am next Tuesday morning. I'm sure he didn't realise what he'd said, but I've made a note of his mobile number and I'll be calling him at 2am next Tuesday to find out why he's an hour late.

So farewell then, 20 Ridgway

Don't know how to describe my feelings right now, if I'm honest, except "weird." The house I lived in for the first 21 years of my life (I officially moved out three days after my 21st birthday), which has been in my family since 1953, and which has always been there in my mind as a place of refuge in the bad times, solace in the sad times and celebration in the glad times, as of today belongs to someone else.

By the time we left it for the last time - last Saturday afternoon - it did feel more like "just a house" than it has ever felt. No longer a home. And truth be told it hasn't been my home for all of those 30+ years since I moved out, except in the sense of "going home" to visit Mum, as we often did. After 8 months of intermittent trips to throw away old things, collect treasured things and rearrange remaining things to present the house at its best for the purposes of sale, it looked and felt like an empty shell. Only faint echoes lingered of the happy times spent there. Lifetimes. I learned to walk there. I learned to ride a bike there. I learned to drive there. I read my 'O' and 'A' Level results over breakfast there. I found out I'd got into university there. I had my first sex there. And my first broken heart, stood by the sideboard reading that letter. My Dad died there. My Mum turned into an old lady there.

And now someone else will build memories there and put down roots - perhaps even 60 years deep like our family did. They'll put their own stamp on the place until almost every trace of the planning and saving and working and painting and tiling and building my Mum & Dad did is erased; replaced with something newer, bigger, brighter and not ours.

Well... not quite erased. It will still be there in my memory. My old family home. And that's why I'll never drive down to Ridgway Close again. Or at least, never intend to. I want that house - that home - to stay as it is in my memory. The happy, sunny, carefree home of my childhood.

Gardening with a crow bar

In preparation for new front windows and front door arriving any time soon, I've been waiting for a fine day to take down the pergola. We've always hated the damned thing - an ugly erection of tanalised timber beams with a stunted *something* growing up each side that puts out weedy flowers once year but otherwise just looks untidy. No idea what it is, but we've lived here more than five years and it's barely grown a foot in all that time. Not exactly the greenery of choice to rapidly cover a pergola in a shock of colour, it being neither rapid nor any colour more shocking that insipid white.

Fine day duly arrived, yesterday, so out I went armed with stepladder and screwdriver to disassemble, de-erect and knock down. Some of the screws were a bit rusted but through a combination of brute force and ignorance (my favourite tool) I got most of them out and the rest gave up when I pulled the beams about a bit. The main uprights posed a brief problem but I soon discovered that if I leaned my enormous bulk against them they'd snap off just below ground level.

So no probs with the pergola, but what was I to do with Mr & Mrs Weedy-Growth? At this time of year the shed door swells up to the point where locks are not required as a barrier to entry, and all gardening implements remained inaccessible behind that swollen edifice. I set to with the only tool (a) available and (b) strong enough to deal with weedy roots that were, as it turned out, anything but weedy. A few well-placed strokes and a bit of subterranean leverage and out they popped and straight into The Green Bin.

Mission accomplished. We are now growth- and pergola-free at the front and much nicer it looks too. It'll be even nicer when the old worn out drafty blue porch door is replaced with a stunning new one.

eApproval

This morning War of Nutrition finally received its approval for "Premium Distribution" at Smashwords.

This means that, in addition to Kindle where it's been available since last month, you'll soon be able to get it for Kobo, Sony eReader, the Apple iReader (from the iBookstore) and pretty much every other electronic reader platform there is, including regular PDF or HTML versions for reading on your PC.

Or, you can get it *right now* direct from Smashwords themselves! What are you waiting for :o)

The delay in approval is partly due to their enormous backlog, and partly my fault. I'd asked Nat for a very small change to the cover art, and then went and uploaded the raw picture file to Smashwords without reinstating the title and author text. Doh! So it could have been approved two weeks ago if I hadn't been such a numpty.

I've already had some great feedback from those who've finished reading it (or are still in the middle), including a review on Amazon from my mate Diane. Still anxiously waiting for that first review from someone who doesn't know me, but I guess it's only a matter of time O_O. Meanwhile I'm planning world domination through a combination of poetry, short stories and two other really cool ideas for novels that are currently stewing somewhere at the back of my brain while I keep my fingers busy writing sketches for this year's Chorlton Players Hotpot show.