Ian's home, and there are no walls on our shower

Weekends are supposed to be restful. This has not been a restful weekend. As I type I hear bangings upstairs. b has spent most of the weekend working on the shower, with me helping out every now and again. I had a good session of removing plaster off the wall earlier, using a hammer and scraper, and my fingers and wrists are not feeling too good as a result. I think they will be swollen by tomorrow.

I should probably take a photo of what the area looks like, but it is too depressing. However, the good news is that the shower is the source of the musty smell we have been putting up with for some time. We're wearing masks while we work in there as we've released a lot of little microbes from behind the walls so the smell is much worse at the moment. It looks as if it will be a few days before we get back to normal following this. It will all look very different when complete.

I went to Aldi today to get a bargain. It is a leather chair to replace the one I have that is broken. Of course, it came in a box so I had to make it up. I think I've done it OK, though, and it is very comfortable to sit on. It is higher than the last one, and has cushioned arms.



Ian arrived home this afternoon, looking a bit on the tired side. He was the youngest of the group in Norway, but this doesn't seem to have phased him. I've learnt a bit about the week so far, but will learn more over time. I'll try to persuade him to blog about it.

Happy 30th to us

Today is our 30th wedding anniversary. We celebrated it by having breakfast in the Wild Onion after our trip to the market. We also bought a pair of shoes each. None of these things had anything to do with our anniversary!

b is currently de-constructing our shower. There is a musty smell in our bedroom and we have concluded that the tiles in the shower are leaking somewhere. The only solution is to remove them all and start again. We've bought all the stuff, and the fun part is currently trying to get the current ones off the wall. They are taking the inside wall with them as they come off, so much cursing and swearing is happening. My job will be to do all the "delicate" stuff once the hacking is finished, to get the walls ready for re-applying tiles. In fact we will be applying a tiling substitue in the form of a large sheet that looks like tiles.

The rain has continued on and off for most of the day. I got wet bringing the dogs for their walk, but had anticipated the shower so wasn't too far away when it happened. It seems like it has been a lot worse in Dublin and places east and the N7 (Dublin to Limerick road) was blocked by floods for a while. Cars were asked to leave the road on the Naas to Dublin stretch. I've also heard that a train was knocked slightly off its rails at Portarlington due to a landslide. This may mean Ian will have problems getting home from Norway tomorrow by train.

I spoke briefly to Ian last night, having loaded his phone with money so he could receive the call. He was in the middle of an epistle-writing session, so I left him to it. The trolls don't appear to have taken him away, though

The rain, it raineth

Just on schedule for the weekend, the rain has started. It would have been lovely to have a peaceful weekend on the boat, but I don't have the appetite for a wet one. If it clears up well tomorrow, we may go to it, but the forecast is not good.

Even though my working week was short this week, having returned to work on Tuesday, it felt long. Holidays already seem to have been a long time ago. However, we might yet get a sunny spell in September and we'll make the best of that.

The exciting prospect for us, if we don't go to the boat, is to deconstruct the tiling in our shower. There is a damp and musty smell in our bedroom and we feel it may be that the shower is producing damp somewhere, beyond the normal steam the working of a shower emits. If we do it, we need to complete the job as we like using the shower.

Goldie is bouncing around the place. He had an anabolic steroid injection and it seems to have given him a newish lease of life. The Olympics are out for this year, though. b has been bringing him for walks on grass so that he doesn't hurt his paw, which he drags so that his nails have worn back to the nerve. The vet has ordered a bootie for him and we'll use that for walks once we get it.

Ian is in Norway and seems to have been swallowed by trolls. I managed to talk to him for a couple of seconds before his phone went dead. It is out of credit, but the credit doesn't seem to be loading up so that we can ring him again. Hopefully the trolls will let him go by Sunday, when he is due to get the plane home.

That's all for now.

Holidays over for another year

I have a reader! Hi, Sam - I hope you are having a good rest and are recuperating from the two years of hectic SU work and a year of living with C and Andy.

They say it has been raining over the last couple of weeks, but don't believe them. That rumour is put about by people who have been sitting inside looking out, and they ignored the sun they saw. We used our gazebo while on the boat, but only used it to keep rain off a couple of times. We all got a bit of colour, though we're a bit ashamed of C's half-arm tan....

Ian has gone off to Norway and should have arrived there about now. I drove him to Dublin this morning, encountering major floods in small regions of Dublin. Maybe it did rain yesterday up there, or overnight, or something.

Poor Goldie has a very sore paw so we have to bring him to a vet tomorrow. C and Andy have bandaged up the paw and he hasn't even tried to take the bandage off, so it must be very sore. He has been dragging his paw and this has resulted in him wearing away the ends of his nails. I'm not sure what can be done to ensure it doesn't happen again, but no doubt the vet will have ideas.

We'll have to find recipes for using up tomatoes soon. Lots of red ones greeted us on our return from holidays. I've a feeling we'll never want to see another tomato again in a while. There are even some yellow ones, which are slightly sharper in taste. I'm not going back to work until Tuesday and I'm going to have to do some gardening tomorrow. Weeds have grown ten times as fast as everything else while we've been away and I'd hate the neighbours to think that we are messy!

Anyway, the change has been good over the last couple of weeks. It was also lovely to have all the family on the holiday, and the boat working well. Let's hope we get a few more weekends on it before the season ends.

Worried about tomatoes

My tomoatoes are producing lots of little round (and, in some cases, oval) things and I'm looking forward to the day when they start to go red. I've spent a lot of time this weekend tying the vines to stakes so that the heavy tomatoes are held up and don't make the main stem collapse. I'm worried, though, that the leaves of some tomatoes are not as green as they ought to be and some have shrivelled and dried up. From my reading that means:
1. They have been watered too much and have too few nutrients, or
2. They have been watered too little and have too many nutrients.
Hmm - I really am not sure which it is. I have watered them a lot, but when I don't they can shrivel within a day, so I need to keep doing it. I have now rigged up some shelter on the greenhouse so that they aren't getting direct sunlight all day. I'll keep on talking to them and hope they respond. I'm encourage, though, by the fact that you are supposed to reduce the watering once the fruit is well set, and this coincides with holidays when I won't be able to water them anyway.

You should see my cucumbers, though - they just keep on coming!

I spent the rest of today getting ready for holidays. The front room has bedding, cutlery, plates and all sorts of things that we need for the boat. All we need now is for the boat to be ready, but that is looking reasonably good. B went up to visit yesterday and witnessed the engine starting on the first attempt - mind you, they were about to service it and that could cause problems that weren't there before!

Only 5 working days to holidays......

It's been a while

It's been a while since I blogged, and I probably won't get back to it properly until the autumn. With C at home last week, and due to come home again in 2 weeks, she will probably be fed up with news. It would be scary if Ian needed to read a blog to get the news, though he'll claim we never tell him anything!

The exciting news is that the new barbecue arrived on Thursday. We used it yesterday evening and enjoyed its products. It is definitely a superior barbie to any we have used before and I can see us getting great use out of it over many years. Its portability is great to use. b is going to see if he can get more items to "match" it as he will be near Woodies today.

I'm a bit scared about what is going to happen to my tomatoes and cucumbers while we're on holidays as there is no obvious person who could water them. Maybe we'll drop home and pick a few veggies while we're here every few days. The weather still isn't looking great for our holidays, but we'll still enjoy them.

I'd better go and do all the things I have to get done today - holidays take a lot of organising, you know!

Ian in hospital

I'm off to Dublin tomorrow to extract Ian from his hospital tests. So far he seems to have had lots of visits from consultants and dieticians and the main aim now is to get him to gain 1 pound a week in weight. To do that he has to consume 1,000 extra calories per day. These will be given to him by a liquid that is more digestable than the milk-shake like substance he was trying to us in the last few weeks. The general concensus is that he will gradually get better. If he isn't considerably improved by September the main consultant will do something further.

So, another week is nearly gone by. Summer has gone away and I'm tempted to put on the central heating. With any luck it will come back by the time we go on holidays as I really need to have a bit of warmth as well as relaxation.

I've just eaten a lovely mixed salad - lettuces of various kinds, rocket, nasturtium flowers, eggs, onions, walnuts, salami, tomatoes (not mine yet), anchovies, wild garlic dressing. Now I am going to head to watch Wimbledon on TV and read the Limerick Leader and Irish Times.