Anything for a quiet life

After all the excitement of Tom & Youngja’s wedding blessing I wanted a quiet week and a quiet week was what I got. This was fine and although it was without drama, I did actually manage to catch up with myself.  On Tuesday Phil and I drove down to Maidenhead to see Rashmi our accountant.  We are way late filing our accounts this year, normally we have this done and dusted in May.  It is always a pleasure to see Rashmi, we had a good meeting at his offices then we took him to lunch at a nearby pub.   I think the pub Rashmi choose was The Sun and Stars in Holyport.  It didn’t look much from the outside but the food was delicious and very reasonable.  Rashmi and I had the 2 course special menu, £12.50 which included a drink and Phil had the supposedly famous fish and chips.  Restaurants in this part of the world are very expensive so the Sun and Stars was an unexpected surprise.  http://www.sunandstars.co.uk The M25 wasn’t busy and we were back home at the GP flat before dark.

On Wednesday I was back at the gym and it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. I am still suffering from a bad neck and upper back pain so weights were out but the cardio workout was okay to start.  In the afternoon I had an appointment with the dental hygienist.  I took the precaution of taking pain killers an hour before my appointment, but Tina, my hygienist just for once in her life, was in a good mood and my session was a walk in the park.  In the evening I cooked a big pan of chicken chilli-men and Phil went out with the boys.  I felt a little sorry for him, it was tipping it down with rain when he went out and he said he got soaking wet on the way home.

Once again, it was a trip to DW to start the day on Thursday.  Afterwards I went to IKEA and then stopped off at the OU to see Harriet and also to return a jacket that I’d borrowed. Poor HH was suffering with yet another cold, she had one before we went to Fuerteventura so obviously her immune system must be low. After lunch at home I drove to The Manor at Overstone to pick up our post.  It was a miserable drive in the rain but worthwhile because there was a bundle of post waiting for us to collect.  I was surprised to learn that The Manor and all of the units at Overstone had been subject to a burglary.  The thieves had jumped in over the gate, there was no vehicle involved and nothing much was taken. 

My mission on Thursday afternoon was to renew our passports. You’d have thought this would have been an easy especially as I’d paid £17.50 at the Post Office in CMK for the ‘check and send’ service.  But oh no.  The first application forms were rejected because I’d used obliques for all my married names and I’d also made a crossing out when I wrote down Phil’s old passport number.   The post office lady also told me that because our photographs hadn’t changed much we didn’t actually need a counter-signature.  I found that a little difficult to believe because I thought that both of our photographs look much different to those taken 10 years ago but hey ho.  So back home to fill out 2 new forms and got Phil to sign and then drove back to the city centre. I got my ticket number and queued only to have the second application forms rejected.  The reason being that when you don’t have a counter-signature you don’t need to have the backs of the new ID photo’s signed so I had to go back home to get new photographs.  I was seriously pissed off by this time.  Three trips to CMK in a half term week and 3 parking tickets is not my idea of fun.  Anyway third time lucky and £162.50 worse off and finally our applications were approved.

Determined to regain my fitness I was back at the gym on Friday morning.   Afterwards I went to Harriet’s flat to clean her outside windows.  This wasn’t an easy job because I struggled to get her windows open. I almost gave up but with brut force I managed to get them open and was able to clean them. They looked 10 times better by the time I had finished. I had taken a bucket full of cleaning products with the intention of giving her flat a deep clean but actually it didn’t really need it.  I did do the bathroom and sprayed some WD40 around in the kitchen but I was in and out in an hour and a half. 

On Friday afternoon I popped round to Sue’s for a cuppa and a catch-up leaving Phil at home to wait for the BT engineer.  I had serious doubts as to whether the engineer would actually turn up because when Phil took the confirmation phone call the call centre person had our address down as 67 Giffard Park.  Our time slot was between 1 and 6 pm but they turned up not long after I left.  Installation of the new BT Infinity Broadband & Vision was fairly straight forward Phil said.  The internet speed is indeed a whole lot quicker, it still drops out every now and then but a big improvement from before and well worth the extra money.  TV on demand and playback is really good but we were very disappointed to discover that we have to pay to watch series and films.  After reading the small print we can upgrade and pay another £8.50 a month for the privilege but I am not so sure.

I was back at DW early on Saturday morning having stopped off first at the market to get some fruit and veg.  My body was aching so I only did half an hour of cardio and then swam some lengths. I enjoyed my swim and also my steam and sauna afterwards. With all the kids swimming lessons it’s not a lot of fun at DW at the weekend but if you go early (before 9 am) then it’s fine.  I went on line a couple of days ago and cancelled my current membership at the gym. I have however rejoined as from the 8^th of Nov and have gone for a student peak membership at the same price, £29.99 per month.  I am not a student but the online registration didn’t ask for a student number so hopefully I will get away with it.  I hope so, it may bite me on the bum when I go to pick up my new membership card later in the week but it is worth a try. Not that it makes such a difference to me, but it will mean that I can get access to the gym much earlier in the morning.  With off-peak membership you can’t officially get in until 8.30 am.

Harriet called at the flat not long after I’d got back from the gym.  She’d been to get her eyebrows done and decided to stop by. Thankfully she was feeling much better.   We had noodles for lunch and the rest of the day was spent lazily in front of the TV.  Actually most of our weekend was lazy.  Phil didn’t even get changed out of his pyjamas for the whole of Saturday. What a miserable day it was yesterday.  I had a day off from the gym and had to force myself out in the rain because I had to pick up some cushion covers that I’d ordered on line from Dunelm’s.  When I got to the customer services I didn’t actually like the cushions that I had ordered so I had to pick some different ones.  They are much better.

I cooked roast lamb for lunch yesterday and invited Sue round.  She had to visit her dad in the afternoon but roast lamb is one of her favourites so it made sense for her to come and join us.  I served lunch early so Phil could watch the start of the Grand Prix.  I didn’t really watch but t Sue & Phil were engrossed and I gather from all the cheering that it was an exciting race.  Just a shame that Sue couldn’t stay to see the finish.  We watched a film after the GP, had a snooze then woke up in time to watch the X-Factor results. I did open the blind last night to watch the fireworks in Campbell Park but that was the only excitement of the weekend. Sometimes quiet is best……………….