A Shed, never ending illness and a decent erection.

People often say that no news is good news.  In the world of trying to get your garage conversion done before Christmas, this does not apply.

No real updates on that front, and there probably won’t be until the good men of Gas arrive to move our meter about a metre.  The one thing that did happen this week was that the funds for said conversion arrived in our bank account.  I am a fairly sensible soul, but there were a few mad minutes where I imagined what sort of kickass holiday I could book with that amount of cash sat in the current account.

Sanity, plus a healthy fear of Louise prevailed,and it got transferred to the savings account (nice to use it for something I suppose) and we wait.

But wait, Monday brings a major development in this whole Grand Design.  Our shed arrives.  Being frankly shite at anything that even includes the letters D I and Y, we have employed a crack team of shed fitters to ensure the erection is satisfactory.  I would hate to have an unsatisfactory erection anywhere never mind in our back garden where the neighbours can see it.

Once we have the erection in a satisfactory state, then the real work starts, and I will be working up a sweat I’m sure.  Yep, we have to empty the garage of vital crap, and put said vital crap into the shed, and jetison non vital crap to the skip via the cavernous delights of the Mondeo’s boot.

However, that shall not be next weekend, as I shall be away, jet setting in gay Paris.  An unfortunate choice of words perhaps, when I admit that I shall be so with a bloke I met off of the internet.  I refer you back to the earlier post in which I outline how I won a trip to Disneyland Paris courtesy of the DisneyBrit Podcast.

My journey starts next Friday morning and I shall be tweeting all the way there and back, so if you care, then please follow me! The prayers for fine weather have begun, alongside the hopes that the delightful French decide that next weekend is the one this year that they will not be striking over something important.  I’m hoping to travel light, but this is balanced against the worry that it will be bloody cold, and I therefore need to take three hundred layers.  This will of course be the reason for any unsightly bulk around my frame on any photos.  As you know, I have a fine physique.

Thursday evening saw Louise and I drag my disease ridden frame to the girl’s school.  Louise started at 5pm, for a meeting about Rebecca’s exchange trip to Nuremburg in November.  A quick summary is, it will be cold, it will be expensive.  Time well spent.

I joined Louise at 7pm for the next meeting, this time for Emily.  As she has just started Year 11 aka GCSE year, we had to attend a briefing on how to help our Year 11 children through this difficult year.  No bugger did similar for me.  When I was doing my O Levels (giving my age away), it was a solo effort, and all of my revision had to be slotted in around the 1986 World Cup.

Now it seems we have roughly as much to do as Emily, and we were told how to spot and deal with stress.  We were also shown how to use mind maps as a revision technique, along with a long session on how to plan and structure revision, course work, controlled assesments, and some sort of social life.  Jesus, if I wasn’t worried about it before, I am now.  Emily seems unfazed by the whole thing, and only appears from behind her fringe to ask for food and/or money.  As long as she knows I am here for her!!

I arrived home, tired, scared to death for the year ahead, starving and close to death’s door at 9pm!!  Smashing.

Now I know I may have let on more than once that I have not been in the rudest of health this week, but I have fought on valiantly, and made it to work all week.  I did give in and leave early on Friday, as the illness was peaking, and once I’d come out the other end of my meetings which ran from 9.30 until 2.30 non stop, I was neither use nor ornament to anybody.  The fact that some arse had been incompetent enough to have a bump on the M61 and made my journey home last over an hour only added to the magic of my Friday afternoon.

Friday night was spent watching a couple of DVDs, interrupted nicely with some sniffing and coughing.  We watched Where the Wild Things Are and It’s Complicated.  The latter was much better than the former.  Where the Wild Things Are was just weird to be honest.  I can watch a kid’s film with little problem usually (no comments thanks), but this was just a bit boring to be honest.

No real plot to speak of, and this meant that the film just doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

It’s Complicated was better, if predictable.  It was one of those non challenging films that you can just let wash over you.  With a cast of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, you know you are in safe hands, and the plot is just about original enough to keep you interested.

Fair play to Alec Baldwin.  Being on the chunkier side, he had no issue in showing of his Party 7 (not six pack), and I for one applaud him.  If I had any weight issues I too would make a stand and have my kit off at every opportunity too.

My plan for the weekend is to do nothing….at all.  I have less than no energy, so this seems to be the correct plan.  Having felt rough for two weeks now I am getting seriously bored.  I haven’t been able to get to the gym due to this, and if this carries on I shall be approaching Baldwin territory, and I don’t mean Mike.

So next week (and the week after) are four day work weeks for me, having booked Friday and Monday off for Paris, and that is just dandy.  I’m not sure when and if I will be able to blog you again, with being abroad and stuff next weekend, but I would imagine Monday will be a good time to regail you with tales of missed trains, over eating and Space Mountain.  Frankly, I hope it is more Space Mountain than Brokeback Mountain…no offence Adam!

My aim during next week is to finish off the trip report for our 2010 Florida jaunt (don’t hold me to that), so that I shall be free to quickly document the Paris trip, in a compare ands contrast fashion.

As I type this, Louise is unusually out doing the BIG shop.  A task I normally undertake every Saturday.  This is because when Louise does it somehow the shopping bill is tripled.  We go to the same supermarket, and seem to eat the same food, so it is quite some acheivement.  I await her return with trepidation, a headache, sore throat and an impressive collection of snot riddled kitchen roll.

Have I mentioned that I feel unwell?

Till the next time…..