Flat Pack, you are the devil’s spawn.

Often on a Monday morning, offices around the country are full of the question, “Did you have a nice weekend?”.  Pardon my cynical view, but in most cases the person asking that couldn’t really give a rat’s ass, and is just expecting back the usual banal answer of “Yes, it was lovely, You?”

Nobody asked me that question this morning.  Either they follow me on Twitter (and you should!), or they could tell from my smacked arse face, and exhausted haunted look that the answer was likely to be in the negative.

OK, so in the grand scheme of things, as ever, things aren’t so bad, but my finely tuned sense of persecution is currently in overdrive, with every phone call, conversation or activity seemingly being a new problem to deal with. So the weekend just gone was not restful or relaxing to be honest.  However it was preceded by more worrying issues with another trip to hospital for Louise on Thursday.

She had a very bad night on Wednesday, with lots of pain and not much sleep.  With Thursday being her day off, she took herself off to the emergency doctor, who quickly referred her to hospital.  So, via text, I was getting updates from Louise during the morning, whilst enjoying a meeting at work, telling me that she was off to hospital.

I joined her there in the early afternoon, and we (well she) went through the usual procession of elimination techniques that we are very familiar with now.  Bloods and wee tested, x-rays done, and still nobody is any the wiser.  A consultant turns up, and orders a CT scan for the following day.  So Louise spends another night in hospital, and my biggest challenge is ensuring the girls have clean socks for the following day at school!!  A challenge to which I rose impressively.

Friday passes, a CT scan reveals nothing, and Louise is sent home at tea time, pain gone, but still totally in the dark as to what is going on.  Groundhog day.

With that auspicious start, the other highlights of the weekend were –

• A full day of flat pack assembly on Sunday, and this was just for two quite simple bedside cabinets.  Handy Andy I ain’t.  I am happy to accept that the length of time needed to complete this was down to my incompetence, but the fact that my Dad helped, and it still took ages, tells me that the instructions were bobbins.  My Dad has worked in the building/roofing trade for forty years!

• The utterance of every swear word known to man, and a few new ones too, on Saturday evening, when we discovered a new water feature in the kitchen.  The silly amounts of rain were obviously too much for our kitchen roof, and therefore a fair amount of that rain found itself onto our kitchen floor, via our light fitting.  This was a particular low ebb, I must say.  I sulked quite a bit about this it has to be said.  I thank Louise for her patience in this regard, and for not tripping over my bottom lip.

My Dad’s involvement in the roofing trade means that we had a man on our roof today (it’s who you know!), and I am only a little bit scared to find out what the damage is, both structurally and financially.  As is often the case, anyone enquiring if we have booked our next holiday yet, may be met with a complete sense of humour failure at the moment.  We are some way of simply being skint, and indeed, I aspire to just being a little short of cash, I dream of being a little tight of the green stuff.  You get the idea?  We are going nowhere!

Still, on the plus side, I love our new bedroom, I could spend a full day in our new shower (stop those rude thoughts!), and whilst I have plastic in my wallet, we will have food on the table!  Add to all of that, the fact I can now enjoy and even discuss football, thanks to the return of the King to Liverpool, as I said right up top, in the grand scheme of things, it could all be a lot worse.  Repeat until it sounds convincing!

This is no way alters the fact that I shall still no doubt sulk, swear and bemoan every new problem and crisis in my usual grisly manner.  I defend my right to do so.

Full of repressed anger and resentment at our leaky roof, we retreated to bed on Saturday night with Clive Owen.  I am quite open-minded about the whole thing really, and don’t feel threatened at all.  Anyway, he can’t be all that as Louise was asleep within five minutes, leaving me and Clive to it!

I of course refer to Shoot Em Up, the “classic” action flick starring Clive.  Can you really be a film star when you are called Clive?

We seem to be on a roll where films are concerned at the moment, and not a good one at that.  My benchmark for a film being far-fetched is, and I thought always would be Con Air…I have told you this before.  Well, I may have a new standard by which to judge.  This was a cracker, in all the wrong ways.

My favourite part of the film was when Clive dived from a rooftop, through a window into an apartment, escaping some baddies.  Doesn’t sound so far-fetched does it?  Well, if you add in the fact that he had a new-born baby tucked under one arm, this, in the first ten minutes of the film, set the tone of what was to follow.  Later, as he drives towards a truck load of baddies, he shoots out his windscreen, undoes his seatbelt, so that upon impact he is thrown through the front window, through the truck’s front window, forward rolls in midair and lands in the back of the truck, and is thus able to shoot all six or seven baddies before they realise what has happened.  He did not have the baby under his arm at that point though.

This standard is relentless all the way through the film, and can only be believed by witnessing it for yourself.  Go on, I dare you.

So hopefully, financial ruin aside, things can only get better from here on in, and I look forward to a better week ahead.  I know I have to go to work, but apart from that!!

For DIY induced swearing fans, you can look forward to the delivery of our new wardrobe in a week or two, for the full extent of vocabulary to be tested.  If the bedside cabinets are anything to go by, this could be a good one.  They have mirrors for doors, and spotlights and everything.  It could all get very nasty.

For fans of overweight balding forty year olds, you only have until Thursday to sneak a peek of my impressive frame through our bedroom window, as our custom (translates to expensive) blinds are to be installed.  The crowds outside are becoming a minor pest to the neighbours, so that is a relief all round.

I am going to wander off now, to look after the chip on my shoulder, and have a tantrum.  I feel it is deserved.

Till the next time….