Continued home improvements; dentistry; Easter

During a fit of low blood sugar (my story), I was forced to break into one of the Lindt gold bunnies I’d bought for my parents for Easter. Ruth feigned outrage and insisted on taking this photograph of what remained. Waitrose has evidently got some deal on with Lindt, as our Caversham branch has been overloaded with gold bunnies, including ranks of them lined up in rows at the checkouts, looking vaguely sinister in a certain light. You can read the Lindt Gold Bunny Story here - apparently they’ve been around since 1952.

Attended my first M255 tutorial on 31^st March, in a dimly-lit room in the old part of Reading College. Seven of us present, six blokes and me. Picked up a few useful pointers, though not sure I’ll attend the next one at the end of May as that appears to be four hours long as opposed to two. Almost wrote a letter of complaint about the officious old git stationed near reception to direct OU students to their rooms, but in a later fit of compassion decided not to.

Ruth has now painted the rendered patio wall, taking advantage of the recent dry spell. Looks positively dazzling in the sun.

Floating shelves and new carpet

Spent 1 April painting the interior of the cupboard in bedroom 1, following plaster skimming the week before. Horrible job but managed to satisfactorily slap a couple of coats onto the walls and ceiling, as well as touching up the skirting. Ruth had a creditable go at putting up two floating shelves in the alcove to the left of the fireplace, and very nice they look too, though she ran into a problem on one side with soft brick and/or drilling into mortar, with the result that we won’t be loading them with anything like the alleged 25kg weight limit. They do look nice though. Ray advises us that it’s possible to buy a product from Screwfix called Stick-O-Plug or similar that helps out in such scenarios. For the moment, we’re adopting a deliberately minimal look.

Display of my work on Steppy will have to be saved for a future post, as His Gittishness (aka Harley) scratched the wet paint.

We were at home the following day to Rainbow Carpets (of Caversham – yes, we support local traders), who ripped up the old carpet in bedrooms 1 and 2 and laid some of the posh new cream-coloured quite-high-wool-content number that Ruth had picked out a few weeks earlier. Looks dead nice, though we are both paranoid now about removing shoes of any kind before entering the rooms. The photo shows the new carpet with Ruth’s inherited chest of drawers back in place. And the lovely if delicately-balanced floating shelves.

I had booked an additional day off on the Tuesday to 1) see my dentist Jill, who was as jovial as usual while flagrantly finding lots of work to do to compensate for the fact I hadn’t been to see her for a year. Am booked in to have two fillings done early in May – very small holes, apparently, but You Never Know. She also claimed one of my half-erupted wisdom teeth looked suspicious, and took an X-ray, to add to the various other X-rays that have been taken of them previously. Also 2) went up to Whiteknights at lunchtime for another lunch at Blandford’s with ex-Progress South Central staff – smaller numbers than the Christmas meal, but a very pleasant gathering. Ann, Godfrey and Paul are all enjoying various degrees of retirement; Little Emma is working in the Examinations Office in Whiteknights House and, one suspects, doing very well.

Visited the online OUSA Web Shop last week to purchase some past exam papers for my Java course (having just received an email with the exam date) and was amused to discover ‘Graduation Tapestries’ among the merchandise on offer. You can have either the OU Shield or the OU Coat of Arms. Don’t remember those being on offer at Reading. I may knock up a crude sampler at home perhaps.

Ruth and I spent the Easter weekend in a frenetic round of relative-visiting, starting with a lengthy drive to Cheddar on Good Friday to have lunch with Ruth’s grandmother. I had had a few qualms beforehand about driving to Cheddar on a Bank Holiday, which I had quashed in the interests of goodwill, but in spite of leaving Reading at 8.30am we didn’t arrive at Cheddar until 12.30. Admittedly we did have a c.30-minute stop off for a cup of tea, which with hindsight was perhaps foolish given that there were two sets of roadworks on the M4 and the M5 was almost at a standstill, leading to us leaving the motorway in frustration a junction early and having to trundle across country to Cheddar via, if I recall, such places as Yatton and Congresbury, as part of a procession of other cars who’d also thought it a good idea to take the cross-country route. Cheddar itself was packed with a queue of people awaiting the Gorge Tour Bus, but luckily Mrs Millard had booked a table for lunch at the corner café, so we were sorted.

After leaving Cheddar we headed up to my parents’ place where we enjoyed a fish pie for dinner, as Dad was observing a meat-free Good Friday, and learned that Emrys’ burial plot is already being prepared, although the poor cat isn’t dead yet. On Saturday morning Mum, Ruth and I had a pleasant jaunt around Hay before returning to the house to lunch on the hot cross bun pudding Mum had made the day before, but which none of us had been able to manage after dinner. I enjoyed a delightful late-afternoon bath (pictured), as I am still bath-deprived. Very impressed also to witness Dad baking what may have been his first cake (also pictured).

First thing on Sunday we set off for Newport to visit Dave, Hazel and new baby Nia, born early last Wednesday morning weighing in at a healthy c. 9 lbs. Nia is adorable though I fear I didn’t make a good first impression, as she was distinctly unsettled for most of the time I was holding her. Despite Hazel’s tactful remarks about probable hunger, I fear the generous squirt of ‘Coco’ I’d slathered on that morning may have been a contributing factor. At least Nia is too young to remember me as ‘the smelly lady’. At our next meeting will try to ensure I am smelling of talcum powder, rusks or similar.

Had to leave Newport after an hour to reach Ruth’s aunt’s house in Lambourn in time for Easter Sunday lunch, in the company of Gail and Rob. Mrs Spence had acquired a splendid-looking joint and managed to cook it to perfection. We followed it up with pudding and assorted Easter sweetmeats.

Exciting news for Reading last week, as the on-again off-again proposed IKEA development near junction 12 of the M4 appears to have finally been given the go-ahead. The development has seemingly been held up by spurious objections around traffic congestion and impact on the environment – the latter particularly puzzling given that the store is being built not on virgin forest but on the site of an existing derelict retail park, with the nearest residential development some way away. Bring it on, I say.

Sticking with Reading news: also delighted to read about the imminent loss of dignity to be suffered by the empty Simonds Bank building if it is forced to house Georgie Porgie's Buffet World. Tut.