I may be messy...

...but I'm not disorganised. Yes, 99% of the time the computer desk will have piles of paper all round the keyboard, but 99% of that time I can find exactly what I'm looking for (the 1% being if Anthony has been hurling stuff around).

But at the moment I am both messy and disorganised. I hate it. It makes me itch.

There'd been a strange lumpy bit in our living room floor for a very long time. It wasn't a major problem, we just stuck a chair over it. But then one day I moved the chair and realised that the lumpiness had spread to the wall...

So when Anthony's folks came round the following Sunday bringing a builder with them to look at fixing up the utility room to make it more weatherproof and secure, we got him to have a look at the floor instead.

Turns out that the heating pipes that run the length of that wall had been bodged together by the previous owner, and so one of the joints had been very very slowly leaking.

Just a case of patching that bit of floor and wall, yes?
No.
The area where the pipe had leaked was also where the bodger had pulled up the old hearth area, so none of that area was any good.

So a case of patching the hearth area of floor?
No.
The way the rest of the floor surface was breaking up made the builder suggest that we needed the whole sub-floor ripping up and a new concrete floor laid.

Since this was two weeks before Christmas, and the weekend before my 12 week scan, I was hoping for "we'll get rid of all the loose stuff, then do it properly after Christmas."

Not my decision to make apparently. (Not Anthony's either)

So the work actually started on the day of my 12 week scan. A week and a half's worth of no heating, lots of dust and noise, just when I'd started to be less stressed.

They did the floor in three sections in the end.

Each section was done about three days apart, to allow for the concrete to go off enough so that they could then use that surface when working on the next chunk.

For most of the time I got to keep a couple of bookcases in there. The rest are all out in the conservatory. I get extra itchy when I can't get at my books.

The next decision taken was to get the room redecorated while it was empty. A quote was obtained and a decision taken. (again, not by either of us)

Which is why I spent the week I was supposed to be on holiday with Anthony, staying with my mother while he and his dad decorated.

To be continued...

Snowy morning...

...walk to work.



The Work Walk Set

I do apologise for that shot of RichieFingers...I hope no one was eating when they looked at it. ;-p

A Facebook note...

...on t'blog.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I wish snow would go away tidily. I like it when it's here and new and fresh, but when it's starting to go and has melted and refrozen then it's just very very slippy and annoying!

2. I have been meaning to take photographs of my walk to work for over a year now.

3. I did it this morning because the snow would make everything look pretty.

4. But I'm not going to upload them until tomorrow as this house is freezing so I'm going to bed early to keep warm.

5. I judge books by their covers. Only in the fact that if a book I love is available in a hideous cover for £5 or a lovely cover for £10 then I'll spend the extra and get the lovely one.

6. I still have all my birthday cards up because I can't bear to take them down yet.

7. I have hardly any feeling in my right hand at the moment because it's so bloody cold.

8. I really need to buy some fingerless gloves to type in. (The pair I had last year were normal gloves with the fingers hacked off and they unravelled).

9. I buy books the way some people buy clothes.

10. If I'm happy, I buy a book. If I'm sad, I buy a book. If I really really want to kill one of my co-workers...I buy a book and then read it at lunchtime with my iPod on so she can't natter at me.

11. I have issues with suppressed rage. (and one of my co-workers).

12. I spent a whole hour on Saturday choosing which audiobook I should download next from Audible. It was a tough decision!

13. I eventually decided on The Borrowers by Mary Norton. (and if you click to play the sample, you'll hear her talk about me).

14. I do love books that have a Kate in. You don't get many of them, they all tend to be Katie instead.

15. One of the best ones was a little girl called Mary Kate. (Mary is my middle name). She was a well behaved, neat and tidy little girl. My exact opposite!

16. I wish I could be tidier. I do try. I'm just not very good at picking up after myself.

17. I also remain terribly bad at washing up.

18. One day I shall have a dishwasher! (and be terribly bad about emptying it)

19. I follow the random article link on Wikipedia every day to see if I'll learn something fascinating.

20. Today I learnt about the King's Pawn Game.

21. I am terrible at chess.

22. I got a personalised Monopoly game for Christmas that includes Chance cards where Lewis Hamilton retires, the cats win an advertising contract and my letting agent finds me a "large, cheap house - with library".

23. I don't know how I'm going to cope in the future without a dedicated book room. Eep.

24. But I'd like to point out that I'm NOT going to throw loads of them out! (Would be no good anyway, see #9)

25. I'm now going to bed with a) the electric blanket turned up high, b) Easy Italian on my iPod, c) Stolen by Kelley Armstrong and d) dinner = burger and chips.

I have tagged you on the book of face. And no, I don't think tagging people who have already done it is cheating!

My week...

...was pretty good really.

Yes, the event was hellish in parts (I forget how rude teachers and librarians can be), the changeover was complicated by the staff shortages and the fact that half of my colleagues have a really nasty cold meant that we've all been flagging a bit.

But I have been extra kind to myself in the evenings, doing daring things like leaving the electric blanket on low all night (so that I don't wake up freezing cold) and not doing any washing-up again (which sounds terrible unless you realise that this means dirty plates/forks/knives/glasses x 4, and that's it).

Today I also finally got the affidavit for my divorce signed! I've been ringing the solicitors across the street ever day for the last few weeks and there's never been a solicitor in. (Always in court, says a lot about Wolverhampton). Today the receptionist went "Hi, there's someone here today! Will you be straight over?" (we've become quite chatty). So that is done and now just needs to be sent back to the courts and in 4/6 weeks I should get my decree nisi! The reason it's all taken so flipping long is that the Yeti took months to reply to it, I suspect his mother took her own sweet time about forwarding his mail.
Anyway, step 4 is now completed, not too much further to go!

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Anthony's car is still playing silly buggers, but he's being dropped off here later after work. Tomorrow we have plans for a lovely lie-in and then a day of doing who-knows-what. I have to get to bed early though, it's the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday - race start time, 13.30 local time, 05.30 BST.

Now I do actually quite enjoy the early morning races, once I manage to haul myself out of bed. The one thing that always throws me is when I decide I want a beer about mid-way through the race. I walk though to the kitchen, get a bottle from the fridge, open it, turn to walk back through the dining room and spot the time on the clock on the bookshelf - 6am. Yeah...
Never gonna be as bad as when I was tipsy by 8am after watching one of England's World Cup games back in 2002. That was the day I got together with the Yeti, think the match drinking might have been a factor?

It's been...

...a pretty good weekend considering.

That's considering the fact that I've been working both days and that Anthony's car is still playing up. The car thing meant that I saw him when he met me from work on Saturday night to go shopping (minimalist shopping since we had to carry it all) and that he spent last night and today here but has just left. He's very grumpy about his car, and very grumpy indeed that his car playing up means he has to cadge lifts from his dad - something he hasn't done for 17 years or so.

I now won't see him until next Saturday, probably. That's the main thing that's making me grumpy - I never know when he'll be able to get here or for how long he can stay, and if he can't get here at all it's rather depressing.

So last night and then when I got back from work today we did what Deanna describes as boating and what we think of as bed snuggling. We're not quite in the same league as her, for us it consisted of eating first (curry, yum), then lounging in bed watching Buffy until we both got too sleepy. The decision to do this last night was driven by the fact that neither of us could get warm and so bed with electric blankets was deemed very necessary.

My solitary form of snuggling has become me curled up on the sofa listening to audio books (rather than watching TV) and sewing. I've just finished listening to I Capture the Castle - in a very disjointed fashion as I realised I'd heard half of part one, then half of part two so had to match the story back up again. On Friday I had to choose between Sabriel (read by Tim Curry) or Stardust (read by Neil Gaiman himself). I went for Stardust and boy is it good. It's fabulous listening to the author read their own work, it means you know it sounds the way they want it to.

I have tomorrow off before a week of doom starts (out at an event on Tues, changeover Wed, generally short-staffed all week) and I think I just might have to listen to some more of it then. In fact, I shall put it on my to-do list for tomorrow.