Kids, ants and leaks

The family have come and gone, leaving us old dears exhausted as ever. GD1 never stops talking, and GD3 is a dab hand at teasing. Yesterday they had fun and games on the swing, etc. in the garden, and today, the family took us out to lunch in honour of the Old Man’s birthday a couple of weeks ago. We chose the Chinese, because the girls like it. They do a buffet lunch and the girls trot backwards and forwards having a bit of this and a bit of that. The ability to leave the table at every conceivable opportunity is the best part for them. Then to the children’s playground near the car park. All well until an injury was sustained, and then lots of tears. Earlier in the day, we watched a ‘fashion parade’ in which GD1 was the main commentator of events, while GD3 did a wiggle along an imaginary cat walk in her fairy dress with wings. GD1 also dressed up in my clothes, which are still sufficiently long on her to qualify as ‘dressing up’.

After recovery time, we needed to address the problem of the leak under the shower. Now that the family have gone and are not due back for a few weeks, M needs to take out the old shower tray and replace it. It’s going to be a horrible job, but as a temporary measure tonight, we took out the old towel wedged underneath and replaced with another one. The towel was covered in earth – that means the dreaded ants are nesting under there again. (They come back every year – flying ants, red ants and ordinary ones.) M got out the industrial vacuum cleaner and cleared up as much of the mess as possible. Then I noticed a leak in the pipe that runs through the broom cupboard (back of shower.) Maybe this has been causing the problem all along and we didn’t need a new shower tray. M deal with that too, and while we were doing horrid jobs, I cleaned the Dyson out too. Not sure bagless vacuum cleaners are all they’re cracked up to be. At least with the old Hoover, I didn’t get covered in dust every time I removed the bag. Not sure I’ll buy another one, when this one goes.

In the brief additional time available, I had a look at my talk on Self Publishing, as I shall be giving a talk in Guildford this week, based on my experience with The Fruit of the Tree, details at my website, http://freespace.virgin.net/jackie.luben. And next weekend is the launch of The Gawain Quest, see the Goldenford site. www.goldenford.co.uk.

I just remembered, after months of puzzling why I was shown as a Gemini, I've discovered you have to put the month first instead of the day. So now I'm a Scorpio.