Confessions of a serial mower - down and dirty

Well I have just spent an hour and a half on the kitchen floor with our carpenter - lots of sweating, swearing and thrusting, but no sex. Yep, the integrated fridge has gone wrong, the new one has arrived and it is a different size!! My arms are small enough to reach the back to adjust the legs and said arm got stuck!!
Luckily I know carpenter man very very well, from junior school in fact, so getting down and dirty was not an issue. I mean dirty in the sense that the dust and debris behind my fridge and plinth was somewhat embarrassing. But, much to my amazement, no dead animals!
This is not the day I intended.
Firstly we had a power cut during a severe thunderstorm, then carpenter man turned up unannounced as his outside work had been rained off, and we "might as well have a go at the fridge"!
Whilst on the floor with said man, GOH comes home! His contact lens has come adrift and he can't sort it! So, he helps get my arm out and I then have to find contact lens under his eyelid. Typical Friday really. I hope you are all having a fun day too!

I took this picture yesterday afternoon and then saw @themill's border - I now need obelisks to complete the look I fear. Did you make them or did you buy them I wonder. There is talk of heavy rain here for the weekend so thought I had better record the roses before they get their petals all bashed.

I am now going for a lie down, alone!!!

Confessions of a serial mower - just another difficult day!

Hellfire and damnation. I am seething.
May 2006 I frequented our local Ford dealership with a friend of very limited means and a small savings account, to exchange her old banger. We struck such a deal and we were thrilled. Her old Fiesta was traded in for a 3 month old ex-demo Ka.
I did all the dealing and suchlike as old mousie is sometimes likened to a Rottweiler and I was rather pleased with myself!! It was a cute little car and just right for her. Her first proper car that wasn't a "heap". Something of her very own.
A year's free motoring was ensured for said friend with the final free
service being this May, all part of the package.

Wrong!!

Said salesman it seems was in the midst of a mad passionate wild affair at that time, his mind was on other things, and he did not write up the deal as we both understood it. He left the dealership soon after our transaction, and after some 30 years of marriage, ran off into the sunset with a lady he sold another car to!! He now, rumour would have it, drives coach tours all over Europe with lady lover and no one knows where he is based. Wonderful.
Anyway, friend goes to pick up little car from its service to be told she owed £200.00 and the service was not free and there was no record of it.
"Couldn't possibly be as it wasn't new when we obtained it". It had just 3,000 miles on the clock and was their demonstrator!! Why would I make it up.

We are both liars it would seem. Couldn't possibly have made such a deal - if we had it would have been logged etc etc. Well, the "loved up" salesman made so many mistakes on the sales document anyway, that we are at a stalemate at the moment.
It's a "he says, she says" dialogue.
Friend paid up, in tears, and I am now trying to get the money back.
Her husband, of course, had said she shouldn't have the car and she is now getting the "I told you so" spiel.

I was so pleased with myself at the time for sorting this out, without the use of GOH, and now the bloody thing has gone pear shaped. Now £200.00 may not sound much to most people, but to my friend, it is a huge big deal.
Hubby and I have over the years bought various cars from them, and now of course GOH has got involved. He was so incensed, and I have to admit, I am going to let him run with it.

Now awaiting a huge removal lorry - no, we are not joining Jane and moving to pastures new - in a rash moment when No 2 son bought the house in Portsmouth, I said would they like our dining room furniture as it would fit so well in the house.
Thinking it was far to old and traditional for them I thought I would make the gesture.
"Yes please" they said, "When can we have it"!! Sh*t!
They have now sold their stuff and need it now. So my lovely 12 seater table and chairs are off to a new life. I have managed to hang on to the dresser, which being oak, luckily isn't to their taste! I am now going to redecorate and get an oak table and chairs.
I will not be changing my car this year it would seem.

Photo is of son, daughter outlaw and the Heiress here at Christmas with the dining room furniture. I may hold back on the grand gestures in future.

On a brighter note, in the Telegraph this morning, I see it is very "now" to wear pink. Thank god for small mercies!

The great, the good, the rich and famous descended on Suffolk this weekend for one of the biggest house content sales of the year, held in a village nearby. The collection of furniture and objet d'art was huge and very valuable, and judging by the Telegraph this morning, made over £2 million! Keith Skeel the famous interior designer and collector is moving on and out and abroad. The side roads were awash with expensive cars and posh folk all vying for a piece of the action.
Not much there for us or that we could afford, so we headed out of Suffolk down to Essex to have lunch with four of our bestest friends.

The sun shone by lunchtime and we were able to sit outside the Barn Brasserie at Great Tey for pre lunch drinkies. This large barn conversion is a wonderful restaurant that even caters for the likes of me with my food intolerances and the menu is marked accordingly, gf, gluten free, df,dairy free and even vegan. Something for everyone and as usual the food was spot on.
For some reason or another the service was rather "hit and miss", but it caused us so much hilarity that we forgave them and accepted complimentary coffee to compensate.
We were called into the restaurant at 1.15 as our "starters" were ready. We were served from a huge selection of breads; tomato ,seeded, nutty, etc. etc.
Alas no warm oven baked fresh bread for me. However, because we were talking so much we clean forgot the time and by 1.45 realized we still hadn't actually had our starters and we were ploughing through the wine fairly!
We signalled the waitress and she promptly rushed over and started clearing the table. We explained we had only actually been eating the bread and "where was the rest of it". She looked aghast. There was much toing and froing from the kitchen and raised voices were heard.
She explained that we had been "breaded" and the kitchen hadn't been informed. Well, we all fell about as we had not heard this expression before - I personally thought it made me sound like a bit of scampi - or perhaps some deep dark masonic ritual or "blooded" as in hunting and all that.

Anyway it set the tone for the day and we laughed throughout. I think we left there at 4.00 pm - a hell of a Sunday lunch!

Our designated driver brought us back, and we finished the day off with nibbles and fizzy overlooking my stripy lawns. No one wanted bread.

Today is back to reality with the silage being cut in the next field and the huge baler coming behind. In my younger days silage was collected and heaped in large silage clamps on the farm to be used as and when. Now it is stored like big straw bales. I wonder if it is to do with Health and Safety - the clamps used to be covered with black plastic and old car/tractor tyres - I don't expect this is correct anymore!!

The deer have found my new rose bed of David Austin "Sister Elizabeth" roses planted in memory of my mum. They have stripped them bare of their leaves and all that remain are the pink frothy heads hanging forlornly on the twiggy branches. I would laugh if it wasn't so sad.
So no pictures of the roses, just one snapped through the hedge of the silage making in progress.