All things considered, this afternoon was both very disappointing, and very enlightening… but once again, I’m getting ahead of myself… We did go Tile Hunting, but not in the morning. This morning, Julian did some “Office-y Things”, and I had a nice, long, solid go at Rift – so what did I do? I created another new character on Greybriar! “But why!?” I hear you all call out in dismay – because I needed another Guardian to complete the ensemble – I was going to grab one from a “Parking Shard”, but everyone who was even remotely suitable would have had to have bought a Name Change scroll, and that just seemed a bit too expensive and unnecessary, when all I really had to do was roll a new character! So I did – and her name’s Gingerlilly 🙂 So I had a bit of fun with her until lunchtime. After lunch we set out for my Warfarin blood test – it wasn’t due until tomorrow, but as we were expecting a person from the ubiquitous “Jim’s Mowing” to come around sometime tomorrow morning to give us a quote for mowing our two small areas of grass, and a Podiatrist in the afternoon, who will either get angry with me for implying that I wasn’t as mobile as she’ll find that I actually am, or do her job and leave, vowing that next time, I can ruddy well go to them! I’m not sure why they’re not keen on home visits – it’s not as though they don’t charge heaps for them! Having the blood test done a day early’s not a big deal – a day either side of the Test date seems to be fine with them – but we didn’t go to our usual blood-letting place in Doncaster, we’d sort-of mis-timed things a bit, and if we’d gone all the way over there we wouldn’t have had enough time to go looking at tiles, so we went to a Dorevitch collection centre in Blackburn instead. This was extra-handy because the tile showroom that we went to this afternoon is in Mitcham, just up the road from the Vet, where we had to drop in to pick up some more Loxicom for Flipper (her arthritis medication – we put two drops in her dinner every night and it seems to help her a lot) The tile place we went to was National Tiles – and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t really overly impressed with them! They appeared to have a large range of tiles, but appearances can be a bit deceiving – because there wasn’t very much at all that was suitable for our situation. For starters, you can put floor tiles on a wall, no problemo, but you can’t put wall tiles on the floor, because they’re not “hard enough”. Some of the really nice wall tiles that also doubled as floor tiles were way too big (600 mm x 600 mm) and we’d have been lucky to get more than two across the width of the floor (it’s not a terribly large bathroom, unfortunately!) And some of them had a supposedly “matching” floor tile, but they were usually not a matching shade of grey, or else they marked horribly if you looked sideways at them! The saleslady actually demonstrated this by taking off her shoe and gently swiping it over the tile – which all of a sudden developed a large black streak across it – then she put her shoe back on and went to get the Spray n’ Wipe and a sponge! We also learnt that (a) small mosaic tiles in any shade of mauve, purple, or lilac simply do not exist, and (b) even if they did you wouldn’t be able to put them on the floor anyway, because most of those pretty little mosaic tiles are made of glass, and if you walk on them they crack and splinter! (now you can see why I said it was a “very enlightening” afternoon!) So it looks like it’s back to the drawing board for me, and a good, hard re-think about the colours I want! They did have two of the caesarstone samples that I’d picked out on-line – one, called “London Grey” turned out to be totally unsuitable because it had far too much yellow in it, the second one I’d chosen, “Alpine Mist”, they didn’t have a sample of, but if the “London Grey” sample was anything to go by, it’ll also be too yellowish. They did have a sample of the third one I’d picked, “Calacatta Nuvo”, and it’s absolutely perfect – exactly what I wanted and had envisaged! So at the very least, I have code number and name of the caesarstone vanity unit top! Now it’s back to square one for the colour scheme! It’s not as though I’d absolutely set my heart on the purples, mauves, and lilacs – it’s just that I wanted to get right away from the browns, honey-colours, fawns, beiges – call it what you will, I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about! I hate pinks and pink tones, I’m not terribly keen on the yellows and oranges, I will not have green (it’s not allowed in my family – or at least, “Kelly Green” is forbidden to us) and I also wanted a change from my usual “when in doubt, use blue!” I love blue colours – it’s my favourite colour (except for cyan, which I consider garish!) but occasionally I get a bit panicked – oh gosh! I’ve chosen blue again! Everyone will laugh, or say to themselves “(yawn) Typical! Blue again! Hasn’t she got any imagination?!” so… I just wanted something that wasn’t brown, or pink, or yellow, or orange, or green… or blue (sorry, blue! 😦 ) Which really left me staring at the purple tones! The purples and mauves are my second favourite colour, so I thought I’d go with them – but apparently, the Interior Decorating fashionistas have decreed that there shall be no more purple, mauve, lilac or lavender shaded tiles while Winter’s looking for them! Naturally, just as soon as I choose something else and have my bathroom re-done, the purple, mauve, lilac or lavender shaded tiles will flood the market! I’m now thinking along burgundy shades… I’ll keep you all posted! 🙂
Weigh-in this morning. Not too bad today – I went down two points, from 73.6kg to 73.4kg – so maybe I’m not quite at the dithering, see-sawing around the same weight for days on end, stage yet! (Oh! I really wish I hadn’t written that! I’ve well and truly gone and mozzed myself now! 😦 ) Well, we’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow morning! Please keep all your fingers and toes crossed for me! 😉
Well, there was me, thinking that I’d have a nice, peaceful time Rifting tomorrow morning! Instead, I’ll be poring over colour charts – laminate colour charts, and tile colour charts 😦 I did spot another tile place – actually directly opposite the one we went to today – maybe we should go and have a look there before I make up my mind? I also want Julian to ask Clarke if those 600 mm x 600 mm tiles are too big for the room… Oh, and the saleslady came up with a good idea/suggestion – if the vanity unit is to be “floating”, or “semi-floating” (that is, attached to the wall, and not going right down to the floor) we should install a lighting strip underneath it – it adds light and improves the “ambiance” of the room. I think she’s right! I’d like to do that! Also, if possible, I’d like to make the little alcove/niche where you put your shampoo etc., enlarged – just a little bit – or rather made higher, because I have a really tall bottle of madder root shampoo with a pump in it – at the moment it’s only got its top on it, not its pump thingy, and it barely fits in there – so yeah, higher, definitely, and longer (wider?) I don’t mean how far in goes into the wall, I mean longer along the length of the wall… and I’d like a strip of lighting along the top and back of that too, please Mr. Magic Clarke! 😉 So, there you have it! A nice, peaceful Rifting morning, and an interesting if rather disappointing afternoon – and lots more homework for tomorrow! 
And again, that’s about it from me for tonight! Do drop in again tomorrow night and see if my weight has continued to behave itself, or whether it has indeed reached its dithering and see-sawing stage (If it has, I shall be most put out!) or if I’ve come to any decisions colour-wise, and had my feet done nicely – but until then, do, please, continue to bee good, remember that it is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them; don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm, and to look after yourselves… but most of all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 