Winter’s log, earthdate 201511.11

So, here we are – the day after the day before… Remembrance Day – did you buy a poppy? I haven’t been out, so I haven’t got one – but one of us usually has one tucked away in a pocket, due to the lack of a buttonhole in which to put it. How many people still stop whatever they’re doing at 11.00am and stand quietly for two minutes? I’m ashamed to say that we don’t – I always forget, and by the time I remember, a week has gone by and I’m busy; in the middle of something, as usual … Anyway, Paul turned up on time this morning, and my bathroom is now an empty shell! He has a little more jack-hammering to do, to even out the floor where the base of the shower used to be. The original builders of this house (which is on a concrete slab) had some rather “innovative ideas”, when it came to plumbing – which is politically correct speech for “weird ideas”! Clarke is a good builder, and knows his stuff, from construction, to electrical fittings, to…. pluming. Paul’s the same – and neither of them can figure out why there’s an enormous great hole underneath where the bath used to sit – normally, there’s just a drainage “sump” and a waste water drain, and the rest is usually solid, especially in a concrete slab house. This hole would have to be about 2’6″ (76cm ?) long, by about 1’6″ (46cm ?) wide, by I don’t know how deep because I couldn’t get in to have a look inside it. It’s going to take quite a lot of concrete to fill it all in, and which will probably take quite a long time to set and dry! The other somewhat strange arrangement is that there are two separate drainage/waste-water pipes for the two erstwhile hand-basins – when the two basins are close together as these were, there’s usually only the one pipe that branches into two – one for each hand-basin – those two pipes will (logically) join together somewhere under the concrete to carry the waste water into the sewerage system – so why use two pipes if they don’t need to? It’s really a bit of an overkill! But all that will be rectified shortly. “The Great Bath Sink-Hole” won’t be needed as it’s going to be tiled over (after it’s been filled in! I don’t want to fall through the nice grey marble tiles and wind up in a small sink-hole!) and end up as glorious, and very much-needed room! We nearly did have a bit of a “planning malfunction” this morning though! Clarke was over and asking me about a 17cm space – I thought he was talking about the window, and as the term “17cm” means absolutely nothing to me unless I’m shown, or can actually see, just how big 17cm looks (Winter holds her hands out, about “X” cm apart “Is this approximately what 17cm looks like?” I wouldn’t know – I need to be able to see the distance, see?!) Anyway, he was rabbiting on about “17cm”, and I was happily thinking that he meant how much the bottom of the window was going to have to be moved up to accommodate a towel rail underneath it, so I was nodding and agreeing with everything he was saying. Clarke went off to organise the building of the vanity unit. Thirty minutes later (or maybe 35 or 40!) I went into the bathroom with Julian to see how things were going. Luckily, Julian again asked me about this mysterious, but obviously all-important, 17cm! Clarke hadn’t been talking about the window, he’d been talking about the length of the vanity unit, which was apparently scheduled to stop 17cm from the wall, where the existing towel rail currently is, or rather, was, and where the new one would go, too! No! No! The vanity unit was supposed to go along the full length of the wall, and the towel rail was supposed to go under the window! “The window’s too low…”, Julian started to say, when I again interjected “That’s why I thought Clarke was talking about the window!”, I all but yelled at him “It’s supposed to be going to be raised enough for the towel rail to go underneath it! That’s what I thought he meant by 17cm – that the 17cm was going to be how much the window had to be raised!” So, a frantic phone call to Clarke to sort this little matter out, and as it turns out, when he got home and looked at the revised plans for the bathroom – we’d all talked about it at some length, the last time he was over – he’d seen that the vanity unit was indeed to go along the full length of the wall, and the window was going to be raised, just enough, for the towel rail to go under it – and whether or not this will turn out to be 17cm or not, I have no idea, as I still have no visual reference for 17cm! 😉 So then he asked me about how I wanted the door… and did I want it to be a wall-cavity sliding door, like the one he put on the en-suite. I thought this was a wonderful idea! There’d be no doors opening up into my new, very spacious bathroom, which would then keep its clean-cut spacious, and sleek aspect! I also wanted it to be wider than normal – the same as the en-suite door! Once again though, the house chucked us a bit of a problem… This house is unusual, in that nearly all of the doorways go almost right up to the ceilings, and all the doors are correspondingly tall (long?) If I wanted the bathroom door to be the same as most of the other doors in the house, as well as being a wider than usual wall-cavity sliding door, it would have to be specially made (and probably cost heaps more!) I thought for about two seconds, and said “I want it exactly the same as the en-suite door!”, which is a normal height, but slightly wider than usual, wall-cavity sliding door – so that’s been settled, too! 🙂

Julian took my favourite eldest daughter over to the hairdresser this afternoon, and on the way home got caught up in all the shenanigans on the freeway – sorry, tollway – after the policeman was mowed down by someone. Bumper-to-bumper all the way until everyone was diverted off the tollway, which was then closed off. It was still bumper-to-bumper even off the tollway, so instead of trying to get her back to Glen Waverley, he brought Lee here, where we were able to have a bit of a visit (which is why I started writing this a little later than I normally like to!) – we won’t see her next week as it’s her and her husband’s (I fergit which, terrible mother that I am!) Wedding Anniversary next week, and Neale’s taken the whole week off… So we sat and chatted and had a cup of coffee 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Typical! Truly typical! I went down two points! From 68.4kg to 68.2kg. Why, oh why couldn’t I have done that yesterday! (*sob*) Now, you listen here, body! I see Dr. Y. again in March, next year! On my Birthday! By March next year, you’d damn-well better have got down to 65kg and been on Maintenance for a month and a half, and what’s more, be pretty much stable, between 65kg and 70kg by then! Or Else! Let’s see how I go without those ghastly pills for a couple of months! To quote someone I know quite well: “This… Better… Be… Good!” 😉

Well, I’m off to the hairdresser tomorrow, and I’m also going to see if I can get just one pair of size 14 under garments (to see if they fit, before I buy more) – I’m wearing size 16, and they’re getting uncomfortably loose – as are my jeans, also a size 16… and it suddenly dawned on me this afternoon, that for all the weight that Julian’s lost, for once I’m the lightest one in the family! With the possible exception of Julian’s sister of course – even a sparrow would weigh more than she does! 🙂 And you know, I’m still completely astonished that I’ve done this! I still can’t think of myself in “normal” sized clothing instead of XL and XXL (and even, sometimes, XXXL!) things… and with those somewhat bemused statements, I also have to add that that’s about it from me for tonight! Do call in again tomorrow night, and see if I’ve gone down a bit more, or if I’ve see-sawed back up again, and to find out how things are going with the bathroom – I wonder when they’ll be able to start tiling?! In the meantime, remember to bee good (for goodness’ sake! 😉 ) remember that a question you never ask will never be answered, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂