Some days it seems anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Other times even the things that can’t go wrong do. 22 January 2013 was one of those. In fact, it had all started to go wrong after my snowy walk the day before and went downhill from there. Reading it now it seems like one of those bad farces you watch on TV with one hand over your eyes. At the time I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
22 January 2013
Another little confession. The Maltesers I bought in the Co-op yesterday were in a pack of three. It wasn’t my fault, I wanted to buy a single pack but they didn’t have any single packs of anything, it was either Maltesers, Mars Bars or Snickers so I chose the lesser of three evils. The problem was, those others packs of Maltesers were calling to me all evening. I tried, really I did, but in the end I ate another packet. That’s almost four hundred calories worth of Maltesers in one day! Yikes. Good job the walk gave me eight hundred and forty calories really but it seems a bit of a waste to eat nearly half of them in chocolate form. I hang my head in shame. Still, I suppose it could have been worse, I could have eaten all three and they could have been Mars Bars!
In my defence (do I hear you muttering, not more excuses?) I did spend half the evening trying to sort out a problem with my iCloud and photostream not syncing properly. It was frustrating in the extreme and took a lot of Googling, several failed attempts, not a little swearing and finally, just when I was thinking of taking the whole lot to the apple shop, I found a little button in settings that had sonehow become turned off of its own accord! I Switched it back on and, hey presto, dozens of photos of my foot and the TV remote I’d taken to test it miraculously appeared. Why do there have to be so many different buttons in settings hidden away in random places? More to the point, why did it suddenly decide to turn itself off? Technology, grrr! Does anyone else have these kind of problems or is it just me?
Then this morning I couldn’t find my gloves, a bit of a prerequisite when the temperate is minus something or other. After a frantic hunt all over the house I came up empty handed. All the while CJ looked on from his position on the tub chair. When I asked him to move so I could check he wasn’t sitting on them, he grumbled. A lot.
“I think I’d notice if I was sitting on them,” he said sarcastically.
“They’re gloves, not hob nailed boots,” I snapped back.
He wasn’t sitting on them. The last time I had them was walking yesterday so I tried to remember what I did when I came in but it was all a blur of relief at being warm again. Maybe I’d chucked them down in the laundry room as I passed through and Commando had put them in the washing machine with the washing he did last night. I thought about searching through it but there was no point because it was all still wet. Another thing I couldn’t find was my iPod, it wasn’t in my coat pocket where I usually leave it.
In the end I gave up and tried to walk with no music and my hands in my pockets. As an habitual arm swinger (it drives Commando nuts, he says I look like I have something wrong with me) I found this difficult in the extreme. My hands were cold. When I came to the Big Bridge the cold got worse because of the lack of shelter and the breeze blowing up from the water. Suddenly I had a very clear vision of sitting on the sofa in the gym and stuffing my gloves and iPod into my rucksack. I stopped, opened the bag, fished around under all the snacks, diary, purse and general junk and there they were, along with my iPod. Doh!
Sadly Arabella’s father passed away over the weekend. He had been ill for a long time so it wasn’t sudden but I doubt she feels any better because it was expected. Mother was ill with cancer for years, getting steadily worse before she died and, during the last months, was in a hospice. The only shock was that she held onto life for so long when she was suffering so badly. It was terrible to watch. Even the nursing staff couldn’t believe how long it took, they said she was with us through sheer will power. When she went it was a relief in some ways as her suffering was over but it didn’t make us feel any better to have lost her and there was a great deal of guilt for feeling relieved. Poor Arabella, I know just how she is feeling right now.
At lunch time I went out to get a card for everyone to sign and send to her. The snow was fairly clear in the centre of town, although the parks were still covered. I didn’t need my Yak Trax, which was almost disappointing. There was also sleety drizzle in the air, not the best lunch time walk I’ve ever had. As the card shop was close to Holland and Barrett I popped in to buy some more things for my next granola, cranberries, toasted coconut flakes and some mixed berries with sultanas. I wasn’t planning to go in there so I didn’t have a bag with me, apart from my rucksack which is quite small and I couldn’t fit it all in there. They gave me a paper carrier bag because they are more ecologically sound, apparently. They charged me for it too but I didn’t have much choice. Let that be a lesson to me to keep a carrier bag in the bottom of my rucksack in future.
The afternoon was spent checking the information on the website to make sure all the entertainers were shown on the right cruises. They weren’t. Once I’d found out who updates the website I had to start getting all the biographies and photos that were missing and start compiling a list of corrections. So far I’ve got up to May! What a job that turned out to be, especially as the line ups of the bands change from cruise to cruise and some artists work with more than one band. Oh well that will keep me busy tomorrow anyway.
During the afternoon I had a call from Commando. He’d accidentally put the pasta dish in the oven with the plastic lid still on and melted it. The pasta was a right off and there was melted plastic in the bottom of my new oven. Good job I have lots of alternative meals in the freezer but I was a bit worried about the oven. All that kerfuffle to get it and the time waiting for it to be fitted, not to mention the expense. Talk about a disaster! There was a fair bit of under breath swearing when I put the phone down I can tell you.
Then the snow started to fall again. People were going up and down to the window looking worried. The flakes got bigger and bigger and things didn’t look good. Commando rang again to say the oven was fine, once it cooled down the melted plastic just peeled off in one piece. That was a relief I can tell you.
“Take care on the way home because its snowing hard,” he warned me.
“If it’s too bad I’ll get the bus,” I said with great confidence.
“If they’re running!”
Hmm I hadn’t thought of that but at least I had my Yak Trax, my flappy eared hat and my gloves, seeing as I’d found them.
By the time I left work the snow had turned to heavy sleet. There was no need for the Yak Trax as the remainder of the snow was quickly melting. It was freezing cold walking up the road in the dark with the sleet in my face despite the hat. The bus stop is almost a mile from the office and it was slow, miserable progress. Because my glasses were covered in sleet I could hardly see. If I’d thought about it I’d have taken them off and put them in my bag before I left the office, they were more hinderedence than help.
Just as I was walking the final stretch the Holland and Barrett paper carrier bag disintegrated without warning. Of course I’d been keeping an eye on the handles, worried they’d get soggy and snap but in actual fact the bottom just fell out of the bag. To think I had to pay for the privledge of scrabbling around on the ground picking up my shopping, then I had to somehow stuff it into my rucksack as best I could. When I did I couldn’t actually shut it so I had to carry it in my arms and try to hold the flap over the top to keep the sleet out.
At that point, the bus went sailing past. I was yards from the stop too, if I hadn’t had to mess around picking up my shopping I’d have caught it. Do Holland and Barrett have a suggestion box I wonder? Standing at the bus stop waiting for the next bus I muttered under my breath quite a bit, most of it not printable. Yes, I’m all for saving the planet but surely there has to be something better than self distructing paper carrier bags in a country that has three hundred and sixty days of rain a year. Good job there was no one else waiting with me.
Despite a bit of a disasterous day I did manage to stay on top of the food thing. Granola for breakfast, no extra snacks, just pistachios, pomegranate seeds, and some carob coated cranberries along with my chicken salad wrap. Commando cooked the lamb curry I made at the weekend to replace the pasta al plastic and I’m just about to have a coffee. The kettle’s boiled so I’d better go now, there’s a packet of Maltesers in my bag calling to me and I need all my concentration to resist.
It’s days like that that make all the others seem so much better!
Very true. At least I can look back and laugh now.