Re-learning to drive part 1

Today I had to do something which I haven’t really had to do before and that is check my previous blog post; I honestly couldn’t remember where I had left it. Now, having done that revision, I can just about recall last weekend, the excellent and enjoyable visit of my parents which ended sadly with me not on top form and feeling quite ill, and the fact that there was nice weather on a weekend and a long weekend at that. Suffice to say that weather has now changed and it has been horrible and windy and rainy all day today. But that is getting ahead of myself.

 

A friendly note to the delivery person, which was ignored

There was one thing which I missed out of the update last week which I have remembered to photograph for your amusement in this one. The cables which I was waiting for arrived while I was outside sunning myself on the Monday and, cleverly I thought, I stuck the note above on the front door. Of course the delivery guy ignored it as the package was small enough to slip through the letter box but still; I am keeping that note for another use and maybe (if the weather is good enough) it will even see the light of outside again.

 

Soaking the roots for a bit

One of the main themes (of the pictures I have for last week at least) of the past week has been food. I don’t know why but I only seem to have pictures involving food. This one may not seem like it does but trust me, these are two fruit trees I insanely bought from Tesco on Tuesday after work which I will now have to somehow transport back to Bulgaria without killing. The instructions said to soak the roots for 24 hours before planting so I found a plastic tray and filled it with water. This was after I got back from Tesco doing quite a large shop including epic quantities of meat for dinners over the next week or two.

 

Chicken in chinese stir fry sauce

Ironically, considering just how much meat I had bought, that evening I ate a lovely Chinese stir fry chicken meal with blue oyster stir fry sauce bought by my mum, and it was lovely. The other theme of the week has been work as I have been doing my best to make up for being off on Monday and also for the planned absences next week which I will come to later. After I ate this meal I worked a short while and then I was off to bed early as my day would start sooner than normal because of The Driving Lesson.

 

Some sunshine at last

I woke up even before I needed to, at about 5am, and dozed for half an hour then I was awake and getting ready to leave. I had arranged to meet the driving instructor in a pub car park at 7.30 and wasn’t too sure how long it would take to get there. The sun was rising as I drove up the M6 and I enjoyed the sight of the changing colours as the day began. Of course I was super early and spent the 40 minutes or so waiting for the instructor to arrive reading my kindle. When he got there I was straight out of the car and over to meet him. My first impressions were of a nice chap who was used to telling others what to do and of course that describes the ideal instructor. We quickly got down to it, with him explaining about the test while taking details and then he was out with the cones to mark out the bound of the most important manoeuvring task of the test; the S reversing manoeuvre.

 

Reversing task

We spent the entire two hour lesson in the carpark practising manoeuvres and most of the time was spent on this particular one. I found that the biggest challenge I had was with his car; a very powerful VW Golf which he said would be the ideal car but rolled along with zero gas too fast for the course which meant I had to try and control the speed by slipping the clutch and being very careful with the throttle. I stalled a couple of times once but didn’t do so badly and he said that I had passed every time I tried. There were other things to do including an unhitch and rehitch routine including pointing out compatibility of the trailer with the car (something I hadn’t known about) and also helped me to decide that I definitely need to get a new tow bar as mine just isn’t fit for this job. At the end of two hours I went away quite tired and with eight more hours of lesson planned for next week.

 

Lovely sunny day in Blackpool; makes a change

From there I was off further north to the studio in Blackpool via a train set shop (they sadly couldn’t help me with my broken locos but did give me a contact to try, not that I have as I’ve been too busy to get in touch with them) and then to drop Thomas at the garage to get looked at as he has been a bit smoky to start. It was really good to be in the studio again and see Dan, though he was in a session most of the day. I worked both in the office and then, when a drum lesson started in the room below, out in the café and got quite a lot done. I was also able to ring the bank and confirm that no, Santander do NOT do accounts for foreign companies not at all not ever. Which isn’t great. At the end of the day Dan dropped me to get Thomas and I called past my favourite Chinese for dinner for us both. It was nommy as usual.

 

Planted out

I left about 7.30 and was home in time to have a brew and read for a bit before bed. The next morning I woke up early again and went straight outside to plant the trees which had got a bit more than 24 hours in water. It didn’t take me long and pretty soon I had them both standing up securely, though I’d forgotten which tree was which. Oooops. That’ll become clear as soon as they flower.

 

Steak and Ale pie for lunch

Work was good and once again long but lunch was brilliant as I had bought a steak and ale pie from the butchers in Blackpool I like so much to bring to work with me. It disappeared very quickly indeed I can tell you and kept me going until I was the last person in the office (having been the second to arrive) at about 6pm. There was quite an important meeting at work which went well and I seem to be pushing myself forwards again towards having some role leading the team at least technically but that is probably for the best as I hate being told what to do – this driving instructor has his work cut out I think.

 

Clean bedding; awesome

I can’t really remember Thursday evening but I must have eaten burgers or something and then regretted it as I’d not cleaned the chip pan since roasting the lamb and the fat was a bit nasty on the chips. I can remember feeling a bit ill at some point before yesterday and I think it was Friday morning. I did get up and at it OK and just had a lot of wind in the night (sorry, but I did). One of the first things I did was to put a load of washing on and then as soon as it was done I hung it out, including the bedding which went onto an improvised line outside between a post for that purpose and a tree as the string I was using wasn’t long enough. I had no pegs either so had to hope it would not fall off or blow away. Of course the sun, which had been shining brightly, went in as soon as I appeared with the washing to hang out. Standard.

 

Lovely tasty rice n three

I worked away from early until about 11.30 then was in a sudden rush to leave as I was meeting my ex colleagues for a Rice and Three in honour of one of them leaving the country to do TEFL in China. It was a particular pleasure to get to walk back to their office with the man himself and catch up on his plans; it’s great to see more people taking the plunge and getting out of this country.

 

Beer to finish the day

After saying “see you later” to that group I headed towards town to find a bar to work in for the afternoon. On the way it was great to bump into Scottish Mike again and have a quick chat. I decided to go to my usual bar and found a table with a power socket and tried to use their WiFi but eventually gave up and used my 4g dongle. No matter, I was able to work really well and got loads done with Loz by the time I put the laptop away and bought a pint. I waited until just after 5 and text my mate to find out where they were and they had already gone to the bar we were meeting in so off I went and found them

 

Eating late in the evening

 It was a good crowd of people as he is a popular chap and there were quite a few people there I hadn’t seen for a while so that was good. I was reminded, however, of just how awkward these large gatherings can be when you run out of things to say to the person you’re catching up with and then need to move on to the next; I’ve never been great at that and hope I didn’t come across as rude to anyone. The evening ended with me sitting with Kirsty and Viv, Mdickens and Jane and a few other lovely people while me and Kirsty devoured a plate of ribs and two different types of fries. The food wasn’t great but the company was outstanding.

I left at about 9.30 which was later than planned but I had been enjoying myself. It was the right time to go though and I got back to get the washing off the line, make the bed, then collapse into it. I woke to really strong winds and heavy rain and was glad I’d decided to not stay out as the bedding would probably have ended up in Wales.  I was feeling a little ropey when I was woken then but it was only about 3am so I went back to sleep and when I woke again I felt like I was in the grips of an overwhelming hangover. How this could be I do not know as I had only had the one pint at the pub and then lemonade other than one small shot of dirty bourbon in the evening. I should have drunk gallons as I suffered as if I did; the whole day was pretty much a write off as I moaned and whinged and then eventually took a headache pill which of course cleared my head up. Other than that  I talked to A online, played Civ a lot, and slept.

Ooodles of Gammon, one egg, loads of chips

Today has been better as I spent the whole day working and making really good progress. I had a super breakfast of really well done sausages on toast and then got hungry mid afternoon but held off cooking so I ate about 5.30 to carry me through til tomorrow. I had gammon egg and chips but let myself down by there only being one egg left in the box. It was still marvellous and filled the hole perfectly well.

And so I am now sat thinking about playing some more Civ, or maybe reading, and then getting an early night as I am meeting The Driving Instructor at 8am at the same pub carpark tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed I can get this B + E done and dusted very soon as it really is causing a lot of disruption to work and thus my free time.