bopeepsheep was resting at her mother's for one night, I made a dent in the mountain of stuff in the room which we are supposed to be unblocking so that we can fix the electrics. Actually I hardly moved any of the stuff that was in the room, but I did manage to clear the doorway so now we can at least walk into the room and look at the depressing pile of stuff that we are supposed to move (and I also know which point on the floor I'm aiming for, although what I don't know is whether I will actually be able to get the floorboards up). For the most part, probably carting a ton of stuff into the loft would probably suffice, and some of the books may be able to be reshelved once we have the shelves. Of course, this room is still exactly as full of junk as it was then; one of the problems is that it can't really be done while smallclanger is asleep and that doesn't leave a lot of time during the week. On the bright side, we only have to clear half the room in order to get at the necessary bit of floor (but it's the half which includes the bed, which will be `fun'); and once that's done we'll have enough space to Anyway, we did have some plans for today. My plans included catching up on some sleep, but that wasn't to be because the postman rang the doorbell at about 7.55am and I didn't succeed in going back to sleep for the 45 minutes or so until
smallclanger started being all bouncy.Even so, getting up on Saturday is a leisurely task given that it's the one day in the week on which I don't usually have to be somewhere at a given time. One thing this means is that we can have proper showers, for example. Goodness knows how, but by the time we had got downstairs and
smallclanger and I had had breakfast (he's taken a liking to the Shreddies, by the way) it was already 11.30am.Going shopping always seems to take half the day, even though it can't be much more than an hour that we are actually in the supermarket. We didn't leave until after 12, and it was almost 2 when we got back. There is then the ritual of trying to fit everything in the fridge, and then it's
smallclanger's lunch time, and then (better late than never) it's our lunch time.At about a quarter past 3, when all that had been taken care of, it was time to start getting all the waste cardboard out of the way by taking it to Redbridge recycling centre - which closes at 4.
When I got back from that,
smallclanger was just drifting off to sleep, so upstairs jobs had to wait, and I did some stuff in the kitchen. You probably can't tell the difference, except that for the first time this year it is now actually possible to open the door of our freezer wide enough to pull the drawers out (well, there was only one drawer in it - but now there are two). And a couple of loads of washing got put on the maiden to dry, which is always useful.When
smallclanger woke up it was more or less time for his tea so, as that usually seems to be my job (when I'm not at work) I got out his first ever HiPP Organic toddler meal and heated it up as per the instructions. He quite often doesn't have a very long attention span, so feeding this to him was a very slow task (and we eventually gave up with about a third of it left - which, considering it was a fairly big beal, is quite good by his standards).bopeepsheep suggested that, as I still hadn't managed to put up the curtain pole and the remaining shelf in our bedroom, we should phone for pizza instead of spending time making our own tea. This would have been a good suggestion, except that we had to unearth the menu leaflet first, and by the time we had decided what we were going to order we could probably have made the originally-planned stir-fry anyway. But no matter; with the food ordered I disappeared upstairs to attempt my task.I started with the curtain pole because, since this is in
smallclanger's room, it definitely can't be done while he is asleep, whereas the shelf in our room possibly could. Besides, I didn't think it would take long to put up. I was wrong.The previous arrangement was a plastic curtain rail screwed to a long thin piece of wood; the latter is, I think, nailed to the wall (though it seems to be held on pretty securely). I've since noticed that in fact all the rooms with curtains have this piece of wood (for which there is, no doubt, an official name; but for now I'll just call it a plank). The old curtain rail had broken off, leaving four bits of plastic screwed to the plank. It wasn't too hard to remove those. My original plan was to fix the curtain pole holders to the plank, but I soon discovered that the plank is too narrow - there's just about room for the two screws which hold the holder up to go one each side of the plank without passing through it. However, there was a contingency plan, suggested by
bopeepsheep in an earlier discussion about where exactly to fix the curtain pole. This consisted of ignoring the plank and fixing the pole to the wall just above the plank. So (bearing in mind how stupid I am) I measured it, marked the positions of the holes, and started drilling.Well, now I know what the plank is for! I tried several different drill-bits, several different positions of my body to get a bit more force into it, and both of the required locations for holes, but I could not get that drill to go into the wall. Of course it hit me just before I gave up that I'm trying to drill just above a window, so I'm probably trying to drill through a reinforced lintel - undoubtedly not a good move. The plank is there to give some extra depth so that you can drill through without hitting the lintel.
So no curtain pole. Not without a bigger plank of wood (or some different pole holders).
I started on the shelf. I measured up and started drilling the first hole when the doorbell rang. The pizza was received and a voice said "Are you coming down?" Of course the correct answer should have been "No - give me ten minutes," but instead I went down to eat my tea. And Papa Johns had sent
bopeepsheep the wrong pizza, so she had to ring back and they said they would send another one.While trying to restack the fridge in order to find space to insert the left-over pizza, I was requested to fetch
smallclanger's pyjamas and change his nappy. After I had done that he managed to cover himself in garlic dip (fortunately this was before he had his clean pyjamas on) and then it was time to put him to bed.So no shelf either - though at least this can be done tomorrow. I had to clear all the books off the bed, though.
(While
smallclanger and I were in the bathroom brushing his teeth, the replacement pizza arrived, seemingly with a thousand apologies.)And then I put some washing away and made the bed.
I should be getting an early night, but since it's just taken me the best part of an hour to type this, it seems that's not going to happen either.
Oh, and this is our last free weekend before the QL party (although tomorrow isn't really free given that it is
bopeepsheep's mother's birthday and we are going over there in the afternoon) and I haven't started making the video quiz yet. Thing is, there are various reasons why I can't really do that until we have tidied up in here, and that's another in the long list of things we have failed to achieve today. 