thunder rise, early in the morning...

I’m taking down the ceiling in the downstairs bedroom. You know, the horrible one over the cellar and, more importantly, under the bathroom. And I forgot that, in order to get the drain from the shower to have a steady gradient, my lovely builder used piles of old ceramic tiles to keep the pipe level. And when I rip down the ceiling these also come down. On me. There is a little blood, a lot of pain & some language that, to be honest even shocked me. Granny will be spinning in her grave like a rotisserie chicken on speed. Sorry Gran.
Anyway. The pipe now bows. And leaks at one of the joints. And there is a surprising amount of wiring hanging down. I suspect putting a new ceiling in is not going to be as easy as I hoped. Or as cheap.

Unfortunately, this month all my spare cash has been consumed buy my car. The MOT meant a new exhaust & the replacing of some hoses. Also a promise to get the front breaks done before Christmas. The car is a lot quieter, and I don’t seem to get the headaches whilst driving it anymore. Goodbye carbon monoxide poisoning. Hooray. Goodbye two hundred odd quid. Boo. So, today I must fork out £180 on road tax. This could severely limit my beer intake for the month. I wonder if the crown has a loyalty card.

So. Its Monday. I have spent much of the weekend watching series two of house and eating cheesecake. And I’m all ready for an intensive week of solitaire in the office. But on glancing out of the kitchen window it appears something has happened in my greenhouse. I have those windows that open and close automatically. I suspect a pigeon has got trapped. As I approach and realise the extent of the devastation I upgrade to buzzard. The greenhouse is trashed. The tomato plants are shredded. The bubble-wrap insulation has been torn down. The prized cacti are, well, its just too upsetting. And sitting there amidst the wreckage is that most evil of vermin – a cat. I can’t remember when I last had the door open. I’m guessing Saturday. So its been trapped a while and is not happy. But then neither am I. I open the door & it just sits there meowing pathetically. I make ‘here kitty, kitty noises’ but it doesn’t move. I lean in & get the whole arched back and hissing thing before it retreats to the back of the greenhouse. I don’t have time for this. I don my gardening gauntlets. No more Mr nice guy.

At this point I should point out that I am in my attractive green towelling dressing gown and my poundland slippers. These are pale blue, have a smiley face on the front and are made of … sponge foam. Squelch. Have you any idea of the sheer volume of poo a scared cat can generate in forty-eight hours? Again I must apologise to my late grandmother. The cat chooses this point to rake its claws across my leg & exit stage left.

Its going to be a long month.