wednesday 2 – went for run, knee still hurting though, so only going about 20 minutes
thursday 3, berlin – flight to berlin, worked in office then meal in evening at:
friday 4, berlin then skipton – meetings in office then had to give presentation which went ok followed by flight home to leeds/bradford via terminal 5 at heathrow
back for 11pm, watched graham norton show and interesting discussion from cameron diaz about why she is against lazering of body hair for cosmetic reasons, because it is pretty much irreversible and you might change your mind about it later in life
saturday 5, skipton – back in skipton doing a few jobs and staying at mum’s
sunday 6, skipton – reading on facebook, eg. a cover from WSJ/Personal Journal, 03.04.2014, titled “Rules for a Happy Life”:
1) consider marrying young
2) learn how to recognise your soulmate
3) eventually stop fretting about fame and fortune
4) take religion seriously
5) watch ‘groundhog day’ repeatedly, for me this would have to be the film “About time”, of course.
thursday 10, skipton – couple of conf-calls at work, then decorated cubby-hole where the boiler is going to go, ready for workman to complete tomorrow
friday 11, skipton – round to 11 duckett second coat of white in cubby-hole; then gareth and his mate arrive at 9am on the dot and leave about 6pm after finishing the boiler installation
got back and couldnt sleep so watched tarantino’s “inglorious bastards” on film4, which meant getting to bed late
saturday 12, skipton – completing guarantee for boiler, reference number:
12042014103523BD232EJ
just going through the hours taken, it was 12.30pm to 3pm for about 2.5h on wednesday, including travel then 9am to 6pm on friday for 10h including travel, so a total of 25h since 2 people
boiler was around 900 ex VAT, total job cost 1500, gives a rate of around 24 per hour, given plumber and mate at same rate, but it would be more like around 30 for plumber and 18 for mate, so seems a reasonable price all told.
a few jobs but not in the mood for lots of work, went back for lunch with mum on our own table – beef and onions then trifle, enjoyed it
steve took us up to watch the game against blackheath which ended 17 v 24, losing but nonetheless some exciting and surprising rugby
sunday 13, skipton then munich – round to 11 duckett for 8am, then another couple more coats of white on kitchen ceiling, finally it is looking white and not discoloured; raced to put another coat in cubby-hole, using up all the remaining paint, worked quite well for volume in the end, all 6L gone! sprinted up town to finish off last-minute shopping errands, leaving mum stocked up as follows:
6x 0.75l bottles of fruit juice
5l UHT milk
4x 80s boxes of tea
5 loaves of bread
8 yogurts
1kg butter
750g cornflakes
2x jars of marmelade, plus 1 jam
ok on cans – 3 fruit salads, 8 soups
2x packets of wipes
40x bin liners
2x full soap dispensers
full washing powder box
2x full bottles of fairy
dropbox with 10x tenners
as ever a mad rush, fortunately jamie ran me down to get the 13:36 train, change at shipley, change at leeds, pie at greggs then the usual security and hanging around. lovely flight over, got a row of 3 seats to myself and enjoyed the veg/salad/pasta with fruit and lemon drink, the assistant at boots commenting what a healthy option it was!
wonderful sunset visible from the train and we flew over the wash from the north-west, across east anglia and then across to rotterdam.
sunday 20 – hiding easter eggs or in our case, a box of after 8 mints for sabs and kinder country for eve – the latter gave more room for fun since there were 9 in the box, so katie and i hid them with eve getting increasingly exasperated as she couldn’t find them, she is not so patient that way.
wednesday 23 – St George’s Day!
Reading die Welt at GBR and a nice quote from Damon Albarn (who rarely uses the internet and is not on social media) from the new album “Everyday Robots”:
“We are everyday robots at our phones, standing like standing stones, out there on our own …”
Also a nice tribute to Shakespeare on the 450th anniversary of his birth (presumed 3 days before his baptism, therefore 23.04.1564) and how relevant his works still are, der Spiegel saying, he is “the most influential author of all time”.
Total work 38 plays, 154 sonnets, equivalent to about 1.6MB on a Kindle!
sunday 27 – Carol Seckel preaching at church, interesting sermon with a nice quote by Francis Bacon:
if we begin with certainty, we end in doubt; whereas if we begin with doubt, we end in certainty.
Hello dad.
I really love your blog! I miss you and I hope you have a lovely day/month/year!!
How’s your knee?
Love you lots Eve XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
hi Eve, thanks for the positive comment. My knee is doing great right now and I’m thinking of going swimming this evening. Missing you too and looking forward to getting back. love to you all, dad xoxoxo