In Which It Is Determined That My Confidence Is Misplaced

I don't think anyone who knows me would argue when I say that, in most areas of life, I ought to have more confidence.  Unfortunately, one of the few areas exempt from this is the area of DIY, at which my confidence positively brims, well outstripping my abilities.

So the shower started leaking last week, and I thought I'd better fix it before it brought a ceiling down or something.  I have a couple of tubes of sealy stuff, and they had instructions, so, you know, it seemed do-able.  PLUS I had to buy a barrel gun thing to put the sealy stuff into, and that's always exciting, because it means I get to go to Homebase and throw something technical-looking onto the counter in a nonchalant way.  If I'm feeling rakish, sometimes I'll even research it online beforehand, so that I can ask intelligent-sounding questions (to which I already know the answers) and the Man In The Shop will be impressed.

So I got the barrel gun thing, and I came home, and I thought "I'll take my contacts out before I start this, because I don't want to have to take them out later when there may be a residue of sealy stuff on my hands", so I did that, but then my glasses were downstairs and I couldn't be bothered getting them, and I just thought "I'll get nice and close so I can see it ok".  But then the stuff squirted out everywhere, and they were not lying when they said on the tube that it sticks to EVERYTHING.

On the plus side, I think I fixed the leak, though*.

*On the minus side, it is possible that no moisture will escape from my bathroom EVER AGAIN.

On The Changing of Clocks

So we have, once more, survived the annual rollercoaster that is the Going Forward Of The Clocks.  It is a time of year fraught with tension for WhyNotSmile, because, to be entirely honest, I get very confused by it.  I understand the concept, and I understand why we do it, I just get very confused the next day about where I should turn up and when.

Now, obviously, it is basically simple maths, which I should be good at, what with having a PhD in it and all, but it's one of those things that will not lodge in my brain, along with symmetry and following directions.

To complicate matters further, I often work with people in America, who put their clocks forward 2 weeks before us.  This spells only disaster for any scheduled meetings in the intervening time, so I admit it's something of a relief when we finally catch up.

Anyway, did anyone else think the time change wasn't publicised as much this year?  Normally you can't move for Huw Edwards reminding the nation to put their clocks forward on Saturday night, but this year... nada.  Maybe because we were all distracted by watching The Voice, a show so mundane that we can safely add the time spent watching it to the grand total of hours snatched from our very hands this weekend.


So, anyway, we've made it this far, and we're safe till October.

Back soon, with a summary of the excellent first week of The Apprentice.

Why you should always check my handbag before I leave

Text message to me: Hey, did anyone lift my keys last night?
Me: Nope, definitely not me

* several hours pass *

Facebook message: Did you check whether you have my keys?
Me: I definitely don't have them,  I only have 1 set

* 5 seconds pass *

Me: Hang on, that does sound like something I might do...

* checks bag *

Me: Yup, I have your keys.

How Clever I Am

So apparently Spain can kick a ball into a net more times than anyone else in the world, at least at the moment.  We are grateful, of course, to the W***d C*p for introducing us to Paul, the Psychic Octopus, but other than that, thank goodness it's over [1].

Anyway, today I figured out exactly how clever I am.  I am clever enough to realise that if you put a clothes-horse covered in clothes outside on a windy day, you should peg everything on so it doesn't blow away; I am not clever enough to realise that this will increase its air resistance and make it blow over and dump everything onto the ground.

[1] It is over, isn't it?  I assume, when they say 'Final', that they mean 'Last Thing That Will Happen'.

Spelling, and the importance of the meaning of words

Today I had a most unusual experience. I wrote a cheque in a shop. This I have not done in a long time, and for reasons which came flooding back: I have no idea how to spell '14'. Like, in letters, I mean.

So today I had to send some packages (on behalf of Alex, of whom more presently), and they came to £19.14. Since I was paying out of my business account, I tried to use my business account card, but had forgotten (or, more likely, never knew) my PIN, which left the options: pay out of own money and do complicated bookkeeping manouvers manoveurs (hmm, another word I cannot spell) things, or write a cheque. So I chose the cheque option, and realised that it is a looong time since I wrote a cheque in a shop, and that I did not know how to spell '14'.

But back to Alex, who has asked me to tell you about getting her house painted, as a warning to you all. This happened some time ago, when Alex (who lives in Omeath) decided the house could do with brightening up (the outside of the house), and toyed with Doing Something About It. Other Half Peter had got some ludicrous quotes of millions of Euro and so on, and Alex suspected that she could get a better deal.

So one day when out for a walk, she bumped into a chap whose name I cannot recall (for the purposes of this lesson, we shall call him Derek). Anyway, they got talking, and Alex mentioned she wanted her house to be painted, and Derek said that he had a friend who could do it. He gave directions and told her to ask for Redbeard. Yes, Readbeard.

So Alex goes and finds the house and finds Redbeard and asks if he can paint her house and how much will it cost and so on. And he says €300 (0r some such amount; I can't remember the exact details). So Alex thinks 'my my, this is good', and asks whether paint is included and he says it is. She asks whether he needs to know dimensions of the house etc and he says 'no'. She also asks him to do it much the same colour as it is, and he agrees, and they decide that Redbeard will come some day when the weather is nice, and get started.

So Alex has signed up a chap called Redbeard to paint her house for about a quarter of the price that everyone else was charging, and he claims he does not need to see the house, the current colour or the dimensions in advance, and that the price of paint is included in his quote.

Which did not make a lot of sense until he turned up at the house one day... wearing a smock and carrying an assortment of little paint tubes and an easel.

Something I Have Learned This Week

I have discovered something which may, quite literally, be life-changing. For many years I have believed that electricity was cheaper from 6pm-9am, and have acted accordingly. I have waited till 6 o'clock to start making dinner, put on a load of washing, or use the tumble dryer. I have got up early (at least twice) so I could finish my shower before 9am.

But this week I have been informed that it is not true, and that unless you have a special tariff, electricity is the same price all day.

To be honest, I did always wonder how they worked it out - cos I figured you'd need a clock on the meter or something, and you'd have to adjust it for summer time and that.

But now I know.

An Apology, A Grand Day Out, and The Son of Spider-Horse

So, I know I promised that things would be hotting up here at WhyNotSmile now that I have broadband at home, but frankly I've spent far too much time playing this, a lot of time watching this, and more time than is strictly necessary trying to get to the top of the pack in Scramble ladder mode (eventually achieved). So, sorry about that.

Anyway, yesterday I took time out of this hectic schedule for two cultural events: the Lifestyle Green Show (Castle Espie), and Proms in the Park (City Hall). The Lifestyle Green show is a kind of eco-living show, which is held in Castle Espie and where you wander round and get energy saving advice, free apples, a look at FairTrade stuff and it's all generally very good fun. You also get to see the ducks, and you get a free energy saving light bulb and a shower timer. And you also get to park in a muddy field, which Fifi was not at all keen on. I signed up to be a ranger for Sustrans, which will no doubt crop up again in these pages. Anyway, the point is, it was all splendid, and thanks to my friend Philip for giving me a ticket for free admission.

And then in the evening we went off to Proms in the Park: this is the same basic principle as Opera in the Gardens, except that it wasn't raining. Having been mindful of the Opera in the Gardens drenching, we were well stocked with coats and gloves and so on, but in fact it was quite a warm evening, and all was well. We had a very nice picnic and enjoyed much excellent music.

So that was the Grand Day Out, and I would recommend something similar to all of you.

This was a useful end to a weekend which did not start auspiciously: long-term readers will recollect Spider Horse, who paid me a visit about this time last year, and lived in the bath for several days before being unceremoniously removed by Dave. It seems he (Spider Horse, not Dave) liked it, for he has clearly spread the word and his descendants have, well , descended.

Friday afternoon, I was about to do some dishes when I spotted the tangle of legs under the basin. After shrieking, whipping the basin out of the sink, and then retreating to the far end of the room, I decided not to panic. I sneaked back upon the sink, where Son of Spider Horse was now running freely. I doused him with a convenient bottle of water, but this was no lie-down-and-take-it spider, for this is Son of Spider Horse, and is made of sterner stuff. So I used the bottle to flush him into the plughole, and then turned the tap on. After a couple of minutes under the water, I was pretty sure he was dead, so I turned the tap of, thus allowing him to uncurl and crawl out of the plughole. So I turned the hot tap on (and our hot tap is HOT). Then he died. And I felt really bad. But not as bad as I felt a moment later when I realised I now had a dead spider in the sink.

Forward a couple of hours, and Dozavtra comes home. I confess about the dead spider in the sink, hoping she will volunteer to remove it; she does not. In fact, she says she's not touching it, and since I was stupid enough to kill it in there, I have to deal with it. So I decide to just leave it and let it decompose. Dozavtra is not a fan of this idea, and suggests it might start smelling bad. So I get the vacuum cleaner and try to vacuum it out of the sink, but it's too bad and too yucky and I end up screaming.

So I retreat, to consider alternative plans, muttering things about how unhelpful Dozavtra is being. I do not come up with any viable alternative plans, and Dozavtra continues to make threats. Eventually bed time comes, and I go in to say goodnight to the dead spider, because I feel bad about killing it. And it's not there.

Panic ensues, until Dozavtra confesses she chucked it in the bin a few hours ago, but decided not to let on, just to see what I would try next.

And this is what I have been doing since the last time I wrote; hopefully you now understand why it has taken me so long.

It's Christmaaaassssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need children, and I need them soon. By next Christmas, in fact. And I don't just want to borrow them, I need them to be my children, living in my house permanently.

This was decided on Saturday afternoon, when I put Christmas up. You see, having a 3-year-old in the house would provide an explanation for why my Christmas tree looks like it was put up by a 3-year-old. When it comes to me putting up Christmas, two forces hold sway:

1. My inability to decorate the tree nicely

combined with

2. My strong sense that adding more things to the tree can only help.

This years' attempt, in fact, is not too bad. In fact, we even have some 'new' (to us) decorations, courtesy of, surprisingly enough, the builders, who have had cause to poke about in the roofspace and had rearranged its contents (all over the 'floor', mainly in hard-to-reach-and-full-of-spiders places), including unearthing some contents which had been hidden for years. So we have an extra box of decorations, namely, some sparkly apples which my grandparents purchased from Wyse Byse for £1.29 quite some time ago. They are as tacky as they sound, but as we all know, adding more things to the tree can only help.

Nothing can ever top the year we got a real tree (this was many years ago, before Dozavtra lived with me, when I lived with G and I). We (myself and G) bought it, admired it, and then wondered how the #&*! we were getting it home. Eventually we arranged delivery, only to discover when it turned up on the doorstep that it came with no stand. After coming up with the cunning plot of putting it in the watering can, wedged with sand, sticks and paper, and with me lying on the floor holding it up for about 2 hours, fiddling with said can, sticks, paper and sand, while housemate G complained the thing wasn't straight, housemate I came in, gave it a bit of a kicking, and got it upright in about 5 minutes.

At which point all the needles fell off.

On the return of WhyNotSmile, an update on the building work, and the post you missed because I was sick

I'm back. I felt ill indeed with my stomach flu; I won't go into details, but suffice to say it wasn't pretty and I was VERY glad to have a plumbed-in bathroom. Of course, when I started vomiting, I did what all self-respecting 29 year-olds do in such a situation, and phoned my parents. They came and took me to their house and I had the nicest week I've had in a long time, being in bed and waited on hand and foot, and not having to go to work.

So, you'll all be thinking 'oooooh, 2 weeks since she blogged, how much the building work must have progressed in that time, there will be Stories To Tell', and of course you'd be wrong, because the builders all got the flu as well, and succeeded only in grouting the bathroom tiles. On the other hand, just before I got sick, and just after the last time I blogged (apart from the one telling you all I was sick), they actually came and connected up the heating.

Also, there was an entry I didn't get round to posting, and it went like this (please transport yourself to not last Saturday but the one before so that this makes sense):

How embarrassing. I came home from work yesterday to discover that the plumbers had fitted a new radiator in my bedroom. And that all my teddies (Cat, Elephant and Gordon) were on my bed, and not down the side of my bed, which is where they had been when I left.

There are 2 possibilities.

One is that they were scared of the plumbers and made a break for freedom at an opportune moment, but didn't quite make it and flopped onto the bed in defeat.

The second is that the plumbers were poking around and found them down the side of the bed and fished them out and lined them up on the bed on purpose (note that they would not have needed to go near the bed in order to fit the radiator).

And I think it's more likely that the second possibility is what happened, and so I am now embarrassed.

The Art of the Petrol Station

Some of you will be familiar with the 'Superlatives' application on Facebook, in which you nominate friends who are most likely to do certain things. Last week I was a little taken aback to be voted 'Most likely to have a blonde moment' by my good friend Emma. On enquiring further as to the existence of any reason for casting such an aspersion upon my otherwise gleaming character, I received the two-word explanation: 'petrol stations'.

It is true that me putting petrol in my car does not tend to lead to moments of glory. This is, indeed, a skill in which I can safely be said to be 'well below average'. But it's just that they make it so darned complicated. So many things to remember: drive up to pump, get out of car, remove petrol cap, put hose thing in petrol thing, check meter is 0, squeeze handle of hose thing, remove hose thing, put cap back on, go and pay. And all have to be executed in precisely the right order, and with a level of precision that I simply don't possess when driving. Some have additional constraints: for example, one does not simply drive up to the pump and stop - no, one must stop close enough to the pump for the hose thing to reach the car, and one must be on the right side of the pump to be able to get to the petrol cap with the hose (my discovery of this is a particularly epic tale, but one which I won't go into here).

So it was with some excitement that I read recently that a Swedish company has developed a petrol station for women. Now, I do not necessarily put my ineptitude in forecourts down to my gender; indeed it is true that I have never met anyone, male or female, who has as much lack of ability in this area as I do, so there is a strong possibility that it is just me. But if I go to a petrol station where only women are allowed, it at least reduces the potential viewing figures by 50%, which must be good.

So what makes this petrol station so good? Apparently the forecourts are orange and the pumps are curvy. I would have thought it would be better to make the pumps orange, because then they'd be easier to spot and you'd be less likely to drive into them, but at least if they are curved you wouldn't do so much damage to your car (I can feel Fifi screaming and trembling when I try to drive her into a petrol station). It also has a big shop that sells salads, and nice toilets (I mean the shops sells salads and the toilets are nice, not that the shop sells nice toilets as well as salads).

This is all well and good, but I think I could do better. What would help would be if they made the pumps into, like, your best friend. So when you're standing there trying to figure out why the hose thing won't go into the car (unfortunately this is also a true story), the pump will give you a nudge and whisper 'Hey! You forgot to take the petrol cap off!' and then you can have a bit of a giggle together and pretend that everyone does that all the time. Also if all attempts to put petrol in the car were shielded from other people's view by large curtains or some such, this would help with confidence levels.

For the truly epic, Smile-proof petrol experience though, I think I need one thing: someone to do it for me. I drive in, park wherever I will, hand the keys over to a cheerful, pleasant chap who is oily enough to look like he knows about cars, but not so dirty that he messes up the seats, I say how much petrol I want, I go in and pay, maybe browse some magazines, and then come out and my car is ready.

Now that, I would pay good money for.

HELP

Dozavtra has been gone for precisely one month and I have my first crisis. There is a spider in the bath, and I kid you just a little, it is the size of a horse. Now, small spiders I can deal with - I just flush them down the plughole. I know that is a terrible way to treat my fellow creatures and I am a horrible person for doing it, but there you have it; they shouldn't be in my bath in the first place.

But this thing, and I'm serious here, is too big to fit down the plughole. Seriously, it's bigger than the taps. It is by far the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life. I don't wish to give too much away, but when I was sitting on the toilet I had half a mind to ask it to look away and give me some privacy, THAT is how big it is.

I have texted everyone I have numbers for in a half mile radius, hoping someone will come and get rid of it, but no joy so far. Mark phoned me back though, and advised me to do the old glass-and-bit-of-cardboard trick, but really, I just can't. I'd have to use a bowl anyway, this beast is so huge, and there is just way too much risk of dropping it on the way down the stairs.

I considered spraying it with something, like furniture polish or Windolene or something, to try to gas it, and then maybe setting fire to it, but I think that's a bit cruel, even by my standards. Plus, it might just get mad if I did that, and I really don't think I want to get it upset.

There is no way I could bring myself to squish it.

Maybe if I made my house really really hot, or really really cold, it would leave. But I don't think it can get out of the bath (I really, really, really hope it can't).

I wondered about putting the plug in the bath and then putting water in, to try to drown it, but there's a chance it can swim, and then what? Besides, I'd have to reach across it to get to the plughole and taps.

So I think the only remaining option is to leave it there until it dies. If anyone has any idea how long that might take, please let me know. I think I'll Google it. I may need alternative accommodation until then. And even then, there's still the dread, what if it just disappears? What if it just isn't there some day? Where will it have gone?

Oh help. Seriously, I am nearly crying. Would it be too embarrassing if I went and got one of my neighbours to get rid of it? I guess I could do that in the morning if it's still there.

If anyone has any suggestions, please phone or text asap, or come round and dispose of it for me. Thanks.

When food bites back

I just injured myself with the same Pringle in 3 (yes, Three) Different Ways.

Injury number 1: I choked on the first bite and hurt my throat.

Injury number 2: As I bit into the remainder of the Pringle, a little bit flew off and went into my eye; this hurt my eyelid.

Injury number 3: I stuck my finger in my eye to get the little bit of Pringle out, thus filling my eye with the salt that the Pringle had left on my hand. This hurt my eye A LOT.

If this had not happened, though, I wouldn't have had anything to tell you today, so it's not all bad.