Pool Progress? Washing Machine, Halloween, Diary is 21, Beth's Teeth
Trying to get some progress on the pool. It's damn slow going, I rang the council yesterday to say "We still can't get in contact with the Maori group we need to get in contact with, what do we do now?" Sarah also had a friendly chat to her friend Nicola, who also messaged the person we need to talk with. I guess having a lawyer message you helps you to pull your farking finger out, because I got a message from her last night telling me to call her today. I've tried that and she's back to not answering, but hey. I'll try again, at least we might have some chance of getting some progress.
My 21km has been cancelled. Sorry, not cancelled, just postponed 6 months. So that basically means 2 months to slack off and get fat again, then 4 months to train. That's probably not how I should look at it though... I'd better get back to running soon I suppose, I haven't been for a run since it was cancelled last week.
Beth is having her two top back teeth out this Friday. She has an appointment today with the anesthetist to talk through what's going to happen on Friday. Sarah only told her today what's going on, we've known for a week but didn't want her to stress/worry about it because we know she's really nervous about it. In the usual utterly terrible timing, Beth also has her Cheerleading Filming today. She and Sarah were originally going to fly up to Auckland later this month, in fact on the same day that I was going to do my half marathon, but of course that's also COVID cancelled. Anyway so Sarah today has to a) Go and pick Beth up from school, zoom out to the Hospital for the anesthetist appointment, then zoom back to Napier with Beth (all dressed up for the filming). Poor Sarah.
I've taken Friday off, even though of course due to COVID only Sarah can go. I just don't want to sit at work worrying about it the whole time, I won't get any work done. Might as well sit at home worrying about it, or do some garden work or something. She'll be fine, of course, but I hate it all the same.
The lady who usually mows the lawn down the back hasn't been for ages. I sent her a few messages asking what was going on and eventually on Sunday she turned up to mow the lawn. Except her mower didn't start, so she left again. In the end I just mowed it myself with my lawnmower and the linetrimmer. Took about 2 hours, the lawns were knee high so mostly the lawnmower wasn't able to keep up with it. I had to linetrimmer the whole thing pretty much, which wasn't a super fun task. Anyway I got there in the end. While I'd been doing that, Sarah has been getting the kids ready to go Trick or Treating around the neighbourhood. It seems to get bigger and bigger each year in J-Town, I'm sure lots of out of towners turn up to knock because I'm pretty sure we don't have that many kids in Jervoistown. Or maybe we do, I don't really pay that much attention obviously.
Anyway the kids had a good time, though they got pretty tired after an hour of walking, Beth started to complain about how thirsty she was. I knew she was serious when she said she doesn't want to collect anymore lollies she just wants to go home. They got a pretty good collection of lollies and chocolates and all sorts, we have some really lovely generous neighbours. For our part the kids put up paper bats, did lots of drawings on the driveway and Sarah helped them make a (very cute) woolen spider to hang from the front deck. Overall I think they had a great night.
Theo did his first Karate lesson last night up at his school's hall. He really seemed to enjoy it, he had a big smile the whole time and even this morning was showing me the kicks he'd learnt and pointing out the various things you have to pay attention to when doing them. So he was obviously listening to his instructor. Hopefully this is a sport that might stick, but we'll see how we go!
Our washing machine packed up about 2 weeks ago. It would just sit there doing nothing, all while the timer was slowly counting down. We realised it thought its drum was rotating and that it was washing clothes, when in fact it was doing fuck all. You could sort of coax it to go again by stopping it, manually spinning the drum, and then starting it again. But it sounded very sick. We've had it for 12 years, so it'd lived a good washing machine live. We bought a new Fisher and Paykel to replace it, a 10KG beast. $2k it cost. Two Thousand Effing Dollars. I remember the one we were replacing cost about $600 and that seemed bonkers to me at the time. Anyway, inflation and just rage against COVID adn the supply chain I guess? At least it washes really well, the kids sheets have always had trouble getting nice and clean but the new machine, boom they came out amazing.
Last weekend Theo helped me dig up all the plants around the rose bush in the front garden. He loved that job. We moved them to the driveway area where all the riverstones used to be. He really stuck at the job with me which was great to see, he doesn't give up that easily. Here's a few other random things as I think about them:
Went walking on Friday night and wondered what the "Click Click Click" noise I could hear off in the distance was. I pushed my way through a metal fencEEEEEEEFFFUUUCCCCCKKKK well it was Electric wasn't it. That's what the clicking was. Doh!
The kids got some new hats where you can squeeze the "arms" that hang down from them and the ears flap up. They LOVE them.
Theo got a new lego kit and has built a Emu and then a Tiger from it. Theo's still reading everything he can, usually animal books. He busted out the "Abdomen" and "Thorax" body parts of an insect for Sarah the other day "I learnt it from Book" he told us. Took them out to Brave on Saturday for lunch and then to Rush Monroe's for icecream. Biscuit turned 3. Went to Peter and Mary's for dinner last weekend, that was nice, saw Tom and Paullette too.
Oh yea my Diary is now 21 years old. 21 years I've been writing in this thing, how amazing is that? I don't think I ever thought it'd go this long, but then again I never really thought about how long it might go at all.
Tim