Progress on the garage has been very slow this week. So far Simon did 2 wheel barrow loads on Tuesday night and that is it. Monday it was raining and yesterday evening it was raining. Today the weather has been dry, so far. We have even had some sun and it is warmish. Hopefully he will be able to get some done this evening. He is doing a phone feed back thing with one of the exam boards though at 6pm, which means dinner will be late so he will be later getting outside. Just hope it doesn't rain before he does. He is getting very annoyed with the rain stopping his progress. The forecast is for heavy rain tomorrow.
The phone thing he has to do this evening has made me cross. We always have dinner at 6pm. I am serving it as he walks through the door. The person who asked him to do this phone thing said between 6 and 8pm. When he told me, I said that it had better be nearer 8 as I hate anything interrupting dinner. He then told me yesterday that she had emailed him and said 6pm if that was suitable! Why the bloody hell didn't he say, "actually, no that is not suitable"? I am doing dinner for 6.30pm so if he is still on the phone then his will go cold.
We have had a drain problem this week. The kitchen sink drains to a drain just outside the back door and it was clearly blocked as it was flooding. Simon had poked around on Tuesday but decided he needed drain rods. Wednesday morning the kitchen sink wasn't draining either. As he was going into school a bit later he decided to take the U bend thing apart to see if that was blocked. It wasn't. Of course he had removed the entire contents of the cupboard to get at the pipe work and the stuff just got left on the side until the evening as I was out all day at my Dads.
Yesterday evening he came home from school with some borrowed drain rods. I came back from Stevenage with some old hose pipe which my Dad thought might work if we didn't get the rods. Neither of them worked! The hose pipe was too flexible and the rods not flexible enough! The drain is deep and the pipe that goes off the side of it is quite a long way down and at an impossible angle. Even laying on his stomach he couldn't get the angle right.
It was quite funny to watch as he had a bin liner tied around his arm at shoulder level. We don't have any rubber gloves that would go up that far. He eventually discovered that the problem was a U bend in the pipe which was preventing the drain rods from going any further. This U bend is not accessible as it is under the concrete! He eventually managed to get a small trowel around it and after much poking around it now all seems to be working. He had to modify the trowel by cutting bits off. He also made a hole in the end to attach to a rope so we could pull it out if it got stuck!! I was worried that it might get stuck and then we would have a bigger blockage. Today I have put lots of washing soda down all drains. I do not want a repeat of this saga.
Yesterday I went up to see my Dad. He is sort of ok and sort of not. His ear is still giving him a problem. He goes back to the hospital today so hopefully my sister will be able to find out if this all normal or if it really should be better by now. He saw his GP on Monday as he is feeling very tired all the time. He wanted a "tonic". Not sure what a tonic would actually consist of. It seems to be a thing that old people ask for so presumably in their past tonics were given out. The GP gave him a questionnaire to fill in as she thinks he could be depressed. He has to go back on Monday. She also sent him for thyroid tests.
I don't think he is depressed. What I think, (with my vast medical knowledge!) is that he is 85 years old, he has just lost his wife, he has just had quite a nasty operation, he is still suffering with the soreness and pains and all that on top of him being physically and mentally exhausted after 5 years of daily visits to my Mum. No wonder he is feeling tired and lacking in energy. I really do not believe that he is depressed. He is very sad. Sadness and depression I think are not the same. It is called grief.
Today has been a catch up house work day. I still have some more ironing to do. I have a stew cooking. I love stew. It will be good as the meat came from my Dad yesterday. I came home with 2 joints of lamb, 1 joint of beef, 2 sirloin steaks, braising steak and stir fry steak. He does like to keep us well stocked!
Right, I am off to do some sewing now before Simon gets in. I am working on a quilt.
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