An average week but without too many things breaking or going wrong. We are well and truly hunkered down; actually I’m quite enjoying it. I have a question for readers but I’ll start off with receiving a very nice letter.
There’s something nice about old-fashioned letter writing in this day and age. Emails are great but there is something nicer in writing a letter, folding it into an envelope, addressing it, adding a stamp and popping it into the village post box. Even nicer is getting a reply!
Long story short, I decided to write to one of my school teachers, to thank him for being such a great teacher and for providing some cover for sneaking out at lunchtimes with him and a small handful of fellow pupils. He was my French teacher, not that I ever took my French O’Level. I was always rated as being ‘average’ or occasionally a ‘good average’ at school but when it came to French, that was definitely an area for improvement.
Nevertheless I liked my French teacher. Apart from allowing a group of us to squeeze into his little Citröen car and take a lunchtime trip to his bank, we would also go to the school’s bunkhouse on Exmoor at weekends in the winter. Can’t imagine this taking place these days without sorting funding, educational aims and objectives, risk assessments, permission slips from parents, safeguarding issues, health and safety and so on. During the daytime he would drag us in our school coats and wellies over the hills and we loved it. There was the infamous time when he mixed up a bag of raw sausages and a slab of cheese, so in our correspondence we reminisced about the time we ‘took raw sausages for a walk’ over Exmoor and were rather hungry by teatime.
In his reply, he talked about me “keeping the score at a cricket match and opting to sit beneath the scorer’s table by way of tacitly indicating to the umpire (him) that he ought to have noticed that it was raining”.
He also told me about the latter parts of his career. This included the task of collating and checking the spelling and punctuation of school reports “….in case any of the parents reading them were literate!”.
Another reason for writing is that it’s good to say ‘thank you’. I’m sure my old French teacher never expected an appreciative letter from an average pupil who left school 42 years ago. To express appreciation to people who made a difference in your life is a good thing to do and I have blogged about this before – the importance of saying ‘thank you’
So what’s gone wrong this week?
Not much, result! Oh I forgot the new Bosch gas hob; two of the five burners aren’t working, so I need to get that resolved. You wouldn’t think there’s much to go wrong with a gas hob, would you? I also forgot Hannah’s car (17 years old) has rather dim headlights and I have accepted defeat, so the garage are fitting some extra bright bulbs tomorrow.
I have, however, started the preparations in decorating the hall, stairs and landing. That includes 14 doors, two staircases and patching up some crumbling plasterwork above the stairs going to the two attic rooms. Using some Polyfilla and some wood screws I have made a sloping ceiling reasonably sound, though it still bulges a little and I console myself this is ‘added character’. I have used a few buckets of sugar soap water to clean the ceilings and walls after a few decades of accumulated dust and general grime.
A question
We have a cleaner who kindly comes weekly for an afternoon. She’s amazing and gets so much done, plus we love her company. So much so, Rachel has now promoted her to Housekeeper (which then had me referring to Mrs Beeton’s book of Household Management for enlightenment on the difference).
So back to my question. We find ourselves doing little tidy-up before she comes. Is this correct? Is this the accepted thing, to tidy-up before the cleaner or housekeeper arrives?
Runners!
As you may know, I’ve needed a break from running on account of plantar fasciitis. I am happy to report it is getting better but it’s taking such a long time!
Having my Fitbit, I know my step count each day. If I do 6000 steps in a day, my heel hurts in the evening. If I do 10,000 steps a day, my heel hurts the next day, all day long.
This is maddening. I used to easily run for an hour or so, covering at least 6.5 miles, more if it was a flat run and I’d had a coffee before setting off. I can’t wait until the plantar fasciitis has resolved itself, I’m so frustrated!!!!!
This is brought home to me every day. When I sit in my favourite chair in our sitting room, I look out onto the road outside the Dusty Museum. In the mornings a lot of runners go past, nowadays I recognise quite a few and there’s even a couple of grey haired gentlemen of advanced years jogging past the house.
Meanwhile I sit here, feel frustrated, eat too much and find I’m surprised to find I’ve gained half a stone in weight since the summer and my blood pressure is creeping up. Grrrrrrrrrr.
And Christmas is coming!
As you can see from the above photo, the Dusty Museum is looking quite Christmassy no. It has never, ever looked like this and this was reinforced by a passerby who stopped to express his approval. This, in all fairness, is Hannah stirring us up and good for her!
Future blog posts might include
- Why I am tempted to throw my Fitbit in the bin
- The latest decluttering finds – strange chemicals and medicines
- My little outing on the Halfbike
Yes, you must always tidy up before a cleaner arrives (clue is in the name) otherwise, and in the case of my home, they would never have been able to reach the dirt. However, now you have promoted her to housekeeper, maybe not!
So we are doing it “right” then, well that’s a relief. Still seems a bit strange though.