Personal day

I have a looming feeling that I might just not work today.

Checking back, the last day on which I might have done no work is Feb 5th, so - while we do not do entitlement in this house, neither do we do justification - I might not feel too bad about a day off.

And my shoulder aches, has been aching for weeks, in a Really Bad Way. Dunno what I did to it, but something has gone wrong internally, and it thinks I should take it to the physio. My trouble with this plan is that the physio costs money; and this is the shoulder attached to the arm attached to the hand that cost me two years' worth of physio a few years back, and I'm scared of that. So maybe I'll just leave it for now and let it get worse for a bit. That would be typical, I find. But worrying about shoulders and related dosh is conducive to not working, I find that also, which is why I mention it here.

Also, I did happen to notice that "The Man Who Would Be King" is on TV this afternoon, and I do love that movie. Sean Connery and Michael Caine, but mostly Christopher Plummer! As Rudyard Kipling! What's not to love? Actually, in truth I think I love the framing device far more than the true story of the movie: Kipling! Doing his whole Kipling thing, with the printing and the Masons and it all! There should be more movies about Kipling. If they could all be Christopher Plummer, that would help too.

(I was going to add that also it was quite a nice day out there so maybe I'd do some set-up work in the garden, break open a bit of concrete and see what lies beneath: but now I glance out of the window and it has gone grey and cloudy. We'll see.)

But I might not work. At any rate, I am going downstairs now, all unworked, nothing begun. I am going to drink coffee and read book, consider shopping, see how I feel.

Oh, and I want to make onion bhajis. That too.

The getting of wisdom

Things we have learned this morning:

* To snatch. I went into the supermarket, and a nice woman was giving away free books - a book I actually wanted, yet - with sales of a Sunday paper (which I didn't want, but hey: £20 hardback, for the price of a paper...?). By the time I had done my lap of the supermarket and come back to the newspaper kiosk, they were all gone. I have spent a long lifetime postponing, putting off and delaying, and always losing out. I can haz impulse?

* It's good to know where your tools are. My garden (I call it that, but in reality it's a concrete yard with pots in) is so small I could keep it lovely with ten minutes' work a day. On the other hand, if it's going to take me fifteen minutes every day to find what I need to take out there...

* A cold chisel and a claw hammer are not enough to break through more-than-an-inch of concrete. I thought it was less, just a thin skin; but I have chipped and chiselled that deep down and I ain't through yet. I need heavier equipment. The last time I swung a sledge, I did serious damage to my (other) shoulder and needed cortisone injections in the end. However. I may have learned?

* I'm not very good at taking days off. Behold me, back at the keyboard. Swilling coffee, reading LJ, making posts, determinedly not writing. Yet. It's not persuasive.

Is that enough lessons for one morning? I think maybe it is.

I could go shift some books, take up some carpet. I could do that. See if I like what's underneath...

In which I display my fear of commitment

Taking up a length of manky old stair-carpet? Not such a great commitment, to be honest. Lordy, I can always put it back down again, if it comes to that...

Now that I am no longer gardening, the sun has come out. Now that I am no longer gardening, Barry is no longer agitating to be out in the garden. Now that the sun has come out, Barry is asprawl in the sunlit window, on his favourite stretch of books, thusly:




Guess which books I have to move, if I'm going to take up the carpet beneath?

Poor Baz. He is doomed, never to get what he wants. You just ask him, he'll tell you all about it...

Onion bhajis, bha jingo!

Okay, this is what I've done:

Mix together 100g besan/chickpea/gram flour (all the same thing) with half a teaspoon each of chilli powder, turmeric, ground cumin, salt and baking powder. Halve and thinly slice a couple of onions; finely slice a couple of green chillis; add those to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Heat oil for deep-frying (I do this in a wok).

When it's good and hot, mould a spoonful of the mixture into a ball, drop it into the oil and fry until crispy and deep gold all over.

Remove and eat, with chutneys. Om-nom-nom.

This is quite a hot version; you might want to halve the chilli ingredients for milder palates.

I did one as a tester, and it's really nice. The rest must wait for the movie; I must carry on shifting books and so forth. If nothing else, at least these books will go back cleaner; there will be less dust, less cat-hair, less compost left over from when I used to grow chillies in that window. That's all good, right...?

Staircarpet update

We can haz floorboards. Akshual floorboards. I haz pictorial evidence, with cats. Helping. Lots.

On the other hand, the staircarpet is held in place with nasty spiky things, which will all need stripping out for fear of dainty paws.

Also, new rule: always check how long a job will be, before beginning. In this instance, how long the staircarpet will be. It runs twice as far as I thought, and I have to shift a whole caseload more books.

Also, dust. My chest hurts. I think we knew that?

Update the second

I decided to break off for a little intermediary sucking-up of dust'n'stuff, with the new vacuum cleaner.

Barry disapproves this decision, to the extent that he has stopped helping.

I have sucked up much dust, cat-hair and compost; also rotted rubber underlay and fragments of strange ancient lino-like substance. I do not believe that any of that is going back down again. Indeed, at this stage I do not believe the carpet is going back down again either. Will I, can I actually throw it out? Stay tuned...

Update the third

These spiky grippers-of-staircarpet? Are actual laths of wood nailed to the stairs, with nasty spikes sticking up. They're going to require serious toolwork to lift. Lawks.

ETA: two of them per stair, one on the riser and one on the tread, each running almost the full width of the staircase, each held in place with half a dozen screw-threaded nails for extra grip. Sheesh. I have liberated one stair, and am pausing there to go fry bhajis, make tea and watch movie.

Last update of the day

So. There it is, then. Or rather, there it isn't.

I have shifted books, hauled up carpet, hoovered, used tools until my hands bled (to uplift and remove nasty carpetspikes) and hoovered again.

I should probably go over it all by hand, to remove any remaining nails, tacks, staples and sundry other nasties before I find them with my feet. Or - worse! - the kitties find them for me.

And if I'm doing that, I guess soap and water would be no bad thing. Much filth has been revealed. I can has a clean floor, but only if I clean it.

Meantime, first drink of the day. Yay. How abstemious am I?

Truly the last update of the day

The strangest thing is happening. In my head. I had - of course! - intended to paint my floorboards black. With perhaps little gold stencil fleur-de-lis or some such on the risers.

Thing is, though, the old carpet was not as wide as the stairs, and the outer uncovered edges had already been painted, glossy off-white. And when I took the carpet up I found that goes quite a long way towards the centre of each stair, it's a broad margin - and, y'know? It does make the stairway brighter.

So, yup. This strange thing is happening. I am thinking, what if I paint the whole thing off-white, all the boards? To be sure they'll get grubby fast, but hey. Easy to clean. And light is nice, in a north-facing house.

So maybe. Only, then what do I do with the walls...?