No rest for the wicked.

Any idea I had that my daughter having finished her teaching practice and consequently my having less grandchildcare to do would lead to a quiet life was, as might be expected, a piece of total nonsense. For the last week I hardly seem to have stopped running around. Of course, much of it has been self inflicted but not all of it. 

We managed to get out and about on one of the fine days that we had. (We have had quite a range: wind alone, wind and rain, drizzle, torrential rain, crisp frosty days – you name it, we’ve had it – well, almost – no snow and no heat waves!) One on of these we discovered a wind turbine that we did not know was there, within only a few miles of our house. When did that go up? 



Then, there’s the slightly crazy bush which has lost all its leaves but has come into flower. Does it not know about the normal pattern of growth that matches the seasons? 

And finally, there’s this strange thing that looks as if it’s Saddleworth’s answer to the Galician “hórreo”. The “hórreo” is usually smaller, made of stone and is free standing on its stone legs. It’s used to store grain and other produce and keep it out of the reach of rats. The first time I saw one I thought they had a family tomb in the garden! The contraption in this photo is in fact a tumbledown garage, originally built on stilts so that it could be accessed from the road. Over the years bits of it have fallen away and now it looks completely different. 

We’ve also ventured into Manchester for a reunion lunch with old friends, some of whom have known each other since they were five years old. Naturally, because we planned to walk around bits of Manchester, the weather let us down and it was dull and gloomy instead of being bright and clear. You can’t win with Manchester weather! But the Rice Bowl restaurant on Cross Street in city centre Manchester did us proud and even managed to seat 15 people close enough together to be able to reminisce happily. 

On Friday we waited for the arrival of a new freezer, the old one having given up the ghost some time ago. We had arranged for installation of the new machine and removal of the old. Delivery would be any time between 2pm and 9pm. Rather a broad time slot, in my opinion. In the event, no delivery took place on Friday. The van got stuck in traffic somewhere and it grew too late to deliver. We were told to expect a call on Saturday morning to rearrange delivery. 

So at 7:59 on Saturday morning the phone rang. I almost fell downstairs in my haste to answer, only to pick the phone up as they range off. Eventually I go through to them and then had to hunt for order reference numbers and all that sort of paraphernalia. The earliest they could deliver would be the following Thursday – i.e. the day after tomorrow. 

However, some time later we had another call telling us they were on their way. Unfortunately we were due to go out to an aged aunt’s 90th birthday party in the early afternoon. The driver opted to play it by ear and see where he was up to by midday. At that point her rang to say he could be with us about 15 minutes before we were due to set off out. And so the freezer was delivered. They took away the old machine but “installation” of the new on meant simply putting it in our kitchen and telling us the instructions were inside. 

There it sat, in the middle of the kitchen until Sunday morning. Indeed, there it sat until Sunday afternoon when we eventually set about installation. That was when we discovered that the instructions, which were indeed inside the machine, were not in English, not in ant language at all. Possibly to avoid problems of mistranslation from one language to another, the instructions came in the form of diagrams. Now, diagrammese is a completely foreign language to me. And Phil doesn’t speak it much better than I do. You’d think that two linguists could manage it but, boy, was it hard to decipher those instructions. We managed it in the end. We do like a challenge, after all! 

In between times, with the help of the two granddaughters, who were left with me while their mother took their brother off to London to play chess, the Christmas tree was installed, rather more easily than the freezer, and decorated. Christmas has now officially begun.

Between that and accompanying the oldest grandchild on a visit to Manchester art gallery (well worth the effort, for both the art and the excellent soup they serve in the cafe) it’s only today that I have got round to reading the weekend’s newspapers! 

It’s a hard life being a retired person!