Dog Narnia

So the bathroom is now finished but we still can’t really use it due to the blocked drains. I ring around a few people and find someone to come out tomorrow to sort it.

The dogs were a bit confused that they were back in the hall today and a bit miffed too. MD really does like that bed in the front room and Doggo really rather likes the wardrobe. It does look rather nice with his (our) bedding in it. It makes you wonder if there's Dog Narnia at the back of it.

On the bike at last and it was very good, once I remembered what to do. When you have a few days off any pleasurable pursuit its always great fun learning the ropes all over again.

L sends me a link to a new charity calendar from the paddleboarding team at Colwick Lake because we know one of the girls in it. L runs with her occasionally and I met her at the Thunder Run. I vaguely recognise her although she usually has her clothes on.

This reminds me of my own photo shoot, which I’d forgot to tell L about. I will also be featuring in a 2017 calendar. As L correctly surmises there are dogs involved and although MD may be naked, I’m not.

Just as I’m leaving work L messages to say that the new bathroom cupboard is full of water. Ah. 

(Friday 4^th November)

B-Day?

Day 25

L contemplates yoga this morning but in the end decides that chucking balls on the park with MD is the better workout. She’s probably right. I mean yoga? Not that I’ve ever done it.

Typically of our awkward dog, on what is theoretically his last day in the front bedroom, he trotted merrily off into the room and sat in the wardrobe. Clearly he is worried I will reclaim that wardrobe.

Rather bizarrely when I turn up at work today it is to find that the cleaner, presumably a new one, has washed up everyone’s mugs and then put them back at their desks. That’s twenty or so mugs back at their owner’s desks exactly where they left them last night but clean. It's almost Twilight Zone. 

It must also have been an amazing feat of memory to recall which mug went where or did they do each one individually or perhaps they photographed the location of each one first? Fascinating.

I text the builder with a list of bathroom related issues. He doesn’t reply. However I am prepared for this and have come in the car today. So I go over at lunchtime to see if there’s any life.

He was actually there and fitting a plastic strip around the toilet. He agreed with me about the unfinished bits but I really can’t see them being sorted today particularly as he says he’s going to try to unblock our drains with his pressure hose this afternoon.

Naturally I have ball session with the dogs while I’m there. MD was out of the bedroom and into the garden as soon as I opened the door, long before Doggo even realised I was there.

The bathroom shop calls again. Is it finished? No.

Then just as I’ve put the phone down to them, our builder calls. Is it finished? Yes. 

Really?

I rush home and apparently he is right. It is finally finished, one day short of the fourth week. The pyramids were constructed in about the same time frame I believe but you probably can't get a hot shower in them. Sadly though he hasn’t managed to clear the drains which means we can't get a hot shower in ours either, yet. He says he'll pop back later to show me where they are blocked.

Squash is cancelled. Half the lights were out on the court last week and apparently they have now failed completely so they have cancelled our booking for tonight. Also the one remaining court is already booked up for next week, so we’ll be having at least two weeks off.

This disrupts L’s plans to run there and meet us in the pub. So I selflessly offer to go and sit in the pub anyway because obviously a run is not really a run without a pub at the end of it. Rather than the Navigation and I go to wait in the Dispensary where they have beer number 102 Castle Rock’s Most Haunted.

(Thursday 3^rd November)

Oink. Oink. Flap. Flap.

Day 11

I’m on the bike again. L gives up waiting for our slacker of a builder and leaves the key in a pre-arranged hiding place for him.

Doggo is now going straight into the front bedroom each morning without being prompted. There is after all plenty to chew on in there. I can see we’re going to have to leave the wardrobe as it is, he clearly likes it in there as well.

The plumber quips that the shop always tells their customers its only 4-5 days work for a new bathroom but it never is. Hmmm. He could have done the job in a week, easily, and if we were paying him directly, he would have done.

Certainly no one mentioned that eleven days in we’d have nothing new fitted and just the one wall tiled. Yes, just the one and that isn’t even finished. He concedes that he will need a full day on Monday to put in the new toilet and sink but will work until 6 or 7pm on Monday if need be. Oink. Oink. Flap. Flap.

At lunchtime I go for a shower at the velodrome because obviously we don’t have one.

It's squash tonight and then a beer at the Navigation.

(Thursday 20^th October)