Spring Cleaning & Gardening

Phil thought I was particularly hard on him in my last blog but I make no apologies because it did spur him in to action.  Not much action but at least it’s a start.  It was a glorious sunny day on Thursday and it definitely wasn’t a day to sit indoors watching the telly.  I went to the gym (alone) as Phil was out the night before with the Wednesday night crew and didn’t feel up to it. 

We had some noodles for lunch and afterwards I went to Tesco’s and then went to the OU to meet Janet for a walk.  Poor Jan’s knee was playing her up so we walked to The Hub and sat outside on the bench and had a chat.  It was nice to feel the sun on my face once again.  When I got back home Phil had just finished cleaning all of the windows.  He hadn’t realised I’d wanted him to clean the upstairs inside and outside until he went upstairs for a shower and saw that I’d cleared all of the window sills in preparation.  Although I wasn’t here I bet he had a curse because he’d already put all the window cleaning kit away.  Anyway I checked his work and the windows all looked gleaming once again.

The spring sun has warmed up the conservatory which has meant that we have been able to turn the fan heater off.  Actually it’s been too hot and we’ve had to open the windows.  It’s either one extreme or the other.   Phil has finally got round to ordering a new plasma TV for the lounge.  In the end he found a cheap plasma deal on the internet and it should arrive tomorrow.  We decided to buy a 5 year guarantee, once bitten and twice shy and it only 75 quid. 

It was another bright day on Friday and Phil, without any prompting, got stuck into weeding the garden.   I went to the gym early but did get out side to help with the garden. I got the job of getting all of the moss out of the block paving with a flat edge screwdriver.  Not a job that’s easy on the back but very satisfying when you’ve finished.  Much to Phil’s dismay, I decided to move all the patio furniture around which involved some heavy lifting and much huffing and puffing. 

On Saturday it was more work in the garden; Phil did another cut on the grass, the second cut of the year and it is coming along nicely.   We went to the garden centre (along with half of the population of Milton Keynes) and came back with some herbs and a new plant.  We also replaced the BBQ gas canister in readiness for summer barbeques.   Phil planted his herbs in pots by the back of the shed and that was we how we spent out Saturday afternoon.  There is still much more work to do in the garden but at least we have made a good start.  Of course really, we should really have been working on the accounts but it is such a rarity when the sun shines, you’ve got to do outdoors stuff while you can.  

It’s lovely to have bright blue skies and to see the sun but I wonder how long this can last.  I was tempted to ask Phil to get out the new patio set but I think this would be tempting fate.  Best wait until May.   Phil got the bikes down from the garage eves and pumped up the tyres.   As soon as he did this, we set out along the canal for our first bike ride since last summer.  There were people out walking their dogs and quite a few barges chugging up and down the canal.  Unfortunately though, we didn’t take any coats and were freezing and after only 20 minutes we turned around and headed back home.

 

On Sunday afternoon Harriet and Shane came round for Sunday lunch.  Harriet said she’d been missing my roast dinner so hence the invite.  In reality though, it’s Phil that cooks the roast, I merely do the shopping and clear up the kitchen after him.  We had contemplated doing a barbeque instead of a roast the day beforehand but luckily we didn’t because the air was definitely more chilly on Sunday.  Lunch was roast chicken, roast spuds, veggies along with Aunt Bessies Yorkshire pudding.  For afterwards it was melt in the middle chocolate pudding and sticky toffee pudding with a dollop of vanilla custard.   Harriet and Shane left and we settled down in the conservatory with the papers.  And that, was our weekend.