Woke up earlier than I’d planned, let the dog out for a pee. Decided it was too early for breakfast so went back to sleep. Then woke up later than I’d planned. Never mind. Ate breakfast, drank coffee and read the paper.

Then it was back on to DIY, was overly in the mood today but cracked on. Glued in the alarm cables and put filler over the top. The painted all the walls with acid, this was to neutralise the industrial paint stripper. This actually took less time than I thought it would. So had lunch and then put some filler over one wall. There’s an awful lot of filler ahead. I need to get a smaller palette knife though to do the coving with. I think it’ll all be fine, just a lot to go.

I decided I wanted to get out for a couple of hours, so wanted to try something new. As the weather was still a little bit shit I decided that naked sky diving would have to wait another week, so thought I’d give geocaching a go. This is where you are given gps coordinates of a location which contains a ‘cache’. This is usually some kind of box which contains a log book, you fill it in with your geocache number. Basically it gives a target for a walk. I picked the closest two, the first one was only 1.5Km away but it still took me about an hour to find the location. I use an app on the phone which homes in on it. The actual cache wasn’t to be found, but a lot of these things tend to get nicked, so no surprises. I then went off and found another one. I must admit it was quite good phone and got me to walk to a couple of new places. I’ll try and do a few more over the coming months, see if I can actually find the boxes.

Came back and bottled the Pinot. Managed to get 24 bottles out of it, and now drinking the dregs.

The Vigor is holding the line steady, but I see the actual network throughput has stopped, so you won’t read this until the network is reset. It’s set-up to restart ppp at 4AM, so hopefully that will kick it off, if not I’ll try and use remote access to restart it.

So this morning started off without a hangover, which wasn’t bad considering the amount of tequila I managed to get out of ‘Tim’ last night. We had breakfast, Jamie had the full English, I had the full bran flakes.

Reception desk was rather pleasing. We had been changed from bed and breakfast to this meal special thing. I think they wait for you to actually have a qualifying meal first. We did all right out of it really. We were only allowed £50 total but the meal came to over £60. I paid my £51 bar bill. Journey home was uneventful, but the sun was out which was nice.

Came back and had a coffee. Then just got stuck into the decorating again. Put yet more paint stripper on the patio door and did some cable burying around the door frame. Finished an hour later than I planned.

Went through the post and did the accounts. I found two pension statements for a company pension that I had completely forgotten about. Total was over £60K. That was a fairly pleasant surprise. So they are worth about £3K a year. So on that basis I need to save around another million and I’ll be sorted.

Played around a bit with my new PABX. More on than later no doubt. The Pinot is ready for clearing, I’ll get on with that at some point next week. Right, quick bath and then the Chinese grand prix.

So started up by getting up too late which kind of buggered the day up some what. Took the dog on a nice walk, including visiting the vet, she’s continuing to lose weight, unlike the rest of us. Saying that being ill for a month didn’t really help, only last Thursday was the first time I’ve been properly running again.

So I had a number of things to do during the afternoon including a cat home re-check thing. Plus I needed to visit Toolstation. Getting there was fine, but getting back I got stuck in loads of football traffic.

Got back, did the accounts. Then it was a quick shower before being picked up by mother. It was our annual bingo trip. This evenings caller was a very laid back Jamaican chap who seemed in no particular hurry which was quite useful as we were hardly on the ball anyway. We failed to win anything. The lager had more water in it than the Thames. Afterwards we went to the Indian, which was pretty empty. Had a nice meal, gave them a good tip and told them to spend it on a new carpet.

…

So today was going to be a busy one. Started off moving the network cabinet out and disconnecting the phone line and drilling a hole through the wall. Then it was outside and running two new phone cables (yes I could have done it in one, but BT won’t be thrilled about sharing a twisted pair with Virgin media). So for the BT on I used actual BT cable and the Virgin one I just ran using some UV protected dual twisted pair. Finished running all the cables, managed to finally get them through the walls and then had lunch. Mother arrived and delivered cards. She put quite a lot of effort into them, keeps her off QVC I suppose. Put the bird table together, impressed with that. It’s quite tall but very good quality. I then put the socket side of the cables together and put a new master socket on for the Virgin line and screwed it next to the BT one. I then finished off the connection ends. No problems, all works, I now have both phone lines terminated behind the network cabinet in the office. Ready for the PABX installation. Job for another day that one. Tidied up and then did the third job of the day which was to knock a whole in the wall to surface mount a network and TV wall plate. Thankfully that all went without any issues and is now ready for the face plate. So it’s back on the dinning room next time that all the cables are out of the way. Need to continue stripping the patio door, then I think it’s time to bury the alarm cables and neutralise the walls.

Anyway, worked hard today, time for a bath. Must attempt to drink less wine and eat less cheese next week. But that’s next week, time for a bath and wine now for sure.

Yesterday then. Started off with getting up earlier than I’d liked. Had breakfast, drank coffee. As the dog was going to be spending a considerable amount of time on her todd today I thought it wise to take her hour for a decent walk. Two hours later we got back, she was suitably tired. The weather actually was quite nice, at one point it got above freezing. I just had enough time to mop up the sweat from my balls before mother arrived to pick us up.

Arrived at Sarah’s where we then devoured quite a nice turkey. Afterwards we sat around and drank about six bottles of wine. Shaun and Homer Simpson our now indistinguishable. My mother sat there and aged while looking like a dead catalogue model for ‘Kim & Co’. Jamie sat in the corner wearing Easter bunny ears, looking like a reject from a ‘One Direction’ tribute act casting call. My nephew Conor is looking more and more like Jomah Lomu (except for the black bits) and my other nephew Daniel looked like his hair was cut by the council and wore jeans which looked like Simon Cowell hand-me-downs. I’ve seen lower rise tower blocks. He was wearing a cool t-shirt though, as it was one I gave him.

Mother dropped us back home so we could let the dog out. Dog tried to mug my mother, but was soon distracted by a pigs trotter. We had coffee and discussed paint colours.

We returned to Sarah’s for some nibble bits and a few more bottles of wine. We then played some strange Xbox game where we had to create shapes, ‘Hole in the wall’ or something. Anyway, much fun was had by all. Came back home and went to sleep. Busy day tomorrow.

…

So today started in a similar way to one a few days ago, except this time I was on the receiving end and the song was Blondie’s ‘Teenage kicks’. It was quite nice to hear that version rather than the dolcit tones of ‘Harry Styles’. Mind you it was playing on Claudia Winklemann’s show, which is slightly ironic as I’m sure she’s porked him at one stage or another.

I got up and put another layer of paint stripper on the skirting boards. I then got Emeli out and started on the door frame. So I’ve put in an eight hour shift, I now have the door frame and skirting boards all done. Just the patio door frame needing a bit more work. I think I’m going to move the phone wire next week, depending on the weather and try and finish the patio door off.

I’m now all covered in dust.

Debating if I should have pizza as technically it is a salad night. But I have been working pretty hard and I’m sure I have a small one in the freezer somewhere.

Definitely going to have a bath though. And some wine, there’s always time for wine.

TheHut.com do have a flash sale on, so will have a quick look to see if I can pick Daniel up something before he decides that V-neck tank tops and loon pants are this years must have fashion accessory.

So started this morning off by giving Jamie a hand job to ‘Coldplay’. Had breakfast and then got through two more pots of paint stripper. I should buy shares in Nitromors. The whole room has had at least one pass now.

Practised a bit of Japanese with Megan.

Took Jamie and Megan to Toy’s R’ Us. I went to B&Q and looked at paint stripper, it’s half the price in Tesco’s. Dropped Megan off at the station. Went to Tesco’s and bought more paint stripper. Also bought a new dustpan and brush as I think I managed to bin the old ones in a rubbish bag.

Did more stripping. I think the door frame is about as good as I’m going to get it, so will have to tidy that up with the sander now. One piece of skirting is also ready for sanding. I still need to do more skirting and getting the stain out of the wood round the patio door. I’ll attempt that next work day. I reckon I have at least two days of stripping and sanding to do. That will then be the end of the stripping phase and on to the restoring phase, but one step at a time.

Played with the dog until she was knackered. Now actually finished at a reasonable time. Shopping and bits tomorrow, I’ll try and get at least one more home re-check in tomorrow as I’m slowly catching up now.

Had a random idea this morning about how to cure a specific physics problem. Took ages to get all the calc right, and then it didn’t work. In the end I had to put my spurs on and tie up my horse and bodge it. I then added a load more stuff. Also looked again at the application of torque position. This is quite an odd one. On a car where do you think the traction force is applied? Well, it’s actually at the contact point of the tyre against the road. Which wasn’t where I was applying it. So fixed that and a couple of other little things. I’m now at the stage where I’m fairly happy with it all, a good place to leave it for the four day Easter weekend.

Jamie has gone to London with Megan to eat some Sushi type stuff and see ‘Wicked’. I saw it a few years ago, can’t really remember much of it I think we were fairly pissed at the time as it was just after a meeting and dinner.

I did some more Japanese. I’ve separated out my flash cards now into words I know fluently and ones that I’m not sure of, so I can do extra practice on those. I’ve now run out of flash cards again, so that’s close to two hundred words in the vocabulary now. By the end of the course it should be about four hundred.

So just sat down and ate salad. Need to pick Jamie and Megan up soon. Busy day tomorrow. Lots of paint stripping and sanding. My new little sander has arrived, looks good. So will hopefully get the door frame and all the skirting boards done over the next four days. I’ve only really got two working days.

So, pick up them, then it’s torture porn night.

Didn’t sleep a wink last night, no idea why. Tried sleeping in the guest room, had no effect. Drank a bottle of Smirnoff Ice in about 30 seconds at 5AM, had no effect.

So ended up having breakfast at about 11AM after still not sleeping. Got on with stuff. First cleaned up the last of the kling strip off the last wall, then got on with pain stripping the door. I got through near enough an entire tin of Nitromors and it still isn’t clean. Jamie came down in the afternoon and said, “Hadn’t you better open a window or something?”, they were playing ‘Fly me to the moon’, on the radio, very apt.

Anyway, door is mostly done. I reckon the room will need at least two vats of paint stripper to finish the door and do the skirting boards. It’s a long on going project, but the good news is at least it is on going and not stopped. Little and often…I do very little, often. Anyway, bath, cooking and the first Grand Prix of the season, it only seems like two weeks ago the last one finished.

Woke up at about 5AM with a most horrendous cough, I thought it was getting better not worse, I could hardly breath and my throat was hurting like hell. I drank about half a bottle of cough medicine, it didn’t cure the cough, but at least it made be sleep through it.

So I started at 11AM. Managed to get the radiator screw things undone. Just unhooked it and laid it down, but in the end decided it was easier just to get the bloody thing out of the way, so I drained it and put it outside. As most of the wall behind the radiator hadn’t been covered in industrial whitewash I decided to steam it. This took a couple of hours but at least I could do it all in one hit. So by about 3PM I’d done behind the radiator, got some rather sticky stuff off the corner of another on and removed the backing paper along the top bit of coving, all with the steamer. I’ve decided I’m just going to sand down the rest of the coving as it’s not too bad.

Had lunch, picked up the dog poo. (Didn’t combine these tasks.) Jamie then got up.

I then put the kling strip on the one remaining wall behind the book shelf and covered it all in cling film. Put the radiator back on the wall and tidied everything up. Shipped a load of stuff out to the garage, which is now turning into a massive junk dump. Bottled the Shiraz. Five fairly full bottles, just drinking the last little bit out of the demijohn now. For a red wine it’s very nice, I don’t feel it would be better on chips.

So that’s it, done for the day. Bath time. Looking forward to the cough coming back later no doubt. So next week, it’s on to paint stripping the wood and start prep-ping all the surfaces. I reckon with sanding and neutralising it’s about a three week job. Then when it’s all stripped down, it’s time to start building it all back up again. Job for another day.

So started off in bed. Told Jamie he was unattractive lots. This mad him hate me somewhat. Still need to keep him trim or by the time he’s 30 he’ll look like my mother. Watched X-Factor on the iPad, followed by ‘The McFly Show’, which was a TV special but good fun. Harry has a great bod, but I’d definitely do Dougie. Just before the third ad-break we had sex, it was very good. Finished watching TV. Got up, Jamie said when are you going to fix the toilet, which has been talking to itself now for several months. I took the top off and poked things, came to the conclusion that the syphon and the inlet ball valve were both fucked. So I did the manly thing and went to B&Q and bought a ‘complete easy fit conversion kit’. Hmmm.

Came back, had lunch and read the paper. So assembled all the tools, tried to isolate the cold water from the tank, found a tap for it, turned it off. The water in the bath now stopped running. The water to the cistern however didn’t. So the bloody thing was mains pressure, wrestled with the stop tap, stopped water. Now had to remove the old cistern. This thing had no doubt been in place since the first world war, so the screws holding it on to the wall had rusted away. So took the heads of and undid them with pliers. Undid the pipes and the screws holding it to the pan. Removed cistern. The removed the cistern internals. Then took about an hour cleaning out the cistern with the shower spray, removing congealed toilet duck and something that was trying to evolve. Then inserted the new flip valve thing. Put cistern back on bog, noticed it was rotated wrongly. Removed cistern, rotated it. Reassembled, tried to set the height of the inlet valve, then worked out there was no bloody way that was going to fit. Disassembled, hack-sawed off the end of the overflow. Reassembled. Fitted inlet valve. Reconnected all the pipes. Turned the water on. Enjoyed watching the water pissing out the bottom of the cistern. Turned water off. Tightened everything up. Turned water on. Took out all handle and replace with a push button. Linked that up, watched it fail to work. Played around with it until it did work. Then tried to put the lid back on the cistern, now that didn’t fit. Swore at the inlet value, until it shrank below the level of the cistern top (also required persuasion tool), replaced top. It’s now all working, I think the inlet may be seeping a bit, need to keep an eye on it.

Next job of the day was cleaning out the freezer. Removed everything, got rid of a load of tat that Jamie had just stored in there as he could never be arsed to eat it. Cleaned everything and put it all back. I’m out of peas.

Next job was cleaning out the larder. This is the storage place where Jamie will use an item, not read the back of it which says ‘refrigerate after opening and use within one month’. There were new live forms evolving there. Took everything out, cleaned all the shelves and put it all back again. Then removed all the bio-degrading plastic bags from under the sink. Sorted out the cardboard, had a poo.

Patrick Moore died today, shame, nice guy, a bit odd, but the world would be very dull if it was full of people like Gordon Brown.

Just seen a very odd thing outside my Window, whole group of Indians (as in the country, not the squaw type), walking down the road followed by a fully dressed Santa. Then out of their door came at least another three Santa’s that got into a people carrier and drove off. The people carrier was being driven by another Santa. You would think that with all this eco-warrior type shit Santa would have at least had a Prius. I hadn’t been drinking at all. May be it’s time to start. I’m going to have a bath while admiring my new toilet flush.