Sailor's Return!

It’s been a long week!

 

Easter Monday started fair, the wind dropped and we decided to try to reclaim our garden. Every winter it gets out of control. The soil is very heavy clay, apart from the herbaceous border, which has pretty good soil, unfortunately it is backed by a Leylandii hedge, which takes a lot out of it, AND needs a death defying trim each spring. (Death defying because it is about eight feet high and on a slope)

 

Mike went up the stepladder, with the electric hedge trimmers, the steps slipped and he cut his wrist. No surprise there! Mike cannot go in the garden without acquiring some sort of injury. In fact he can’t do the washing up, any form of housework or decorating without acquiring some sort of injury. Can you see a pattern emerging here? After 22 years of marriage I have learnt to take no notice, unless he gets a doctors note, even then I will still require him to perform these duties, as I am not doing them all on my own.

 

We went to Homebase bought a different type of ladder and returned to do six hours of none stop gardening. At the end of the day, you could see a difference but there is an awful lot still to do. From midday until four there were people on the field at the bottom of the garden on motorbikes and quad bikes. The noise and fumes were unpleasant to say the least, I shall be keeping an eye on their activities and if necessary finding out if we can do anything. Our next-door neighbour was very upset about it.

 

Tuesday was another gardening day but we went off to a local garden centre first, to fetch some potting compost and bark chips. As my car is a hatchback we went in that and so I was driving. I’d gone a little way up the road, when I had to cut down a side street back to our house. Mike was a bit puzzled by this early return home. The reason for it being, I had just realised I’d gone out in my slippers! Now I know I’m getting old.

 

Another six hours of gardening and at least parts don’t look like a field now but still a lot to do.

 

Wednesday was lunch at the house of one of my colleagues, we had to take a dish each. As it was Queen’s 80th birthday on 21st April, the day after mine and I was born in Coronation Year, I did Coronation Chicken, I thought it was appropriate, the ladies all thought it was very good, which was a relief.

 

Thursday was my birthday and the day Simon was due back. His girlfriend and I spent much of the morning sending texts to each other. We were both worried that, as they were due in at 9.30am, he was in some sort of trouble, as we still hadn’t heard from him by lunchtime.

 

I finally got a call at 3pm. All was well he’d just been busy closing things down, or whatever it is they do on submarines. He sounded annoyingly alright considering he’d been shut away for three months and even said it felt like he’d only been away a couple of weeks. Tori and I had been driving ourselves mad with worry for the last few weeks. I was convinced he would have gone crazy with claustrophobia and thumped an officer but everything was fine.

 

This is the badge he gets to wear to denote that he is a submariner, not worth a lot in itself but a considerable amount in his pay packet.

 

Simon also passed all his Boards whilst on the trip, which means he is now a Petty Officer and gets to wear an Officer style uniform, (Fore & Aft) which I’m sure will suit him better than the bellbottoms (Square Rig), which I think looks rather camp.

Hello Sailor!

 

In his team of 5, the other four were all Scottish, as Simon isn’t, they nicknamed him Jock! Is that called irony?

 

We went out for a meal in the evening and  one the waiters heard Mike say it was my birthday. They made a big fuss of me and at the end the brought out a specially decorated  pudding, with a candle in the top. How polite to not try to guess my age and put the right number of candles in .

 

The newspapers this week were full of the fact that the Labour party paid £7,700 to have Cherie Blair’s hair done whilst hubby was electioneering. I have one thing to say to that………..You were robbed luv! Ask for a refund!

 

We were expecting my mother and Wilf over for dinner to day and in anticipation have defrosted half a cow to roast. Unfortunately Mum had started with a streaming cold this morning, so they won’t be coming. So it will just be Simon, Tori Mike and I. Anyone want a beef sandwich?