Complications

Lovely day yesterday and rotten luck following. Paul brought the children over when he brought the car for me to use, only saw them for a couple of hours, including my getting ready to go out but it feels so GOOD!

This morning, slowly surfacing was interrupted by the mobile ringing downstairs, which I managed to ignore, and the house phone going off right next to my ear minutes later. Being up till past 3, drinking wine and on a buzz doesn't feel so good when yr bro calls you and inflicts a sense of humour before you're properly awake grrrryrrrrrrrrrch. Gordon is coming down to build me a new kitchen; promised myself I'd have one by the Rammy this year and getting the house straight FOR the Rammy is always a challenge for me anyway so the next couple of weeks should be ~ interesting ~

Rammy - the guest list is shifting all the time, variously. Last Saturday in January EVERY year should be reasonably easy to remember but I still have people telling me they needed more notice FFS. I found a raft of photographs the other week which reminded me that it never used to be a 'big' party, just an OTT dress-up one; the limit had to be imposed when I started inviting people from 'out of town' and accommodation was never an issue back in the day because my social network was centred here; now it's all over the place! Sid has found himself a rather snazzy new jacket to show off, and we had a bit of a convo about the lives and times of said event, coming to the conclusion that, unlikely to happen as it is, we'd be able to cope if it was just the two of us getting dressed up and hammered on champagne over the course of a few hours.

Went out in the sunshine earlier to check what the car problem is after last night when I was driving back in the airborne flood and ended up waterski-ing between two 10ft fans of water, after which the car started making weird noises, sometimes. I thought (hoped!) maybe it forced one of the mudflaps into the wheel arch or something, cos there wasn't any lack of power, the exhaust sounded fine, BUT I wasn't going to stop in the dark and rain 15 miles from home to find out why it made graunching noises now and then. Hasten to add, this is the Mazda, not the red devil. Oh fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff! nothing trivial; I didn't even know what/which bit is missing/broken, but there's a dangling bit of metal associated with the steering, or suspension, or something at the back of the car. NOT feeling guilty here, honestly, just *bad*; it's my car and I broke it; nothing nearly as bad as if it were his. I know it was steering light anyway: (I haven't driven it since June last year, only the red devil so I just assumed it was the way it drove and it's front wheel drive in any case). So, the damage. There are two brackets dangling, one of them with a random rubber bush thingie on it, maybe 'just' a strut affair, but something necessary nonetheless. Since it *is* my car, I can cope with getting it fixed, but that won't have it right for Paul to use tomorrow morning.

I discovered, when looking for some unopened letter about taxing the devil, that my friend gave me the whole V5 thing for it instead of sending it to DVLA, and I plain forgot to send it off. So it's still registered to her, and she's moved, so the form about taxing it is in the silently growing pile behind the front door where she used to live. Sent it off to them last week with a note saying I need it NOW to be able to tax it : hence borrowing the Mazda *correction, using* to avoid being stopped for no tax. And I paid for it to be cleaned inside and out at the carwash place outside the do yesterday so it's an echo of the cooker business and my telling off "dirty and working is better than gleaming and broke". Not *quite* the same thing as the cleaning had no connection whatsoever with the broke, but I'm on an echo spotting jag at the moment.

Summoned Paul by telephone who told me the replacement shed had arrived, and that he was just about to start setting it up so there we have the rotten luck options kicking in again BAH! Anyway he came over and it's not the end of the world (he's managed a Heath Robinson short-term fix) just a killer on his available time to fit it, once the new parts are bought. Trunnions(?)rubbers for the replacing of, which he says he and Richard did notice on the final part-swapping from the blues brothers Mazda to this one, but didn't then have time to do. Isn't it the pits when you KNOW it was something that could and should have been avoided?

The charity fundraiser I went to yesterday managed to scare up over £1600 for cancer research; the organiser arranged it as a sort of memorial for his brother who died of cancer recently. It was a lovely day, managed to see lots of people I haven't met in ages, met some new people and had dinner at the Italian up the road with Robert and Carole afterwards - another Paulo's. Robert used to favour Paolo's (though that was the name of the owner, not the restaurant) in Soho and they did fabulous food, so this seemed a fitting echo for the first dinner I've had with him since forever. They tell me they've found a new good place ?Alberto's? so we've pencilled that in for a near future dinner, it was really good to have time to talk to them and do a proper catch-up. Kevin and Yvonne joined us for an aperitif but had to be somewhere else for 8:30 so couldn't stop. Great pity as they are both lovely people.

Some of the up till all hours involved an hour on the phone catching up with Trish, it's no wonder I never have time to do housework or other boringly normal things. Did manage to wash the blinding white cotton dressing gown but sadly didn't manage to wash out the screaming scarlet nail varnish from the front of it. Never mess around with a bottle of nail varnish that's been lying on its side while wearing anything you care about, especially if it's white.

So, today. I've done jack, de nada, except for reading the Charles de Lint book Sid loaned me, smoking far too much, and thinking rather than doing anything about what I ought to be doing for Gordon and Barbara arriving early hours tomorrow and the imminent kitchen rehab. They called from Edinburgh, having bought four of the required fourteen (fourteen?!?!) proper wood boards to do the kitchen, and I shall have company for the next couple of weeks and a spur to get the old homestead Rammy-ready. I'm so glad they will be here for the Rammy, it wouldn't be the same without them.

Catch-up with Mark on the poker front, he got knocked out quite early yesterday but a couple of his team got 2nd and 4th in the end so there's team if not personal glory for him to bask in.