It makes me want to shriek

Friday 30 October 2015

Surprisingly hot 24 degrees

This has to be one of the best Autumns of my life.  Stupendous and warm and glorious. OH actually out of bed before me today as he is going to see about some new shoe insoles.  He has terribly flat feet.  They are like two plates of salami.  He leaves and I get down town and wait, with some trepidation, for the insurance assessor and my insurance man to arrive.

Time ticks on.  9.30.  9.50.  I finally get through to the insurance agency and say where is the man and am told he has had to rush off somewhere else.  Express extreme dissatisfaction.  Oh crap.  Will have to go upstairs on my own.  

The owner's daughter is sitting in the flat and she points at her watch and looks sour faced. Not that she has another expression.  The insurance assessor is charming and we run through the extensive damage caused by the leak from the top rental unit, now thankfully sold and no longer my responsibility.  The ceiling is the colour of a pub in the 1960's.  A nasty tawny cigaretty yellow.  The estimation of damage is over 4000 euros.  And all because my plumber didn't tighten his nuts properly.

Emerge one hour later into the sunshine and come across a pair of English former clients. They are enjoying a coffee in the sunshine.  I am having a chat with them when I spot one of my sellers beckoning me from around the corner of the block.  

She is hiding behind the wall and her small bichon frisé takes the opportunity of licking my legs.  What is it about my legs and small dogs?  She says she has some news for me and takes me into a nearby bar.  The bichon frisé settles down to eating the fag ends and crisps on the floor and she tells me that the English couple are out looking for houses and have been to see hers.  She says the English agent with whom they have been looking says they are a nightmare and whatever one likes, the other hates.  And vice versa.  It is my colleague.  I make a mental note that they are looking and another that my colleague has not offered any of my properties.

Back home and try and make a dint in the chaos in the kitchen.  OH reappears and we have lunch and then he goes fishing.  Spend an hour and a half making lemon meringue tart which, fortunately, doesn't resemble a cep on this occasion, and a chili for two days.  

Then time to play with my new resin bangle moulds and attempting to glaze single leaves.  I do not have any mold release and really hope that the stuff doesn't weld itself irretrievably into the molds.  Watch YouTube.  The key is to hit it a lot on the counter.  And if that doesn't work, put it in the freezer for ten minutes.  No wonder they are so expensive.  Make one with the semi precious stones I picked up a week or two ago and another with grass seeds, tiny red oak leaves and even tinier snail shells.

I then try and resinate the ginkgo leaves.  It is really messy and runs all over the place.  Watch YouTube retrospectively and, oh bugger, I should have stuck the petals to a piece of plastic film and let the resin thicken.  All I may have done is ruin some perfectly good plastic lid tops.

Walked dog.  He was a menace and run off.  The medicine must be working as he is now quite fast.

OH came home, very late in the afternoon and told me he had bumped into a local publican who was about to purchase a chateau of over 1.5 million and set up a retirement home.  I know from my accounting years, just how vast the net profit is on these places.  OH was being admiring at his enterprise and I pointed out that the man only has so much money because he has never paid a penny in tax, has no accounts for the bar business which he has operated for the past 25 years, and that if I didn't declare my earnings either, I would be a lot richer.  And I then told him to shut up and banged cupboards.  He is also claiming invalidity benefit when he is as fit as a fiddle.  It makes me want to shriek.

OH says the podologue says he is all out of line but good insoles will help.