Off the radar

Just a quick update for anyone who wondered where I vanished to - outside the Blackberry signal range, and the BB battery died, so I can't even just walk to the top of the nearest hill, etc.

We did just get internet on in the cottage, and I've been here most of a week. Wonderful place. Birds galore, and I eventually found a place I can walk the dog off the lead (far too many sheep, ducks, goats, etc around to let him run around free like a city hooligan).

I have done a little work, but not much. Julie hammers on with DIY jobs, and we had her sister and two nephews here as well, so (with some huffing and puffing and sighing) some stuff got done. Unfortunately I don't just count as lazy and impractical, but also as on my first holiday of the year, so I have tried to get some chilling time in around all the 'stuff to do'....I have never been much of a car polisher on a Sunday...I have little vanity of possessions (beyond washing my clothes) and so don't have any desperate drive to make the place rentable/habitable. Despicable of me, I guess, but I prefer the idea of spending November trying to write a book.

Each to their own, and mine has always been to let other people do the work, in exchange for 'owning the place'.

Rent a place, and the landlord has to unblock the drain (in theory, although some act rather slowly) - own it, and they're all your problem (s)

I used to trade more energy in these situations, (always volunteered to help people move stuff, etc) but I got a bit old and lame in the last couple of years...and the RSI (or whatever it is) in right shoulder puts me right off jobs like painting and scrubbing. It hurts, and doesn't seem to get any better, and I guess I should find a physio ASAP - then I would have no excuse.

How feeble is that? I am typing here, as Julie scrubs the bedroom floor with something, before adding anti-woodworm something (yup, we got woodworm, apparently), and all that. I have lit the fire. And changed a light bulb, and emptied the vacuum cleaner and fed the dog and stuff. I don't just sit here watching tv and applauding. But I feel I may never live up to expectations, really.