Busy Weekend

So, super busy weekend (which was extremely hot, and just to compound matters I had a stinking cold)...Saturday we got up reasonably early (and in roughly this chronological order) visited the butchers to pre-order all the meat for the BBQ next weekend (hopefully we will have enough), went and bought serving platters and disposable plates, drove to Homebase and bought an *enormous* Gazebo (which was on a really good offer price), went to Morrisons to buy a few more cases of beer (again, a really good offer) and do about half of the weeks food shopping (not on purpose, we just didn't pick up enough), after loading the car I walked down half a row to the nearest trolley bay (we had to park right at the back of the car park) and find, to my extreme annoyance that it has none of those chains to recover your quid, and so have to walk all the way around into the next row of cars (cursing under my breath)), come home and put the Gazebo up in the garden (securing it as best we can to fences and trees but not being *entirely* satisfied we went back out to the car and zoomed into Redhill on a quest for those large metal pins (the ones used used to secure the orange netting stuff that workmen put around roadworks) - we visited the huge hardware store at the top of the hill (Mortons), who in a state of bafflement took us all the way through the shop and pointed hopefully at those metal things you can use to reinforce fence posts (nope), then down to a builders merchant, who clued me in on the proper name "Oh, 4ft Road Pins you mean" but was "Sorry, all out mate...", then on to the only other remaining place, a trade hire shop opposite, who *also* didn't have any, but did helpfully suggest we try the place we had just come out of...Oh well...So then back home and moved the PC out the way of the patio doors and then dragged all the chairs and the sofa into the garden (under the new Gazebo, just in case it rained). We started up Colin the Camper (who seemed to be behaving himself) went and put some petrol in him, and then drove all the way over to Dorking to pick up our new sofa and chairs (even one that reclines!) which took two trips (so took, in all about two and a half hours), during which Colin was starting to cough and splutter, borrowed 3 road pins from Flyingpops' folks, and then had the journey home from hell with Colin cutting out, backfiring and stalling at every single set of traffic lights (wonderful)...finally limped him home and resisted the urge to kick his tyres and put his leasure battery on charge instead, then hoisted everything over the fence or through the front door and assembled our new living room (which looks very nice)...Changed into new clothes (as soaked with sweat) then went out and banged in the road pins (on the three gazebo legs where this was possible and used cable ties to secure it all together) tidied up the garden as best we could ready for Sunday. Sat down then and watched most of the GP qualifying, but went out before the light faded to tie a tarpaulin around the furniture outside, then collapsed in front of Saturday night TV (which was largely crap except that new Simon Cowell/Ant and Dec talent show which was genuinely amusing, and Dr Who (which was probably the best episode I have *ever* seen), during the crap TV I finally got round to reading through the procedures for flashing the new firmware onto the PSP (and, satisfied I wasn't going to brick it, downloaded the files and sucessfully flashed it, been meaning to do that for about 3 months). Hopped into the bath (and then went to bed) absolutely shattered...

Sunday, up early(ish) again, bagged up and loaded up the car with *loads* of garden rubbish (left over from the garden makeover) plus all the old stuff from the kitchen cupboards and zoomed off to the dump (which was already heaving with people), sorted everything into it's recycling bins and then drove into Redhill (stopping to fill up the car with petrol) to get the rest of the weeks food shop (at Sainsburys this time), Flyingpops tried to pop into Choices (but we were too early and couldn't wait because we had frozen food (ice creams ;)), next it was off to the Reigate and Redhill gardeners association HQ opposite Earlswood Lakes to buy them out of the lovely rose coloured stones we had put on three quarters of the front garden last week (and some pepper dust to discourage the cats, some copper strips to discourage snails and slugs, and some slug pellets to finish them off if they manage to get past it) and then drove back home. Put the frozen stuff in the freezer, then finished off the remainder of the front garden (noting with some dismay that moving our rose last week seems to have killed it), I hoovered all the ants and spiders out of the back of the car and then we started on the washing (did about 4 loads in all) inbetween which I failed to put up the roller blind in the kitchen (Flyingpops dad is going to come and help with that) and we zoomed over to Merstham to pick up the gas BBQ from Flyingpops brother for next week (getting oil and rust flakes all over the lovely freshly hoovered car boot in the process), manhandled that into the garden (gas bottle weighs about 100 kilos) and covered it with my US Army poncho to keep it safe. Moved the whole back garden around into a slightly better layout, and then Flyingpops cleaned all the garden furniture with a bucket of soapy water while I sorted out a pile of about 500 odd socks. I then made lunch, emptied the bin and put all the recycling out. Spent about an hour tidying up my PC (both drives nearly full), which involved a lot of burning DVDs and labelling and then tidied up the tall kitchen cabinets (including all the junk on top of them). Flyingpops fell asleep on the sofa during the Eastenders re-run, so I made a start on Sunday dinner, then munched it excitedly watching the Grand Prix (awesome race, well done Mr Hamilton, winning despite 4 safety cars!), as light began to fade I ran out and grabbed a couple of snaps of the wild flowers around the pond out back, topped up the water garden, and applied pepper dust and slug pellets to the entire garden, I then sat and stuck the copper strip onto the strawberry trough, using a knife to score it (which you need to do for some reason to discourage snails too)...really don't think we could have squeezed anything else into that amount of time if we had tried...zzz...

Update - this morning, the alarm goes off (and I wake, vainly wishing for another weekend now to just spend enjoying the sunshine and recovering, but it is not to be), we almost miss the train by getting caught at the lights by the Causway, and there are no parking spaces, but luckily it's delayed, this means we get to London Bridge a few minutes late only to find that all the buses are in total gridlock and this part of London is at a standstill, I wait in the enormous queue for the 17 bus for as long as I can stand (watching the lights at the end of the road flick uslessly from red to amber to green, having no impact on the traffic at all), then Flyingpops rings to say she looked down the road and nothing is moving as far as the eye can see. I give up and run down into the tube but the Northern line barriers are shut (I was actually quite pleased as I hate the Northen Line) leaving me no choice but to either walk the whole way or clamber up to platform six and wait for the next Thameslink. Thameslink then, still manage to get in on time, somehow(??)...boot up my laptop to find 216 emails awaiting my attention, and my entire working week stretching out (into infinity) ahead of me...

It's official, I need a vacation...