I have just bought a new watch. Being a gadget man I had to have one with several dials and a sixty two page instruction booklet all in English. A couple of problems with it. I can’t see very well and my super doper glasses that I bought don’t do very much to help. It’s not that my eyesight is bad – it had deteriorated – it’s just that my arms are too short. Strange how our arms shorten as we get older. Anyway in this sixty two page book somewhere is “setting the time” chapter. Not at the beginning. Oh no. It’s buried deep in the heart of all of the instructions. I would have thought that actually setting the time would have come before split second time, dual time, day and date, multi function alarms and alarm tones etc. Silly me! My linear engineer’s brain would have expected setting the time to be first but of course being an engineer and linear I do not think like normal people. I can programme the time in Moscow, Paris, Marrakesh – in fact in dozens of major cities at the drop of a hat. But can I program it to show good old British summer time? Oh no! I have selected time set on the illegible dial by going on the internet and getting a jumbo sized instruction sheet. Then I held the left hand upper button for three seconds and got my hands to neatly park at twelve o’clock. I pulled out the right hand lower button (are you following this because I will be asking questions) followed by pressing the right hand upper or lower button. I then select the British Summer time function (left lower button) followed by pushing back in the right hand lower button. The hands start to move back into position. Success? No! they have returned the same time as before. I have tried this several times to no avail. It seems that I destined to remain permanently with my clock “back” No summer time for me. But ha! All is not lost. At least the little LCD box on the right hand side shows summer time. I can pretend that I am a European traveller if anyone asks why my watch is one hour behind. Anyone want to know the time in Moscow?
It’s been a good day today and I have got a lot of work done for which I am feeling very smug. Still got lots to do to catch up. The chemo brain is subsiding – I even remember where I have left my car – it’s outside! How about that? I had a boiled egg for breakfast with bread soldiers while shovelling my tablets down my throat. Down to seventeen this morning. Hardly worth opening the box! I bought one of those compartment day by day boxes with morning lunch evening and night on. It takes me an hour to pop all the bloody pills out of their respective sealed bubbles and get them in their little boxes. The little chemo ones are right bleeders – they seem to have a life of their own. I think it would be more efficient to just throw them straight on the floor and then pick them up because that is where most of them seem to finish up. The language is terrible. And that’s just Irene! This morning I took Wednesday’s so it’s not quite as foolproof as they would have you believe but all I have got to do is take Tuesday’s tomorrow. That can’t be too hard, can it?
Anyway, no sickness, no diahorrea and the sun is shining and I’ve had a poo!
Jonathan wants an apology about my remark about him having to wash the European dish mountain. He couldn’t get all of the pans in the dishwasher so he had to wash some by hand. Amazing scenes. There shall be rejoicing and dancing in the street and I will declare a new public holiday – “hand wash the pots day” – and we will all discard our eco unfriendly dishwashers and dip our hands in suds on the same day every year.
He’s moaning about back ache because he has nearly finished digging out the shed base. I say nearly because there is still some more to do but bless him – he has got a huge pile of soil to bag up and get rid. He’s nearly made it to Australia. Well I can tell him the time in Sydney! One of our cats is buried in the corner and at least he hasn’t found him or that would have stopped the job while we got Tony Robinson and Time team to come along and dig some trenches only to find that it was in fact a dead cat and not a major Anglo – Saxon burial ground. So the next time I have a drink (which MIGHT be tomorrow night) I will drink a toast to my youngest son Jonathan, man mountain, earth mover, double hard bastard pot washer.
