You know that feeling you get?

When you’re about to spend quite alot of money on a new bike? A mix of emotions taking in guilt, expectation, worry and early onset childish grinning. Well we’re just about to order out underfloor heating system, powered by solar, ground source and lentils.

I am completely getting the guilt and worry, without any hint of joy, happiness or woody high notes. I know it’s the right thing to do, I know it’ll save us money in the long run, I also know there will be some extremely entertaining digger action that I may be be peripherally involved in.

I know all of these things, but flipping heck, how much money? I feel like we’re personally propping up the economy through the purchase of just about anything and everything that couple possibly be associated with a house. I’m seriously considering buying a few chimneys, a haw haw and ten tons of soil.

Oh no sorry, we ARE buying ten tons of soil. And two tons of sand. It’s in the budget just under “case of cheap wine, sod the taste, will it get me drunk?”

It’s only money I suppose. And if I play my cards right, it’ll be someone else’s money.

ARRRGHHH.

I may as well not write anything else. Except of course, that’s impossible because of the disproportional size of my loquacious gland. A few people have commented the steaming content from the back of the hedgehog has declined recently. Not the quality tho – that had nowhere to go.

It’s not just laziness. There is much happening that needs expressing in standard rant format, but time is against me. As is everything else, because the alternate title of this post would be “God Hates Me“. Let me take you through the many and varied ways that I know this to be the truth.

Sunday: Tried to build yet another model plane. This time a glider, bought at the tenuous extreme of the logic scale that I could fly it without instruction. But not build it without instruction from the evidence of extreme brokeness and confusion. Victory only snatched from the jaws of defeat by the tactical substitution of “wife” for “husband” in the building department*

Monday : Extremely important meeting made doubly scary by use of new technology at 1pm. Lots of time for testing and preparation if one leaves the house at 6:45am. Three hours later I’m marooned on the M5 after some chump set fire to his lorry. The last 90 minutes have seen me travel 3 miles and use about two gallons of fuel.

Finally arrive at the office, at the precise time the equipment breaks. Frantic attempts to fix it (I refer you to previous comment re: hammer) fail to do anything but add custom dents to a twenty grand technological marvel. That is now competely FUBAR. Cancel meeting, grump off home. Get stuck in another traffic jam.

Tuesday : Postman finally braves the artic tundra and icy wastes of Herefordshire and delivers final bits to finishing model. Spend Tuesday evening not finishing it. Carol does all the difficult stuff, my only job is to set up the electronic servo things.

This I fail to do correctly, which means replaying the wing affixation technique. Only in reverse leading to sounds of tearing, knashing of teeth and the opening of another beer. Apparently “yeah, yeah it’s all done, fine, go for it” shall not again be allowed to pass without a peer review.

Wednesday : Wake up with Hangover. Decide this is my week to sit in traffic jams and enjoy another one for 45 minutes. Apparently caused because for every sane driver, there is a cock in a BMW who believes Ice doesn’t happen to important people. Spend a frustrating day in the office with technology being about as reliable as a child who promises to tidy their bedroom AFTER being given a treat.

Slink off at 6pm into snowy wilderness and meet pal to go riding. Attempts not to go by forgetting lights and some clothing are brushed off as excuses. Can’t real ride uphill as snow has turned to deep slush. Then it gets deep on the top so more pushing. Still a nice downhill to come, except that’s a push and a fall as well. My “powder” technique of getting off the back and letting the front wheel surf through the snow works extremely well tho.

For two seconds. Then I fall off again.

It was horrible, pointless, stupid. We rode an epic nine kilometres in 90 minutes. At no point did we ever attain a speed I’d call “interesting“. Which didn’t stop it being properly scary when the front wheel jacknifed like the dickhead BMW driver. My feet were blocks of ice, and the last run through the woods was muddy and sketchy in equal amounts.

But it was exactly what I needed. I am un-grumpied. More later, much to tell, projects moving, walls being pulled down, interesting cracks appearing that may mean the roof is about to fall down.

* I’ve decided my problem is akin to the old proverb “For a man who only knows how to use a hammer, all the world is a nail”

Call that a shed?*

This a shed. I’m about to lay down a deposit the size of a decent bike frame to secure the rights to this flat-pack furniture on steroids. Four weeks from now, a huge truck shall abandon a few hundred planks, and a single sheet of badly translated instructions on our concrete slab.

My understanding that this grown up self-assembly wardrobe will somehow do exactly that, while I examine my giant erection with unconfined joy and some awe. Do your own jokes, I’ll be back in a sec. Finished? Right, moving on or – to be more precise – up, my real plan is to shirk any building responsibility by dragging my friends from all over England to assemble it for me.

A tissue of lies shall promise unlimited food, beer and riding in exchange for ten minutes light work with a chisel. Apparently a competent DIY duo could assemble this in a week. Less usefully, nowhere is an estimate provided for six drunk blokes, one exasperated wife, and an impatient man skilled only in “powertool trigger revving

But the completion of that building is right here; front and centre on the critical path of a thousand tasks that start with a big digger, and finish with financial ruin. The idea of a static caravan was put beyond possible use by a reasoned argument starting “WHAT? You’ve seen Grand Designs? Four of us in a caravan for two months would be Last Person Gouging with added Cutlery

I’ve spent some quality time designing systems to hang bikes and hold planes. However, I’ve pulled back from that dark realm of sadness where humourless men speak of “A Steed Collection” and “My Hanger“. Instead I’ve sketched out a few ideas on wine soaked paper, and passed them over to the only person in the Leigh family with spacial awareness.

Now stop sniggering and help me out here. I have a problem with the siting of a rain water harvester.*** Anyone know what 6000 litres of litres of water weighs? Is it “quite alot?

* Remember the film? “That’s not a knife…“. I had impure thoughts about Paul Hogan’s bit’o’stuff in that movie. Saw it again the other night. Hairstyles in the eighties, what were we thinking?**

** In my case “I’m going bald”

*** Oh yeah, livin’ the dream here, livin’ the dream.