Weekend Allsorts

It’s been a weird weekend… kind of like a mixed bag of allsorts, with a bit of everything going on. Disappointingly, no liquorice, though…

Saturday started with a spot of pampering – an aromatherapy facial with head massage and a manicure… a belated birthday present from B, and very, very nice indeed! I could have spent all day, cocooned under the warm covers, soft South American pipe music in the background, while the annoyingly young and fresh-faced beautician tried to “reverse the ravages of time” from my face (to quote the antiwrinkle cream adverts).

All that relaxing can work up quite an appetite…. for a tasty Thai lunch, served with unlimited jasmine tea, and a bargain for a fiver.

Later that day we had to bid farewell to a faithful old friend… our little Fiat Punto. It seems ridiculous to be emotionally attached to a car, but I was really sad to see her go. She was the first car I’d ever owned, I’d driven her the length and breadth of Britain, and shifted DIY supplies to our new house, and building rubble and garden waste to the dump in her ample boot. 

Back in her glory days circa 2003

But we’d realised months ago that we don’t need to be a two-car household, and were just wasting money every year on insurance and road tax. Money that can be better spent on a new kitchen…work to commence shortly, so watch this space. I've spent hours on the internet this weekend comparing prices of appliances and have just ordered a new double oven…I can’t wait to have one that has a range of temperatures (not just “blacken”, “scorch” and “burn to a crisp”), and that opens by a door handle, not by prising open the door with a knife!

And someone was prising my head open with a very blunt spoon... or at least that's how I felt in the early hours of Sunday morning. I woke up with a pounding migraine that had been hovering with intent since Thursday and finally manifested with a vengeance. I spent most of the next few hours swallowing whatever cocktail of painkillers I could find, wondering at what point I’d OD. I did eventually fall asleep again, only to wake up feeling like I’d been stuffed in the washing machine and set to spin dry.

Impeccable timing of course…. on a day when I really needed to be in peak physical condition, for another gruelling Aikido course with the Very Important Sensei that I’ve mentioned on here before. Feeling a bit delicate, I was contemplating giving it a skip, but Nat is not one to admit defeat so easily. Things were going OK, and we were about 2 hours in, when a great clumsy oaf fellow Aikidoer decided he would crash land his sizeable ass on my long-suffering head….cue Owl City…

You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep

A time-lapse sequence showing fireflies and star trails. Photo: Steve Irvine

OK, maybe there weren’t ten million of them, but specks of dazzling light flashing in front of your eyes is never a good thing. I watched the rest of the course from the side-lines.

Of course, today is Mothering Sunday in the UK. [Useless information alert] Records from about four hundred years ago show that on this day, which falls mid-Lent, people made a point of visiting their nearest big church (the Mother Church). People who visited their mother church would say they had gone "a mothering." Young girls and boys “in service” (maids and servants) at the local Manor House or in a Mansion, were only allowed one day to visit their family each year, usually on Mothering Sunday. In recent times, Mothering Sunday has in Britain taken on the name and character of the US Mother's Day.

So happy Mothering Sunday to those who commemorate it, and hope everyone has had good weekends!