I thought I'd ramble a bit today about my weekend, because it was one of those weekends where nothing seemed to go right. I don't know whether any of you are like me, but if you are I feel sorry for you. I'm one of those people that has things happen to them that would never happen to anyone else. You know, the stupid things that are so bizarre that they couldn't possibly be made up because nobody is crazy enough to think of those scenarios.
Take my Saturday - no seriously, take it. I had been looking forward to Saturday 22nd May for the last three weeks. Nothing spectacular was happening, you understand, just an arranged night out with the hubby at the local pub, but still, it's a night out, right? I rarely get an evening out with the hubby because trying to find babysitters for my kids is a bit of a nightmare. My son is easy enough to make arrangements for - he's almost fourteen so doesn't need looking after as such, and is happy enough to be left to his on devices. As for my daughter, though, that's where I hit the snags. Ellie's a bit, well, I don't know that there's an actual word for it, she's just Ellie.
To be fair, she's a well-loved child, and nobody holds the fact that they will probably have a headache after spending longer than half an hour with her against her, but it's pretty difficult to get anybody to voluntarily look after her without me being there as a buffer.
Anyway, I'd arranged babysitters for both of my kids a couple of weeks ago. Overnight babysitters, no less. Excellent! The weather turned crazy hot at the end of last week, and I thought 'Great, this is working out brilliantly!' Saturday night, child free, sunny weather, beer garden, the works!
See. this is where I went wrong, because nothing ever works out great for me, so I should never have jinxed myself by thinking otherwise. *rolls eyes*
Anywho, Saturday did indeed dawn very bright and sunny, so I took my kids to their auntie's house (only a two minute walk from me) and spent the afternoon relaxing in the back garden while the kids tired themselves out on the trampoline and what-not. I left just after 3pm, my son staying behind as he was sleeping over until Sunday. My plan was to walk home, grab a sandwich (in order to have some carbohydrates to soak up the planned alcohol consumption of later in the day), then take my daughter to my mum's house before coming back home to shower and stuff.
Now so far, I have to admit, this is not sounding in any way like it was a bad day, but trust me, I'm getting there.
So, 4pm arrives. I grab my daughter's overnight bag and my purse and leave the house , banging the front door shut behind me. Then I bang the front door shut again. And again. Several 'agains' later, I realise that my front door is never going to shut owing to fact that the lock is completely knackered. Of course, I sort of figured this out after the third or fourth 'bang', but you know what it's like, you keep on checking just in case it will miraculously work if you give it an extra hard bang. Well, you probably don't know what it's like, but you know what I mean. It's like when you lose something and you keep checking the same drawer over and over because, dammit, you know you put it there. Like it's really going to appear when you've already checked a thousand times already. It's madness, but you keep checking.
Now, when it comes to DIY, I'm hopeless. Honestly, I can't even wire a plug - it's pathetic how inept I am. But I wiped my brow, cursed a bit more under my breath, and dug out the screwdrivers (and phoned the hubby for back up. I mean, come on, I'll get a screwdriver out and have a go, but lets not pretend I'll manage to fix it. *snort*). I took the lock off the door, prodded it a few times, took the back off the casing, prodded a little bit more, scratched my head, put the lock back together and screwed it back onto the door, called the lock a few choice names because it (of course) still didn't work, and kicked the door for good measure.
And then the plinth on the bottom of the door fell off.
Seriously, I kid you not.
Hubby arrived and basically did exactly the same as me with regards to cursing, taking the lock off and fiddling a bit with it, and putting it back on the door again. When it still wouldn't lock, he gave his professional opinon; "I guess it's f****ed then.".
No kidding.
Then a little light bulb went off in my head. I phoned my sister-in-law and asked her to house sit for me for the night. I mean, I have deadlocks and bolts on the door as well as the normal lock, so it's perfectly safe and lockable from the inside, but I couldn't leave the house empty unless I wanted to invite half of Ely to help themselves to my stuff (and to be honest, you don't have to invite half of Ely to take your stuff, they just do it anyway). Thankfully, my sister-in-law, being the star that she is, agreed. Disaster was avoided, yay!
I was running late by now, though, and my plans were seriously scuppered. I'd had everything worked out - drop the daughter to my mum's house, go home, blast some music, have a vodka or two, shower, change, titivate etc etc. Instead, as it was now 6pm, I had to make do with changing my top, slapping some lippy on, sticking my head upside down, and spraying half a can of hairspray onto it (CFC free, of course).
The bus was, of course, late, but it eventually arrived and I dropped off my daughter. All I had to do was jump on the next bus - any bus! - and make my way to the pub (hubby was already there, smart man that he is). Of course, despite Cardiff Bus advertising 'a bus every five minutes!', I waited twenty minutes before one actually turned up. And another of course, the bus was full of people who were already tipsy after drowning their sorrows because of the disappointing results of Cardiff City's big game at Wembley. As if that wasn't bad enough, two stops after I got on (you know where this is going, right), one of Cardiff's resident nuts came aboard and decided that of the ten or so available seats, he'd pick the one next to me to sit down on.
I spent the next ten minutes getting to know the window extremely well, while Nutter 's sweaty thigh tried to get acquainted with my twitchy leg. Ugh. *shudders*
And what do you know, the guy got off at the same time as me, and I soon realised he was heading for the same place too (it wasn't that hard to figure out, because the stop I got off at only really has three options for your destination; the doctor's surgery (which was closed), the cemetery, or the pub. Okay, the Nutter's a , well, nutter, but even I knew that it was unlikely he wanted to spend Saturday night with a bunch of dead people).
Anyway, I hung back a bit a waited until the guy was a few minutes' ahead, then started walking again, and finally - finally! - I got to the Promised Land (er, the Culverhouse Cross pub). And it was only 7.30pm!
So I did manage to have my night out (which was fab, by the way), but it sure took a long time getting there (or felt like it). Oh, and to cap it all, my daughter ended up back at my house anyway. About half an hour after I left her she decided she didn't want to sleep at nanny's house after all, so Bampy brought her back home and my sister-in-law ended up babysitting as well as house sitting. So, in a funny way, I was sort of lucky that my door wouldn't shut.
It's a funny old world.
Oh, and hubby put a new lock on the door yesterday. It only took three hours too! *snort* It's not that hubby is inept, because he's not, it's just that my house is really awkward. Nothing is as it should be, from wonky walls, to strange-sized doorframes and lop-sided wall sockets. I swear it was custom built just to annoy me....*mutters*
hahaha ... but the point of all this is that there's anything in the world who stops us to consume or booze!
ReplyDelete*snickersnort* Man, I HATE that. But you missed the key ingredient in successfully changing the lock yourself--you should have started on the vodkas MUCH earlier--then you would have OWNED that puppy.
ReplyDeleteI snorted outloud and the hubby diagnosis... yeah... took genius, that did (then, I'm still mad at him--you tell him I'm gunna kick his ass, okay?)