Green dust and chocolate...

... but fortunately not together.

The woodwork in our house (skirting boards, door frames, banisters, etc) are a range of colours, mostly darkish brown downstairs and darkish green in the kitchen and upstairs. The green is a horrible colour and they are all really tatty (you can see bits of white, pink and purple), so I am on a mission to re-paint them white. This involves some sanding, currently I am working on the upstairs banisters, so sanding generates lots of nasty green dust which gets *everywhere*.

I've bought 676 chocolate bars this week, but they aren't all for me! They're for the caving expo in the summer. I bought them over three trips to the supermarket (so I could carry them home, and not buy all the shop had), I was kind of interested to see what the cashier would say each time. The first time she commented twice that I must really like chocolate, and when I said they weren't all for me, so looked quite unconvinced!

The second time, I got no comment at all on the chocolate, but the cashier seemed surprised that after putting through around 250 choc bars, the two "Healthy Balance" yoghurts were mine as well. I was very temped to say "well, you cant live on chocolate alone" but was too shy :)

The third time I got no comment at all which was rather dull. I think the cashier was still asleep.

Next I need to buy 250 packs of instant noodles...

Back from Cambridge

We finally got back from Cambridge on Tuesday, we ended up staying for over two weeks rather than the planned week, but we got lots more done. We:

*Replaced the rotten old front door with a nice new hardwood double glazed door with 5 lever lock
*Sanded down and painted the shed door
*Cut down the dead tree in the back garden, and got rid of all the wood
*Planted some new plants in its place
*Supported the fence
*Painted some of the fence
*Re-attached the back door frame
*Cleared lots of gunge out of the kitchen drainage

As well as some general gardening and cleaning, including the horrible job of removing the maggots that had accumulated in the kitchen waste bin. Yuck! At least the lodger should empty the bins more often now...

Stuff

I took a big bag of paper recycling to the banks by the park yesterday. There are loads of signs up in the park saying that they are going to restore a lot of the old features (bridges, and buildings mainly) which will be great. I hope they do it quickly, while we still live here!

We are off to Cambridge today for a week or so, so I am busy sorting stuff out in preparation. Olly seems to have infected me, and I now find packing boring and stressful, I am sure it used to be fun and exciting. Maybe I am just getting old?

Australia?

There is a postdoc advertised at Canberra, Australia. I have decided to apply for it and have spent most of the morning attempting to update and improve my hideous five year old CV. CV writing is hard! I got sufficient brain melt that I couldn't even remember the title of my M.Sc. dissertation...

I suspect there will be better qualified candidates than me, but decided that that wasn't a reason not to apply. Canberra sounds a nice place, Australia sounds a nice country, and the postdoc sounds great. It will be useful to have updated my CV as well.

This should also motivate me into finishing of the paper based on my PhD, as it will be my only publication!

This Weeks Running

Here is this weeks fairly dull training update :)

TRAINING
Sun 6th May - Sat 12th May
Number of runs: 3
Running: 9.07 miles
Running increase: 10.7%
Walking: 11 miles

Increased my running miles by 10% which is what I was aiming at so I am happy. Apparently if you increase more than that you are more susceptible to injury. Hopefully I can manage a similar increase next week (which will be almost 10 miles).

Windows Cleaned

I managed to make the windows both clean and not smeary - I cheated and bought a window squeegee (I think that's the right word, kind of like the things you scrape ice off your car with, but longer and with a flexible silicon "blade"). It cost 99p but is well worth the investment.

To make you house seem bigger and lighter (according to lots of TV programs), you need to de-clutter, accessorise, clean and redecorate in neutral colours. I have discovered a quicker, easier and cheaper alternative - just clean the windows! It is amazing how much brighter the room seems. The windows were filthy, especially considering that we've only had them for 18 months, and I have cleaned the frames a few times, and maybe the glass once before, and they get cleaned when it rains, and the front ones when kids throw water bombs, and we don't live on a main road. Must be the great polluted Liverpool air, makes me wonder how much ick gets into my lungs when I breath...

New Front Door

We had been undecided for ages as to whether to get a new front door or not, the old one is quite tatty but not totally fallen apart. New doors seem quite expensive, and unless you get one with a frame (which costs even more) it can take a while getting them to be the right size. Then you have all the painting to do as well.

Then we found a front door (plus frame) reduced in B+Q from £304 to £30, it was quite dirty, and the packaging damaged, but except for a slight dent on the inside at the bottom it is fine. It is the right size for our house, and is composite, so although it doesn't look quite as nice as a real wooden door, it wont need all the painting and matches the white uPVC windows.

It came with the frame and sill and some bits and pieces, but we needed to a new handle, letter box and frame-fixers. Despite shopping around for the best prices, we actually spent more on this than the door!

I think we will be fitting the door today, having got (hopefully!) everything ready last night. Fingers crossed that it wont be too epic.