let there be light

OK - first of all - I posted a similar photo a couple of days ago.  But I have an excuse - it’s been a bad day - and I just like the light and shadows behind the flowers.

About two in the morning I’m woken by another heart arrhythmia.  I can feel the tempo rising as my heart begins to beat faster and faster.  It’s a bit like the finale of River Dance with all the dancers stamping on my chest - except that a couple of them are out of sync.  I take my pills and wait.  But they take curtain call after curtain call and it’s hours before it settles back down.

Sometimes I recover quickly.  I wake up and it’s as if nothing’s happened. But today, I knew as soon as I opened my eyes, I would pay for it later.  It’s the unpredictability I still haven’t got my head round, even after 5 years of living with this.

I go to the gym, but I’m struggling with the warm-up exercises. When I get home Anniemay is out on a bike ride - she’s going to try 60-70km today by doing two laps of Milton Keynes.  I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

There are still plenty of jobs to do before Dan comes home on sunday.  I pick an easy one; fitting a wall lamp above the bed in the spare room.  Drill a couple of holes in the wall, fit the lamp, plug in, switch on and - ‘hey presto’ - let there be light.  What can possibly go wrong?

What does in fact go wrong, turns out to be my worse nightmare.  

My use of the phrase ‘hey presto’ is deliberate; I’m a big fan of magic shows - Anniemay is not. She is not willing to suspend belief - she’s only sure the rabbit will actually come out of the hat, if she is standing over it, staring in to the void, waiting until old Flopsy makes an appearance.

So if something does go wrong, DIY-wise and I tell her it’ll be OK, I can fix it, she will simply not believe me.  Not until I’ve actually fixed it.

The wall behind the bed, into which I must drill said holes, is papered with a rather fetching floral pattern.  Anniemay is a bit unsure about this plan - “what if anything goes wrong? … we can’t repaper it”.  Hush my love.  I’ll be careful.

And I am. I put a bit of masking tape on the wall to mark the position of the holes.  I also figure that this will ensure that the wallpaper is not damaged by the drill.  It takes just a couple of minutes and I then remove the masking tape.  As I do, it brings about a 6 inch piece of wallpaper with it. Panic does not set in immediately; I guess I’m still feeling woozy from the drugs.  It’s only when I realise that there is no way that the lamp bracket will cover the hole that I start swearing.

OK - don’t panic. I find a roll of wallpaper in the garage; thank you hoarding fairies.  

My Dad was a painter and decorator and taught me a trick for repairing holes in wallpaper.  As I said earlier, Anniemay doesn’t believe in magic so I have to pull off this trick before she gets home.  She cannot be allowed to see behind the curtains

It works like this; cut out a piece of paper slightly larger than the hole, then tear away at the edge by pulling the paper underneath and away from the surface.  This ‘feathers’ the edge and when the paper is placed on top, the join becomes invisible.  In theory.  It did when my Dad did it.

I calculate that if she goes for the full 70km I’ve got about 3 hours.  But if she only manages one lap then I’m stuffed - I have less than an hour left.  And that includes nipping to B&Q for some wallpaper paste.

I’m just about to start when I hear the door open. My heart sinks.  Which is not good in its current state.  

But luck is with me - she’s with her cycling buddy and they’ve stopped for a cup of tea halfway round.  I hide the scraps of wallpaper as I make tea; “have you done the lamp yet?”  I make a noise about resting after the gym and will get round to it soon.  (As soon as she’s back on the bike). 

I’ve been appointed trainer to Anniemay and her friend who’s also doing this big bike ride at the end of the month, so I divert their attention away from the spare room with talk of tapering and nutrition.  I usher them back on to their bikes “you don’t want to rest for too long…” and calculate that I have about an hour and a half.  Thank you cycle ride fairies.

It takes me about half an hour to repair the hole and fit the lamp.  I have my feet up when she staggers in.  She’s done it - 65km.  I have no doubt that she’ll manage the 100km on the day.  Neither does she now.

I run a bath for her while she inspects my handiwork. She doesn’t notice - and won’t know anything about it until she reads this.  Well - that’s the theory.

It’s dustbin day tomorrow and I’m putting out the rubbish while supper cooks.  She comes out to help and notices scraps of wallpaper in the recycling.  I try to brush it off with a story about tidying up the garage and finding bits of wallpaper.  She fixes me with a teacher’s look; “I wasn’t born yesterday”.