Noisy neighbours

While trying to stay awake for the Bridge last night, there was suddenly the most awful din of glass breaking and things crashing, which seemed to come from the kitchen. We rushed round, examining everywhere - nothing out of place. Well, just the normal out of place stuff. We quickly concluded that it had indeed been a naughty person dumping bottles in the big bin in the street. Completely the wrong direction of the noise, but we’d had a wine and wanted an easy explanation.

However, this morning, we find that the wineglass rack that I’d put up in the larder/washing machine cupboard, had taken it upon themselves to fall off the wall. We did have too many glasses, so that’s one way to get rid of them… I know what was wrong - I’d used screws that were too short, and over time, the shoogling of the washing machine (I don’t think it’s quite level) had worked them loose. But why they suddenly chose to crash down when it was all quiet is a mystery.

Imagine if we’d been sitting having dinner with visitors and that happened! I do remember breaking quite a lot of crockery once, when we had visitors. We didn’t have a dishwashing machine - I did them and was skillful at stacking the dishes in a basket so that they dried overnight. I was up early to put them away, and pulled out the wrong one first, and most of them crashed to the floor for what seemed like several minutes while I just stood and watched, helpless. Every flat for miles around must have heard it. The visitors were polite and didn’t come rushing out, and in fact the rude awakening was never mentioned. I’ve now been and got really really long screws and hung it up again.

My grabber proved invaluable. Lots of things have fallen in behind the washing machine if they’re accidentally left on it, which we did all the time at the beginning. I grabbed maps, books, recipe books, broken glasses, and kept looking for the rumoured box of Turkish Delight which mysteriously disappeared one day

I dropped JR in town - back to JL, and I went for a drive before going to Homebase to get the loooong screws. Drove round by Parliament, and spotted a large group of chaps, all in those ‘See you Jimmy’ hats. I thought that would make a great blip, so went round the block and came back, but they were nowhere to be seen. However, a wee protest was going on about Spanish Women’s rights to abortion.

I then drove up a wee lane I hadn’t been before and came out at the Park. The path was too muddy to walk further, but no - it was still frozen, so nice and crunchy and not muddy at all. I like finding new viewpoints.

We have been sorting out bedding. We have ended up (over the years) with dozens of unwanted duvets and duvet covers and parts of duvets and sheets of varying sizes. How did this happen? I think we’ve got it down to what’s needed now.

I put up a wooden curtain rail this afternoon, with many bad words. The ends kept falling off, once nearly breaking a treasured vase on the mantelpiece. I bent down to put my drill away, and the whole thing came crashing down. Well, it tried to, but one end was fortunately wedged at the ceiling. At one point JR even said, ‘Let’s get a man in!’ I refuse to pay £100 for something so simple. But it didn’t turn out to be simple…

And I’ve solved the puzzle of how to hang a lantern (£1 from Ikea) just outside the kitchen door/window for winter nights. Will try it tonight and hope it doesn’t crash to the ground. There have been too many crashes this weekend.