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The weekend
Feb. 11th, 2008 11:28 amHad a fairly productive weekend. Things got cracking with a driving lesson - my first daylight lesson for a while, as I've been mainly having one-hour-long lessons on Tuesdays and Fridays after work. This was a two-hour lesson, though, and we covered a lot of things I've already done - reverse bay parking, and turn in the road (aka three point turn) to name a couple. I have a problem with left turns, for some reason, especially left emerges onto main road, and also my braking is a bit forceful, but on the whole things are improving. The driving instructor made some very pleasant comments about my progress (he said the turn in the road was the best I'd done). Next time, apparently, we're going to be doing emergency stops.
Must read the theory book and book a theory test.
After the lesson, I went round to mum's. Sarah had booked a rather large van, into which we put the smart chair and tables that had been at Grandma Rudge's house, and a couple of boxes of ornaments and the like. We then drove up to the lock-up that Sarah's hiring, on the A13 and just round the corner from where she lives, and put those items into storage. Sarah's emptying much of her house prior to moving out (she's hoping to find somewhere in Letchworth).
Sarah wasn't greatly enjoying the drive, as due to an administrative error she'd ended up with a van larger than the one she'd booked (it was the largest size she could drive without taking an HGV test, and apart from the size and weight, and the steering being rather heavygoing, there was no rear window and accordingly no rear view mirror. Still, IMO she coped admirably.
We were both hungry by this point (I'd had nothing since breakfast - which was some re-heated pizza from the night before - and Sarah hadn't even had breakfast, so, um...), so we popped over to Nando's. I do like Nando's.
Back at Sarah's, we started emptying her attic. It was rather heavygoing, but in the event not too difficult - time-consuming more than anything else; because of the limited space at Sarah's, we brought a few boxes down, put them in the van, and then brought down some more. Bit by bit we eventually cleared the place, although I pointed out that as some of the boxes (for example, for Sarah's hi-fi and printer, which we'd chucked a few weeks ago) were empty, taking them to the lock-up was rather a counter-productive idea and we'd do better to fill them with stuff and then take them to the lock-up. Sarah agreed.
It's not like me (who's normally the one with my head in the clouds, whilst Sarah's the one who has her feet so firmly on the ground she's up to her knees) to have practical commonsense ideas, so I mention this isolated incident out of sheer vanity.
We then drove all the way to the lock-up, at which point Sarah realised that she'd left her keys in her flat. As we were running late by this point - and due for a meal in Chelmsford with mum - we agreed to unload the stuff from the lock-up tomorrow, so we took the van back to Sarah's and left it there fully loaded.
At this point, Sarah demonstrated great trust in me - we had to play musical cars, putting the van where her car normally goes. So Sarah asked me to move her car out of its normal position, while she drove the van. It was rather thrilling to be driving a car with nobody else in there with me. I wasn't doing much, really - reversing to the other side of the communal parking lot outside Sarah's block of flats, and then moving forward again to park up just behind the van. But, yes, a wee bit exciting.
Then it was back to Chelmsford for the meal with mum at the Hare, which we always enjoy going to.
I'd left a DVD burning of episodes 4, 5 and 6 of the new Transformers Animated series, and I gave this to Sarah for her to enjoy (after first checking that the sound hadn't cut out, which it sometimes does for some reason). She headed back to Barking whilst I stayed in Chelmsford overnight.
Sunday morning was spent doing some work on some video tapes - working out what was on them, importing some of the contents into my computer, in some case finding d/ls of the contents on the principle that that's a bit easier and less hassle than digitising the tapes. Didn't do much apart from that, a bit of washing up, and having a brunch of a sort of much of mackerel, mashed potatoes, peas, and lots and lots of salad cream, which I quite like.
Then Sarah came round and we went to Chorleywood where we were having a preliminary meeting with the minister who's going to marrying us, talking over some issues (like where my divorced status would pose any problems), and generally some ideas for the shape and time of the service - although with about 19 months still to go, there's no real urgency for a lot of detail to be sorted out just yet.
That meeting was enjoyable (and was followed by tea and cake, which was yummy), but went on rather long than I'd anticipated - we ended up not back at Sarah's until about 6:00pm, where there was some more stuff to be loaded into the van - her wardrobe, which she'd disassembled that morning, and a couple more boxes that she'd packed. Then we went round to the lock-up, making sure we'd taken the keys with us (!) and unloaded. On the way, there was an almighty crash - the wardrobe bits had fallen over (personally I'd've laid them flat, but Sarah had put them upright), and one of the bits of plywood backing had broken in half. However, that, Sarah reckons, should be pretty salvageable.
Although it was done in four trips (on some woefully unsteerable trolleys), unpacking the van and placing the stuff into the lock-up was fairly speedy and hassle free, certainly compared to loading the van in the first place. Afterwards, though, we decided we'd earned the right to some food, so we went back to Nando's.
Then, back to Sarah's to get back in the car (Sarah's pleased not to be having to do any more work using the van!) and she drove me back to Chelmsford, where we arrived just in time for Kingdom.
So, yeah, a good weekend. Next weekend should be a bit more relaxed (I keep promising Sarah that I'll show her Peter's Friends, and I think that might be when it happens).
Although at some point I want to get back into the habit of attending morning worship at Oasis, where I've not been in ages.
David.
Must read the theory book and book a theory test.
After the lesson, I went round to mum's. Sarah had booked a rather large van, into which we put the smart chair and tables that had been at Grandma Rudge's house, and a couple of boxes of ornaments and the like. We then drove up to the lock-up that Sarah's hiring, on the A13 and just round the corner from where she lives, and put those items into storage. Sarah's emptying much of her house prior to moving out (she's hoping to find somewhere in Letchworth).
Sarah wasn't greatly enjoying the drive, as due to an administrative error she'd ended up with a van larger than the one she'd booked (it was the largest size she could drive without taking an HGV test, and apart from the size and weight, and the steering being rather heavygoing, there was no rear window and accordingly no rear view mirror. Still, IMO she coped admirably.
We were both hungry by this point (I'd had nothing since breakfast - which was some re-heated pizza from the night before - and Sarah hadn't even had breakfast, so, um...), so we popped over to Nando's. I do like Nando's.
Back at Sarah's, we started emptying her attic. It was rather heavygoing, but in the event not too difficult - time-consuming more than anything else; because of the limited space at Sarah's, we brought a few boxes down, put them in the van, and then brought down some more. Bit by bit we eventually cleared the place, although I pointed out that as some of the boxes (for example, for Sarah's hi-fi and printer, which we'd chucked a few weeks ago) were empty, taking them to the lock-up was rather a counter-productive idea and we'd do better to fill them with stuff and then take them to the lock-up. Sarah agreed.
It's not like me (who's normally the one with my head in the clouds, whilst Sarah's the one who has her feet so firmly on the ground she's up to her knees) to have practical commonsense ideas, so I mention this isolated incident out of sheer vanity.
We then drove all the way to the lock-up, at which point Sarah realised that she'd left her keys in her flat. As we were running late by this point - and due for a meal in Chelmsford with mum - we agreed to unload the stuff from the lock-up tomorrow, so we took the van back to Sarah's and left it there fully loaded.
At this point, Sarah demonstrated great trust in me - we had to play musical cars, putting the van where her car normally goes. So Sarah asked me to move her car out of its normal position, while she drove the van. It was rather thrilling to be driving a car with nobody else in there with me. I wasn't doing much, really - reversing to the other side of the communal parking lot outside Sarah's block of flats, and then moving forward again to park up just behind the van. But, yes, a wee bit exciting.
Then it was back to Chelmsford for the meal with mum at the Hare, which we always enjoy going to.
I'd left a DVD burning of episodes 4, 5 and 6 of the new Transformers Animated series, and I gave this to Sarah for her to enjoy (after first checking that the sound hadn't cut out, which it sometimes does for some reason). She headed back to Barking whilst I stayed in Chelmsford overnight.
Sunday morning was spent doing some work on some video tapes - working out what was on them, importing some of the contents into my computer, in some case finding d/ls of the contents on the principle that that's a bit easier and less hassle than digitising the tapes. Didn't do much apart from that, a bit of washing up, and having a brunch of a sort of much of mackerel, mashed potatoes, peas, and lots and lots of salad cream, which I quite like.
Then Sarah came round and we went to Chorleywood where we were having a preliminary meeting with the minister who's going to marrying us, talking over some issues (like where my divorced status would pose any problems), and generally some ideas for the shape and time of the service - although with about 19 months still to go, there's no real urgency for a lot of detail to be sorted out just yet.
That meeting was enjoyable (and was followed by tea and cake, which was yummy), but went on rather long than I'd anticipated - we ended up not back at Sarah's until about 6:00pm, where there was some more stuff to be loaded into the van - her wardrobe, which she'd disassembled that morning, and a couple more boxes that she'd packed. Then we went round to the lock-up, making sure we'd taken the keys with us (!) and unloaded. On the way, there was an almighty crash - the wardrobe bits had fallen over (personally I'd've laid them flat, but Sarah had put them upright), and one of the bits of plywood backing had broken in half. However, that, Sarah reckons, should be pretty salvageable.
Although it was done in four trips (on some woefully unsteerable trolleys), unpacking the van and placing the stuff into the lock-up was fairly speedy and hassle free, certainly compared to loading the van in the first place. Afterwards, though, we decided we'd earned the right to some food, so we went back to Nando's.
Then, back to Sarah's to get back in the car (Sarah's pleased not to be having to do any more work using the van!) and she drove me back to Chelmsford, where we arrived just in time for Kingdom.
So, yeah, a good weekend. Next weekend should be a bit more relaxed (I keep promising Sarah that I'll show her Peter's Friends, and I think that might be when it happens).
Although at some point I want to get back into the habit of attending morning worship at Oasis, where I've not been in ages.
David.
