Finished

I'M STILL feeling a little numb but the sense of relief at bidding adieu to the two workmen who have finally hung the kitchen blinds is almost overwhelming.

After nearly a year of planning, of making decisions and not a few changes of mind, after talking to architects and kitchen designers, of dealing with joiners and plumbers and electricians and decorators - finally the last touches go in, and the job is complete.

A whole new kitchen - and our first celebratory meal in it? Fish and chips, from the local chippie! I'm just too exhausted to begin cooking the planned stir-fry, and My Good Lady is aching badly - a sure sign of stress.

We do pop open a bottle of celebratory bubbly later, and toast our spiffy new room and all who cook in her. But we're just so relieved that it's all done, such a weight lifted, that we're both a little subdued tonight.

Maybe we should have left the Veuve Clicquot until the weekend.

In Hamlet mood

DON'T quite know what's been wrong with me lately; I've been out of sorts with myself and the whole circumambient universe.

Not ill, you understand; it's as if I'm treading water all the time, not able to put my feet down on anything firm.

I feel a bit a like Hamlet, having lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises, and take no delight in either the goodly earth or in the works of man (aside from Shakespeare - my God, how that man could write!).

Wish I could just wake up one day and feel some enthusiasm for something, for anything.

This numbness, this apathy, seems to be sucking me dry.

Hence the lack of blog postings recently.

Hope you'll forgive.

Visiting

I’M PLEASED to see that Mike is looking so much better than when we last saw him, in hospital, and being at home again has done much to raise his spirits.

Finally, too, all the health organisations are giving him and Helen the support and assistance they both need – including all-night care and one of these fancy beds that can alter positions at the push of a button or two.

Not that all the departments are working in anything like harmony, of course – that would be too much to expect. At the moment, in fact, they seem to be falling over one another in their offers of help, while being uncooperative with each other.

Still, if their internecine squabbling produces the results that are required, who cares?

Anyhow, we pass an agreeable afternoon in our friends’ company, and we return home for our dinner – an unusual flop for My Good Lady, a vegetable curry that somehow fails to inspire either of us.

We watch a little telly this evening – I forget what – before MGL calls it an early night; the poor love is still drained from all the stresses and strains of the kitchen installation.

Who knows, I might even have an early night myself.

Unsettled

AS WEEKENDS go, this one is strictly run-of-the-mill, with us both carrying a burden of weariness after months of upheaval and decision-making concerning the kitchen.

It's odd, really, how you can keep going while the adrenalin's pumping, but once you relax the sheer weight of what you've done falls on you like a wall.

And this seems to be our problem. We're both tired but still emotionally inflated and unable to fully relax.

We're sleeping badly. We're can't focus on anything properly. We're both testy with one another for no reason.

And speaking for myself, I feel stretched thin, somehow, almost to breaking point.

I would say we maybe need a holiday, but I'm not sure I could be bothered with it all.

I'm just feeling too damned unsettled!

History lesson

DISMAL DAY, rain and more rain.

A delivery this morning brings me a package from Amazon - a book I ordered, a history book that I read when I was doing my A-levels.

The Strange Death of Liberal England was first published in 1935, not long after the events it describes transpired. I remember George Dangerfield's account of the collapse of a major British political movement as both informative and hugely entertaining - more like reading a engaging novel than a dry textbook.

I suppose I've always been aware that we are all passing through our bit of history - and all the more so when I look over some of the events I've witnessed in my own life, social and political.

And the lesson history teaches us? I suppose it teaches that change, inevitable and unstoppable, is not cyclical in shape, but more of a spiral - sometimes it appears to be going back on itself, but it never really does.

It's like the old Zen saying has it: "The water changes always, the river remains the same".

Anyhow, I look forward to reading my book.

Banking on trouble 2

NOW, would you believe, we're having to await a decision from the House of Lords!

I'm referring, of course, to the dispute we're having with out bank, about the charges they've imposed on our £18 overdraft.

We've had some success on a refund: the first £35 fee is to be returned to us, and the first, monthly £28 penalty has been cancelled. The second one, however, remains, and is a definite bone of contention between us and the bank.

The bank appears to think this charge is wholly reasonable - after all, we were overdrawn. We disagree.

A £28 penalty on an £18 overdraft is a charge of about 130% - a rather steep rate of interest, at least to us!

The bank is insisting that this money will be drawn out of our account at the end of the month, unless the House of Lords turns down their appeal against a court ruling that bank charges are too high.

(Seems we're not the only ones complaining about such extortionate rates!)

So, here we are awaiting their lordships' decision with more than just an academic interest.

Banking on trouble

FAIR DOS, I own it’s my fault that we’re overdrawn at the bank.

While the kitchen was being installed, I was writing out cheques as if they were going out of fashion – the joiner, the plumber, the electrician all demanding individual payment.

I thought I had them all covered, but no, I miscalculated; I fell short by £18.

As punishment, I’d expect a bank charge of a few pounds. Instead, I’m hit by an unauthorised overdraft fee of £35, plus two months’ fees of £28 per month, plus interest on the whole lot!

Am I being unreasonable in thinking this is disproportionate? Nearly £100 in fees for an accidental overdraft of £18?

My Good Lady certainly doesn’t think so, in fact she’s got her dander up well and truly. She’s been trawling the internet to clarify the legal situation and tomorrow we’re making an appointment at our branch and you can bank on it, there’s going to be trouble!

More to follow...