ramtops

Attentive readers (if there are any) will recall that we installed a woodburning stove last year – a thing of much joy, and much smaller gas bills (even more joy). We have been acquiring cheap wood all summer, and even scavenging from the tip, in preparation for the threatened freezing winter that awaits us, to the point that our little back yard was overrun with bits of timber waiting to be chopped up – but nowhere to store it.

We were keeping our bikes in a bike tent, which was not, shall we say, the most durable of shelters, and it died completely during the gales last month. So we measured up, and got the local shed place to quote us for building a bike store plus log store, to go all along one wall of the yard. £790, they quoth. So when we’d picked ourselves up, we googled a lot, and ordered a wooden bike shed off t’internet for £159, and a log store similar for £200. They arrived this week, and Pete manfully assembled them; the bicycles are now ensconced cosily in their new abode, with the bike trailer and various other bits and bobs, and the log store is now not quite where we planned, but in a more convenient place. This entailed trimming a bit off the kitchen window sill, and taking the log shed roof off and cutting it to shape, but this didn’t seem to phase ‘im indoors, and up it went.

So yesterday and today, between us, we have split pretty much all the logs we bought cheap a couple of months ago, and stacked them in the woodshed, and have chainsawed up all the other bits and bobs of salvaged wood, and we have space for another trailer load, which I have reserved for a hundred quid from the bloke we bought the last trailer load, and that will be enough to see us right through the winter, $deity willing.

There’s also about six bags’ worth of logs in the house, in the log station and stacked round the fire, and several bags of rubbishy (but very cheap, or free) bits and bobs that came from last year’s skipful, or salvage, or whatever. So at least the living room will be warm, even if we can’t afford to heat the rest of the house ;)

And the gas direct debit is now £21 per month, which is nice (although I bet it won’t stay there).

In other news, I have new glasses – my prescription had changed a huge amount, to the point where I needed less strong lenses (!), so I now have rimless ones for the first time ever, and I’m really pleased with them. And I can see properly, which is a bonus – no longer have to take my glasses off to read my phone! Also got a pair of photochromic ones in cool Gok Wan frames, and tempted to give up contacts all together for now, as they’ve been playing me up, but then of course that might be due to the script change, I guess.

Mirrored from kestrel.org.

Attentive readers may recall that I spent a fun morning in the Eye Clinic at Hull Royal Infimary in April, getting a full inspection, including a retinopathy test.  A couple of weeks ago, a letter arrived from the Diabetic Retinopathy Screening mob at the Infirmation, inviting me for an appointment.

I phoned, explained the situation, but they still wanted me to come in. So in I went this afternoon, and they did exactly the same test they’d done two months ago, thus wasting their time and mine, and the hospital’s resources. They indicated that there was no way they could use the first test for the diabetic stuff, which is just bizarre, really.

We took a nice round trip, making a walk of just under five miles in all, in weather so hot and humid we were practically steaming! I bought a gel saddle in a bike shop on Anlaby Road, where they had an extraordinarily stylish men’s bicycle with cream tyres, a leather saddle and a wooden rear carrier – really quite splendid. If only I’d had the sense to make a note of its manufacturer, I could share it with you.

We wandered back through Western Cemetery, one of my favourite places. I hadn’t seen this one before. I really must get out there with a “proper” camera.

Mirrored from kestrel.org.