It started with three hours of teaching, followed by two hours of missed teaching (occasionally students don’t turn up – it’s quite worrying when they don’t let me know, as they may have had an accident or anything – this time I only had a work phone number for the guy, so couldn’t call him…) Filled in the time with some more web tweaking – added a load of the photos from the marvellous photo sesh with the marvellous Steve Brown, and designed a little desktop image for anyone who wants it.
Anyway, that was followed by an hour chopping wood in the back garden – oh yes, it’s like victorian england here… The wood chopping in question was actually getting a pile of stuff that was cut from the bushes and trees at the end of last year and left in a pile on the lawn, into small enough bits to fit in the green waste recycling bin (there the victorian similarities end abruptly…) That was followed by some lawn mowing – which took a long time and a lot of energy, due to the grass being very long and the mower being a bit spluttery after sitting the garage all winter (you’d be a bit spluttery if you sat in our garage all winter, surrounded by boxes for music gear, much of which I don’t even own any more…)
So grass cut, wood chopped, now to tackle a job that’s been hassling us for a few days, a broken tap in the kitchen. It’s the hot tap, and it’s been getting harder and harder to switch off. I don’t want to have to call a plumber if it’s just a matter of dismantling it and replacing a washer. So I try to take it apart. I remove the obvious screw – no joy. can’t seem to get the tap part off the top. Can see a nut or two inside it, but my pliers don’t have long enough points to reach down to the nut. Oh bollocks. So out to the shops to try and find pliers. Only shop open is Asda. I hate Asda – owned by Walmart, scumbag bottom feeders that they are, but I go anyway. No pliers, so I buy eggs instead. Feeling grim stood in the queue, but get a phone call from Orphy Robinson which cheers me up no end – Orphy’s a vibraphonist, a marvellous musician who I’ve played with a few times, and always look forward to working with. He’s got all kinds of fun plans for this and that.
Get home, still can’t fix the tap, turn it off as best I can, put the lawn mower away, and collapse. I guess today was my first day’s training for next year’s Marathon. I’m not doing too well, am I?
Soundtrack – KT Tunstall, ‘Eye To The Telescope’ (been listening to this loads in the last couple of days); Stevie Wonder, ‘Innervisions’; The Cure’, ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’.
