Just a quick caveat / follow-up to Tuesday’s retirement blog. I suppose you could say it’s a slightly cautionary tale in case a person became a little too smug about this taking control / making the best of a bad job, business. A little finger-wagging you might say (as above). Perhaps I made it all seem a bit simple. On Monday the reality kicked in.
You might remember that the electricians, one, two, three of them were due to return on the Monday. They duly arrived and I arranged a cunning plan to ensure we weren’t in their way. We would get out of the house for as much of the day as seemed sensible.
My plan was as follows. We would drive both vehicles into Leeds and leave one in the car park by the pub – The Adelphi. Then we would all climb into the second vehicle and drive back to Kirkstall where we would park it and then walk back along the canal into Leeds. We would then have lunch and then drive back to the second car in the first car which, you will remember, we had left in the car park by the pub. Simple, right?
No wrong, the plan started to crumble (the apple and rhubarb version of which wasn’t available in the pub, another small irritation in a day of them) when we arrived at the car park. It was closed. Not only that but everybody who normally parked there therefore needed a place to park and they had got there first. End result we couldn’t find anywhere to park.
We could have parked in the local supermarkets carpark but that only allowed three hours and my cunning plan called for longer than that. So ever-flexible we revised the plan. We would drive half way to Kirkstall and park both cars in another car park (this one only allowed two hours) and access the canal at that point. Walk a bit along the canal, go back to the cars and drive both back into Leeds and park them in the car park that allowed three hours which by the time we got there would be long enough for us to have lunch. You following this? Hope so because it gets more complicated.
What could possible go wrong? Well, the canal was not quite where it was supposed to be. We found it eventually but by the time we did there was only time to turn round and walk back. I probably should not have stopped to talk to the man about the 9 hole golf course or the lovely old Irish guy who was born in County Mayo, had lived and worked in this country for many years but thought that what had been a great country had been ruined by foreigners. No irony intended. Then there was the Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) on the lock to admire. This really is another story and one I wrote about here.
Anyway, no canal walk into town. So we drove instead and parked in the three hour car park because that would now be long enough even though we were now half an hour before the time I booked for lunch. How ridiculous having to book for lunch in the pub.
So we got there after having walked from the three hour car park which wasn’t right next door as the first one was. We had lunch and a bottle of Malbec, which was nice apart from no crumble. True Monday is supposed to be a non-drinking day but we had to be flexible to cope with the electricians.
Feeling quite pleased with ourselves we drove home. True the day hadn’t gone as planned but the main purpose of being out of the house until 4 o’clock, which was the time they said they would probably be finished. So job done, no? Well no actually because they were still there and continued to be still there until eight o’clock when we pushed the last one kicking and screaming out the door.
I believe that, had we asked him to stay, he would have. You never know when you need an electrician. Bad enough having tradesmen in your house all of two days without having to adopt them. Oh, and by the way, it’s now Tuesday and they’re still here. I dread to think what the bill will be.
And the morale of all this? Don’t be too bloody cocky about seizing back control because when you do, God, or whoever, says, don’t think so. You think you’ve got it covered then what about this lot?
PS.there was no new trap door or new carpet just a little redecorating.