Kates Journal

I’ve just freecycled a moderately vast quantity of stuff (can something be moderately vast?). Shockingly it’s nearly all gone too; only the dead CD-Player, tents some PII Processors and the dead mobile phone languishing unloved.

Even the 21″ TV set of crapitude has (or at least should) head off on Monday. It’s not helped with working though. And getting rid of stuff is shockingly addictive. I started to think ‘what else can I freecycle’?! There is, I suspect, plenty more to go. I was debating losing the Biochemsitry books, really, since I’ve no interest in the subject anymore and I’ve not looked at them forever. I’d keep Recombinant DNA and ‘The World of the Cell’, but the slightly out of date Molecular Cell Biology and Biochemistry (Stryer) and Review of Medical Physiology could probably all go. Really. Meh. I should work now.

I’m knackered. See. Didja guess.

On Tuesday, despite being still fairly ill I headed to Tesco and bought my mum a new TV. The 21″ Philips from the mid 80s having got ‘a bit tired’. It weighed 44.1 kg. It went on the roofrack with some help from Tesco.

I got home, I unloaded it (with some difficulty) and put it in the house. The next morning, I prepared to go to the lakedistrict, househunting, with my mum. In the end I managed to coax it onto the roofrack, realised I didn’t have anything sensible to waterproof it with, glanced at the clearish blue sky and headed out. Torrential rain. 2 hours of it as I crept up the motorway at 50mph.

Having got there, I unloaded the now sodden box and wheeled it into my mum’s house. The TV, incidentally, was dry :-)

I discovered it was an inch deeper than my mum’s old set, and wouldn’t fit on the shelf. The shelf was held on by 2 screws, so I decided I’d sort it when I got back (with my mum) from the Lake District. We piled into my mum’s Skoda (not a light traveller she); and I then drove 6 hours to Kendal. Having found the hostel we unloaded, munched on sarnies and wandered round Kendal looking at estate agent windows.

We headed into town the next morning and bought a Cumbria Street Atlas (very helpful) and arranged two more viewings (on top of the two that she’d already organised). From 9:45 to 12:30 I drove around and we looked at 3 houses… and she fell in love with a gorgeous 1740’s house with a chunk of an orchard and no hope whatsoever of her offer being accepted, because she’s not sold her own house yet.

*sigh*

She did look so happy though; I could see her mind doing the ‘I could do X and Y’ thing. Gah.

Anyway, so, we then drove home. 7 hours… and I set to on the shelf. Two screws held it in. 2 screws which whatever I did would not come undone. Eventually I beat them to death and wiggled and managed to get them out. Then strengthened the shelf, then put in 4 screws to hold it to the supports on the wall. It’s still only *exactly* the minimum depth it could be… I think it took 2 hours. Ate dinner. Loaded up car with 2 PCs, Printer, old tv set, binder, books. Drove home (hour). Unloaded car. Freecycled most of it.

Went to bed. Woke up. Freecycled last few bits.

Am now exhausted. 19 hours driving I’ve done in the past 3 days. I’ve lifted 44.1kg repeatedly (that’s heavy, incidentally). I’ve moved a 21″ TV and a 17″ CRT monitor in and out of the back seat of a minor. I really *am* entitled to be tired.

Oh, and I’ve still got a cold. :-P

… number 20 in a series of ∞

“Yes mum, I’ll sort you out with a widescreen telly; I’ll bring it down next time I’m down”

I’ve managed to get the 28″ behemoth into the house, but I can just and barely lift it and am really unsure as to how to go about getting it into / onto the mog tomorrow to take it down there. Flibble.

So, I know when I’m still ill; despite feeling better (not well still, but better) I have the concentration span of a flea (or a fela, if I’m following my typos and vaguely insulting a 50% of the population). This is not abnormal for me; in general I have a very limited concentration span these days, and flit like some moth between shiny things that entertain me.

However, when it comes to the crunch I can put my mind to it and work. Unless I’m remotely unwell, in which case I can’t. I find myself struggling to retain even a vague semblance of organised thought; each sentance ending halfway through; each thought interupted by another. It’s really quite frustrating. It’s probably why I’ve got on well with Azumanga Daioh and The Fast Show. None of them require great concentration, and both of them leap about like frogs on ecstasy.

Aye, so despite prodding at my Dissertation for the last few hours, I’ve done it with the enthusiasm with which one might go about unblocking a drain; and with a complete inability to formulate decent meaningful sentances, or hold in my head for more than a few seconds at a time which papers have what features.

So.

I have however, wrapped my little Nephew’s birthday present, which I shall send tomorrow (having double checked, due to my paranoia, that he is 3 and that his name is spelt with a k); I’ve also found out where the houses my mum wants to look at are. I’ve also made vague and hopeful plans to go to Tesco in a bit and see if they’ve got a TV for my mum. I’ve e-mailed uni to say “I was off sick, sorry”. And spent an inordinate amount of time waiting for people to update LJ or the MMOC website. Um. So. Yes. Oh, I’ve failed to go to B&Q and get new blades for the mower, which is bad, because our back garden now looks like a field (if Trey had her horse, it’d be happy there, I promise). Um, I think that’s it. Oh, and I applied for two jobs in Manchester. So go me? Yes, go me.

1968 I tell you. 1968.

Look, look, it’s calling to me from Germany…