Sacrificial goats, knots and willies…

Dearest Readers,

Now, I don’t want to come across as paranoid, but something is out to get me. Let me take you through the evidence:

• Exhibit A: Last month in the early hours I woke to find my bathroom ceiling dripping with water where upstairs had sprung a leak. The water was coming down in a sort of power shower fashion.  Two terrified upstairs neighbours (I had underestimated how scary I must look without makeup) and £££’s later the issue is fixed.

• Exhibit B: Two weeks ago, a rogue candle which I swear I blew out, was still alight, set fire to the surround of the candle which FOR PITY’S SAKE WAS MADE OF CARDBOARD and set fire to the wooden floor in my living room. All the fire alarms were going at 5am, smoke was billowing out of the living room and dining room and there were quite high flames coming from the TV area.  Put it out with a wet towel. A full pot of varnish to strengthen a very charcoaled wooden floor, and a moved TV stand later, the issue was “fixed”/seamlessly hidden :-s

• Exhibit C: One week ago, a plastic light shade that I’d washed to get rid of some dust in honour of the new tenant, melted, leaving a smouldering lightshade on his floor and a lightbulb covered in burnt plastic bubbling away MINUTES before the new prospective tenants were coming to sign the contract for the flat. And I wasn’t even able to blame him for it <sigh>.

• Exhibit D: Today, I get a call from the building managers to say that the flat beneath mine was positively awash with water following what must be a catastrophic flood in my flat (I’ve exaggerated marginally here for effect but it sounded serious). Rushing home, the flat was fine. Downstairs has some staining on the walls of their toilet. My toilet however, looked ok, UNTIL I lifted up the lino and yes, yes there was certainly a leak. Thankfully not from the waste water pipe but from the one from the cistern to the toilet. When you flush it, it looks like a waterfall but alas, outside of the toilet bowl entirely. My plumber, well, he doesn’t like emergencies or anything that would be considered a nasty or awkward job. Or one that involves water. He basically likes gas safety checks. He should call himself a Gas Safety Check Man rather than “plumber”.  So his advice was “hmm, yeah, you should work out where that water’s coming from”. Another plumber is coming tomorrow morning. I’ll have to redecorate the toilet – you have to sort of wreck the room in order to get to the cistern.

See?! Irrefutable evidence that I’m being thwarted by bad luck. It’s exactly EXACTLY like that film, Final Destination where a bunch of kids narrowly avoid Death only to have Death getting them by other means. Admittedly, apart from the fire, I’m only being slowly annoyed / stressed to death but still. It’s the same thing. What have I done wrong?! I’m going to find a goat to sacrifice (only that’s somewhat against my vegetarian principles. Perhaps the plumber would be a better option. I’ll make a judgement call based on how he gets on tomorrow and how many kidneys I’ll need to sell).

What else? The contract is signed, packing is ongoing, the DIY was done (up until this afternoon at least), stuff is being cleared, work is being handed over. Generally it’s going to plan. You know the thing I’m looking forward to most when I quit work? I’m going to have a ceremonial burning of my tights <considers recent escapes> or perhaps I’ll just throw them out. Evil, restrictive, ghastly contraptions.

A slight change of plans from last post is that mum and dad are now coming up the Sunday before (24^th) to take stuff back home. It means I need to do everything that bit sooner/quicker but there’s less impact of a hangover from my leaving do the day before. Why did I organise it then?! Last day in the flat Thursday 28^th!

It’s fair to say that my Day Skipper course is going reasonably badly 🙂 It’s all written in pretentious jargon. Who says “blow” instead of “wind”?! I’m going to attempt to go to a face to face lesson next Tuesday but I must know about tidal somethings beforehand. I shall learn about that this weekend. And I’ve been working on my knots and quite frankly, I’m fully intending to dazzle teachers and students alike. Knotting is something I can do. Sometimes.  As long as I’m in exactly the right position in relation to the rope which is also in exactly the right position in relation to the other rope and myself. Yesiree. I’ve nailed the knots.

I have two quite strong reservations about my upcoming sailing though… Firstly: I must buy deckshoes. Have you seen them?! They’re AWFUL. What on earth is wrong with trainers?! My visions of relaxing on a boat haven’t included repulsive footwear to date. Secondly: Well, to be fair, my sailing teacher did give me an alternative to deckshoes. She said I would need to buy deckshoes or willies. Spelling mistake? Who knows! Having seen these deckshoes, I might be tempted to investigate further.

Tune in soon for more disasters.

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