Karen had a REALLY bad night last night – she didn’t get to sleep until 6 am The reason was pain. She overdid it yesterday. Standing for a while is bad enough, but standing and creosoting was too much !

She was in pain before she went to sleep and wanted her 100mg Fentanyl Patch on early. It was due tomorrow anyway. kp stayed in bed until 12pm.

Another good day today. The weather doesn’t half help – I sound like a broken record I know. I think we’ll have to move to sunnier climes !

Leisurely morning for me while kp slept, but Marie busied herself ironing anything and everything. We took her back to the bus station and went to Hydrotherapy.

kp was a bit concerned that hydro would be too much today after yesterday, but thankfully they let her go easy and have a long weightless soak at the end.

We then went to the garden centre AGAIN ! kp wants the raised area in the back yard done out (see picture of kp creosoting yesterday for the bit I mean). She wants it laying with slate chips and big planters so she can weed them herself without having to ask me. Well, I calculated we needed 24 bags of slate chips, 6 new big pots, 5 bags of compost and 5 bags of top soil. PLUS 5 billion plants to put in them.

Well, we loaded up the car with the 24 bags of slate chippings that weight a TONNE each. I say we, Karen obviously couldn’t have lifted one of these pre-accident without a lot of huffing and puffing, so it was down to me. No problem. I could load 3 bags on a trolley, 8 trips. Pile of piss. Well, it was such a hot day, and I was breaking into a sweat just breathing, I asked one of the garden centre chaps to do it. To my surprise, he said “Yes”

I opened the boot and left him to it. At nay on £100 of slate, I didn’t feel too guilty. The downside was when I came back, he had loaded the boot with £100 of slate. Great, you may think. Not when the car boot’s underside is scraping along the road.

I tried to drive carefully out of the garden centre, but it was a non-starter. I was nearly doing wheelies. I moved 6 bags to the front and although it was better, I was still scraping the floor from time to time. I can hear my dad saying “DO TWO TRIPS YOU PILLOCK”. Of course, he’s right. I left Karen at the garden centre while I took this load home.
Anyway, I got them home safely and took a picture of the boot nearly touching the floor for posterity.

It took me ages unloading and moving them to the back, and was worried as hell about kp in the heat and not taking a break from standing for so long.

I think she was about to collapse by the time I got back. Certainly, she had had enough of garden centres and that told me something was definately wrong. She was aching all over and keen to get home.

I loaded the car with another load of goods and we went home. kp tried to sunbathe for a bit, but had to hit the sack. The discomfort was too much.

Here is the fruit of our work.

There is more than this – all the plants and extra compost and top soil is off camera !

Marie is coming back over the weekend to help kp do some potting. I might also ask her to move these 1 tonne sacks of slate and retarmac our drive before she goes.