A week of cold and flu

It’s been a hard week. 

I went down with flu on Sunday and couldn’t move for two days. I managed to struggle into work for the rest of the week but my heart wasn’t in it and I was just trying to survive till the weekend. 

The main symptoms (aches, pains and fever) have now receded and I’m left with a painful barking cough, no lungs and no optimism. 

Letad has a filthy cold and between sneezing and coughing has been struggling to soldier on. Neither of us have felt this ill in a long time. 

Needless to say we’ve both been extremely miserable and the prospect of moving in a month is less than exciting at the moment…

Back to London

And so back to London where it’s a balmy 7 degrees Celsius and work has continued on the Money Pit.

All will be revealed tomorrow when I go to inspect the progress…

Delayed

Perhaps I spoke too soon. After a stop-and-go trip to JFK with an annoyingly chatty driver who decided to give me business advice, I went through the usual pre-flight checks.

I ate a horrible salad and meandered to the gate in good time. Just as boarding was about to start, an announcement was made. There was a fault with the plane and maintenance were looking at it. 

In a horribly vague way, they announced they would make another announcement and a decision in another 45 minutes. Whatever that means.

They handed out meal vouchers (that doesn’t bode well) and so now I wait…

As luck would have it, the flight wasn’t cancelled and we left New York an hour and a half late. But who cared because I scored a row of empty seats, something I’ve noticed on American Airlines, and so spent five blissful hours stretched out in comfort.

Almost home.

Brrr, chilly in New York

Temperatures are low, even worse in Celsius and it’s cold in New York. 

According to New Yorkers it’s not even really cold. I don’t need to find out. It’s below freezing either way!

Progress from the Pit: The Countdown is On

With six weeks to go until we reluctantly vacate the warmth and comfort of lovely, cosy Chalk Farm, time and money are of the essence. The budget is very tight and we’ve come to the realization that realistically the kitchen will have to wait until Stage Two when we’ve saved some more money. 

Things have progressed though and despite recent photos where the floor has apparently shrunk, we now have wiring for our future and currently imaginary kitchen. 

This week should be a pivotal week as we need the plumbing, gas and floor joists to be done and then hopefully we can actually start putting things back.

It’s excellent timing then that I have to go to New York for work this week so leave things in the capable hands of Letad and his brother. 

Hopefully there’s a good surprise when I come home on Friday. Everything finished? Maybe not but water and gas would be amazing. 

Fingers crossed!

Boarding

Off to New York. Back on Friday!

London Spa Day

Sunday and the last day of the Christmas break. Letad and I decided we needed to get warm and clean after two weeks in the pit and so set off to the day spa at the Ironmonger Row Baths in Islington for a treat. 

Recently refurbished from an old Victorian bath house, the day spa consisted of two saunas, two steam rooms, a warm room, plunge pool, monsoon shower (whatever, cold shower) and ice fountain (not so much a fountain as ice cubes).

I have to say though, it wasn’t bad. Swimwear was required and it was mixed sexes so a little inhibited but overall a positive experience. 

We alternated between sauna and steam with cool showers in between and had a nice relax in the tranquility room before heading into the warm showers for the last time. It was a few hours of peace away from the world. 

It’s been cold in London since New Year and it was lovely to feel properly warm, bone warming in fact! As I write this I’m sitting at the new flat waiting for the gas man and my feet are numb with cold. The thought of a sauna is very appealing right now!

We left the spa reluctantly feeling shiny clean and headed off for a little lunch of Lebanese food before setting off back to the Farm for the last day of the hols. 

Back to reality. 

The Weigh-In of Shame

Happy New Year! Unfortunately it was time to get on the scales and face reality.

I will confess, we indulged over Christmas. We were working hard and eating more than we should. Coupled with champagne, wine and gin, it’s fair to say we were feeling rather toxic. The only thing to do was face up to it. We did the weigh-in of shame and reluctantly wrote down the results.

Despite my conviction that the scales were broken, I was horrified to see numbers I hadn’t seen for a very long time all stacked up next to each other. Surely a lie and perhaps I should buy new batteries?

The first step is admitting there’s a problem so I’m not very happy to admit that I’m the fattest I’ve been in a decade. Ouch, that hurt. I do have a tendency to exaggerate sometimes but sadly this isn’t one of those times.

We have decided to jump on the bandwagon and do Dry January. Also known as a Dryathalon, it involves no booze for January. One saves hundreds of pounds and thousands of calories and so we’re on Day Two and a nice glass of wine would be lovely now…

We’re drinking green juice, eating kale and we’re back on our bikes. The result? I was down 0.2 of a pound this morning so it looks like a long, slow road back to normality.

Happy New Year?