I'm running late on my Friday Five! (I actually am never really sure what day it is.)
1) The new aquarium is settling down. I spent some time today finagling aquarium plant fertilizer pellets under many of the plants in the Eco substrate (easier said then done - they want to float up!) as it hasn't got much in the way of nutrition. It does have some trace minerals, but it's primarily being used because it has so many little nooks and crannies that the beneficial bacteria should do well in it. Have rethought - several people have said they had no problem at all having this substrate with corys, but others say that it can be tough of them. So I've hopped out this afternoon on the bus over to Drumchapel to the pet store and bought a few bunches of a low-growing plant that I hope will colonize it and make, basically, a lawn for the corys on the part of the aquarium where it's bare Eco substrate. The Daughter has said she'd plant it for me when she gets off work tonight. Sometime late next week, or possibly early the week after, we'll be putting a few Rummies or maybe Cardinals in there to get the tank properly cycled. Once all the chemistry has settled down, Big Bertha and the Boys, and a goodly number of their offspring, will be moving over there. Some of the plants are definitely growing. (See photo - the ones behind the log.)
2) My oven is still not fixed. The tech called a couple of days ago and apologized, didn't know we'd put in two calls before Easter about it. He is ordering a part, and it'll be next Wednesday, probably. Because apparently Monday is another holiday. (There sure are a lot of holidays here!) It sometimes works fine. Sometimes won't come up to temperature. And it has incinerated one pizza while telling me it was cooking an an even 180. (The over thermometer certainly disagreed with that!)
3) I ordered a "thing" on Etsy, against my better judgement. It is a 1960s folding office kind of piece of furniture. It folds up into a big box. (See photos.) The description was that it was in good shape, some marks. The guy could arrange delivery. So, I bought it - kind of a gamble. We heard nothing for a few weeks, then Thursday evening after 6pm we got a call that the guy who was going to deliver it -- at 7:00am the next morning! He'd driven it up from England.
Wow, nice notice there! Fortunately I was going to be up and home anyway. The driver was to call before he started out from the town up here in Scotland that he was over-nighting in. I got us both up at 6:00 so we'd be functional if he showed up at 7:00. Eight o'clock came and went, and then at about 8:30 the door buzzer rang. The guy was outside. No warning phone call. And blocking the lane that several of our neighbors needed to use to get their cars out to get their kids to school. Words were exchanged between him and one of the neighbors, and apparently the English bloke threatened him, etc., etc., etc. The Daughter was out there apologizing left and right, but really couldn't do much about any of it. So anyway, the desk/office/box was brought up to our flat, with the Daughter's help because the delivery guy was older than dirt, alone, and it was heavy. He was paid his delivery fee and sent back to England. The Daughter was upset about it all day.
At first I thought I'd gotten skunked, as I'd paid the vendor in advance, but after moving it to a couple of places in the house and settling on a spot int he hallway I have decided that it's growing on me. It has little splatters of white paint on the back, and is otherwise not nearly as nice in person as it was shown to be online. (duh.) It was definitely overpriced for the condition it's in. If I later don't like it I can donate it to charity and just take it off my taxes as a lesson learned about buying things on the internet, but I'm going to try tidying it up first. It does fold down very compactly, and can be locked. So I'll be moving a lot of my computer stuff and correspondence papers (I still write letters with fountain pen and ink, and the Daughter belongs to a letter-writer's guild as well) into it. When we want to use it we can just unlock it and open it up. I need to re-wire the lamp, but that's no big deal - done that lots of times. What I do need to do, though, is wax it or oil it or something. I don't think oil, as it's teak veneer. Went to Sainsburys and there were only a few options, one of which was Pledge, which I'd been told several years ago wasn't actually good to use on wood. Can anyone recommend a good brand of furniture wax? Also, where to get wood putty to try to disguise the few little chips in the veneer on the bottom of the front doors?
4) We were out every day this week, and walked at least a couple of miles each time. Went and saw "Dippy" at the Kelvingrove before he moves on to England next week. (That's a lovely building, and a nice children's museum.) Ate out too many days, but we rarely do that so I can let it slide in my budget. We'll be eating at home next week anyway. Except for Tuesday, when we're doing a day-trip on the bus out to Argyll and Bute. But the walking - it wasn't like miles and miles, but by last evening I was exhausted. We had peanut butter sandwiches for supper because that's all I could manage. I wonder if it could be allergies? It felt like I'd run a marathon. I'm still pretty tired today, but not like yesterday.
5) The Daughter has decided to be productive, and is going to sign up for yoga classes and a "brush up" foreign language class, as she has so much spare time to fill. She can only work just a very few hours each week, so this will help the time go by until she can get back to the University. (Or until her Irish citizenship application, which is by no means a sure thing, is approved and she can work like a "normal" person - full time. Ireland's had the application for going on 8 months now, and we really don't expect to hear anything for probably at least another six. If we get lucky. Some people's applications have been sitting over there for years.) Anyway, if she gets it and can, thus, work full time, I wonder how long it will be before she is looking back at her time of only working a few hours a week wistfully?
The weather has been nice here this week. A little chilly one or two days, but today the sun's been out and my radiometer is spinning like a top.
