Happy Birthday to me.

Two beautiful birthday bouquets from the boys were delivered today. Peter presented me with a bag of goodies, lots of yummy calories, as well as a card. We both need more than a few days recovery time so we didn't plan anything for today but I had to walk into town to collect our prescriptions.

We've changed pharmacy but when I eventually got to the counter in Boots it was to be told that some paperwork hadn't gone through in time and although they would be doing the prescriptions from next month I needed to go to Lloyds to collect this month's. Luckily there was no queue at Lloyds so after checking the contents of the bags I filled in the repeat forms and handed them in at Boots after yet another queue. I checked out the charity shops and found two plain glass vases, one a large cylinder and the other more of an hourglass shape. I've now got enough vases for any number of bouquets.

Red Roof's terrace is ideal for watching the world from kite surfers to the local coastguard. The helicopter flew in close then turned and followed the shore line before hovering at the far end of the beach. I watched for quite a while before loosing sight but didn't see any signs of a rescue. I found out from the neighbours that this hadn't been an active rescue, just a training flight.

My main job this time, gardening was for relaxation, was to remove wallpaper from the walls. The new removing tool with a sharp blade was useless so I worked with a flexible palette knife. I began with the hall which took me a day and a half to remove three layers of textured wallpaper most of which had been painted with impermeable shiny paint and in one place there was a thin layer of plaster on top of one layer.

There is a well built cupboard with solid sliding doors on the right which we will keep and we plan to have bookshelves covering the wall on the left, almost like a library. It would be nice to have a small upholstered chair to sit on when putting on outdoor shoes. Behind me is the doorway to the kitchen which may be closed up as the living room doorway is on the right. 

Tackling the wall paper in our bedroom was so much easier. There was only one layer of textured wallpaper though under it there was a layer of lining paper laid horizontally. The top of the textured paper peeled off quite easily and  the backing and then lining paper came off in large strips once I'd sprayed them with warm water. From the marks on the floor it can be seen where this was once two rooms making it a very generously sized room. The plaster on the window wall is in a poor state but at least there isn't any of that fake wood panelling. We're going to keep the built in wardrobes but remove the wonderful shower and make more cupboard space.

This afternoon I rang John Lewis about the terrible mattresses and all the girl kept saying was that as we had slept on them the mattresses couldn't be returned. She ignored my mention of the consumer rights act which state that good must be of a reasonable quality and fit for purpose. So far she'll pass the details on to the company who do the product inspections so they can come and check the mattresses but I'm not leaving it there. I think an email to the company chairman is in order to move things along.