Sorting The Garage.

Another grey day here in Wales. 

First thing this morning we went down to the the Hall to get our 'flu and covid vaccinations. Or at least Pete got both jabs but I only had the 'flu jab. The eligibility criteria have changed, no doubt to save money. Those of us who aren't in the high risk category have to put up with the possibility of falling ill with covid or paying out for a private jab. Only £98! at Boots though looking on-line some pharmacies are cheaper. I would pay if I was still working and in contact with a lot of people.

I put off going to the zoo as the forecast for tomorrow is looking much better.

Instead, while Pete went off with a full car down to the dump I made a start on reorganising the garage.

For the last few years Pete has been turning one end of the garage into a workshop but as he doesn't mind being surrounded by mess this has been a long and painful process and is nowhere near done. I find doing any diy in there a real pain. First I have to clear a bit of space to work in and then it takes forever to find anything.

The other end of the garage is filled with random boxes of stuff from the last two moves, left over materials from building works here, beach stuff, a bit of furniture and yes all the mess left by me after my various 'projects.' And two bikes.

When it's all a chaos there's no incentive to tidy up after yourself. I feel that if I get the far end properly sorted it will make for a much better workspace and I won't be tempted to simply pile things on top of each other.

I'm actually very good at organising stuff and have been thinking about the garage for a while. Today's main goal was to create a way to store mid-height items such as step-ladders. We've too many to have each item leaning against a wall without stacking them in front of each other. Instead I've use some large bins filled with poles and pipes etc to create bays along the walls in which items can be put at right angles to the wall. That way I can slide out the thing I need without having to move everything else. 

That has been done and once I've gone through the rest of the stuff and utilised my collection of plastic storage tubs and boxes the place should be tidier and hopefully I will be able to find things easily.

My last job was to make some supports for the fronts of the shelves Pete made for the paint tins. He maintains that the fact the the shelves flexed up and down was fine but to me it was a disaster in the making. Now with 'legs' supporting the two large lower shelves they are rock solid and I'm happy.

It's Pilates tonight and oh joy, it's kettlebells. I'd love not to go but I know that my bones and muscles need the work and I'll enjoy it once I'm there. I can always take things easy if I feel that my body isn't ready for certain stretches. Any kind of bending sideways is difficult for me but that just means it's even more important to do as much as I can.

PS The holiday again, (but no photo. ) or at least going in the water. I'm not a confident swimmer or even an able swimmer. I can do a good starfish or a splashy crawl but not much else. In Crete the water felt cool to start with after being in 30+C but I soon warmed up. I began by managing 5 crawl strokes before running out of puff but gradually increased until on the last day I swam 100 strokes. I really took to snorkelling though it wasn't right until the end of the holiday that I went out of my depth and then not very far. There were plenty of fish to be seen at 3-5ft depth. Although I get absolutely nowhere when I try breast stroke on the surface (and it's not supposed to be good for your back) I found it easy to do underwater. I would slowly make my way to one end of the beach or the other sometimes simply floating in the very buoyant water watching the fish below me. It's my new holiday activity.