Lockdownish week 16 - Tuesday - plumbing, brains and pots

When we arrived at Daughter 2's flat this morning, the plumber had indeed ripped out the bathroom - thus making it look so much worse than it did before, but I realise that this had to happen before it gets better.

And then the new suite arrived. The delivery chap duly rang the bell from outside the block of flats and when I appeared in answer to it, he looked dubiously at me and said that they weren't - in these Covid times - supposed to carry the stuff in. Did I have anyone to help me? So I said, well, my husband was there, and husband duly appeared with his white hair and new Santa beard, and the chap said, oh never mind, they'd bring it all in. And they very kindly did.

At last! An advantage of being elderly!

And then the plumber arrived and we left. According to him a little while ago, the bath is now fitted, the old tiles are off the wall, the walls have been replasterboarded and all is going well. So that's all good. I hope.

One of the houses in our street - one of the five houses - has been more or less unoccupied for the best part of twenty years. The old lady who owned it died  and after that her unmarried son, who lived in Glasgow, used to visit - but only for the odd weekend. But for the past five years or so, by this time in his eighties, he did so very seldom, and now he himself has died. And now the house is up for sale. It doesn't look too bad from the outside but needs serious renovation inside. Today, just while we were cutting the grass (and looking across the road with interest), four couples came and looked at it. So hopefully it'll soon be sold. It'll be lovely to have someone living there (at least let's hope it will) but there are going to be a lot of workmen's vans in our tiny little street before that happens.

Goodness - I knew the recently-deceased son was a member of staff at Glasgow University and I've just this moment looked him up. In 2011 he gave a lecture entitled "Primitivity of Algebras Related to Certain Semigroup". Well, I had no idea that algebras could be primitive. He was clearly much cleverer than I am but he wasn't much of a gardener. And there's a great difference between intelligence and common sense. He let that house go to - not exactly wrack and ruin, but fairly serious damp - and then died intestate, so that much legal sorting out had to take place.

So, being more of a practical sort, this afternoon I planned my quilt and did some arithmetic - no algebra of any degree of sophistication - and then this evening I did some cutting out. I still don't like orange but I do like these pots.