Instructions Not Included

Wow, I went quiet there for a while. Sorry about that. I would say that I've had no excuse, but that wouldn't be the entire truth. I've had a fair bit to deal with over this last week. 

So last Sunday, I was all set to write about all the fun I'd been having riding around on the back of Andrew's motorbike. I've no licence of my own to speak of, but have been enjoying riding pillion as of late. 

We rode out to Rievaux Abbey, which is absolutely gorgeous, and a really lovely ride.

I was borrowing Andrew's trousers. These are made for a slim man with no hips. I am not a slim man with no hips. Rather I am a woman with a fair amount of curves. However, I do not normally look as big as I do in this picture. Unless you are naturally extremely slim, biking gear has the tendency to make you look like the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. So wearing trousers that were a real struggle to get in did not make for the most comfortable of rides. I got fairly horrendous cramp down my legs about forty minutes in. I was also finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. 

Now, the observant amongst you might have noticed several items that feature in the above photograph. Points if you noticed what I'm holding in my right hand. More points, however, if you noticed the slightly harder to spot open meter case on the tank. Yes, it would appear that riding pillion burns a lot of carbs, as what I am holding in my hand (and was halfway through consuming by that point) is a fun-size Mars Bar. So I spent some of Sunday afternoon going hypo in a field!

After we got home, we set to work on a joint of beef that we'd been planning to roast. A few things ended up happening (which it turns out weren't entirely user error), and later that evening, we ended up with a kitchen fire. Complete with two fire engines. Thankfully, Andrew had managed to put the fire out before I'd even got off the phone with 999, but there was a LOT of smoke damage to the kitchen. Which meant we were up till gone 3am cleaning, and spent the next two nights doing much of the same.

You can't see quite how soot-covered the walls were in this picture of Andrew cleaning the ceiling, because my camera wouldn't pick it up. But have a look at that bowl of water. That was barely a couple of minutes out of the tap. That might give you a bit more of an idea of how much damage we were dealing with.  And by the way, the motorbike helmet is to stop whatever cleaning product was dripping down as we were trying to clean the ceiling.

Having no oven, and for several days, nothing other than the microwave and the kettle to cook with meant getting slightly inventive with food. Oven was out of action for quite a few days, and though it was fixed, it's now out of action again because the rubber seal has now come apart. It's getting rather annoying.

But the seemingly endless cycle of work, home, food, cleaning, bed (and repeat!) was starting to get to me. So I'm glad the cleaning has more or less finished.

In numbers news, I seem to have temporarily banished the highs, so I'm back to handling the lows again. Most of them are explainable - my mental clock seems to be out by about an hour, so I keep losing track of time. But there are some that seem to be coming out of no-where. It's the stealth-hypo effect. I know I'm not the only one dealing with these ninja episodes as well. Maybe there's something in the water?

Or perhaps it's not the water, but rather the air? I know all this volcanic ash is causing a huge variety of types of mayhem. I hope no-one out there has been too badly affected by the chaos.

All I know is that it gives you one beautiful sunset.