rawwood2
- By Chrissie
- •
- 23 Oct, 2018
- •
PART 2
Some years are better than others. This one didn’t start out all that well. In December (which, I’ll grant you, was actually the previous year. Detail) I contracted some form of ear infection that took a while to sort out. The upshot of which was that I had very dodgy hearing for most of the start of the year. This is why, in the previous post, I had no idea where the whooshing noise was coming from. When one ear hears better than the other your stereo image detection is pretty useless. Fun, if you’re a musician, especially one who does her own production.
Not.
If you listen to some of my music and it’s all OVER THERE, then it was probably made around this time.
The other ‘fun’ thing that happened in December but was mostly annoying me in January and February was that I dropped my best video camera on the platform at York railway station. I can confirm, for the curious, the video cameras bounce. Quite well as it happens, more so than you might think. However, they rarely survive the experience intact. It’s probably something to do with them not being footballs. It didn’t look broken, but it didn’t work either. When I switched it on the display came up, it made grinding noises around the lens and promptly switched itself off again in disgust. So that had to go in for repair, leaving me without a good camera and with the promise of a(nother) large bill.
So I was not in the best of moods as I left the house on the morning of ‘the flood’ as you might imagine. In a vain attempt to lift the mood I got a text from the repair people that my camera was repaired and ready to collect. I thought I might as well have one good thing happen today so, before I went to see my friend, I called in at the shop to collect it.
We have to have some small triumphs in our disasters.
While I was collecting the camera the repair man regaled me with hilarious stories of other people’s video camera-related disasters. I do love a little schadenfreude now and then.
And, of course, realising that I’m not the only clumsy idiot on the planet. Or even in this city.
I called in at home to collect the essentials for staying away for a few days. Principally makeup and tea bags. I’m not a huge user of either but living without them would make life even more miserable than it was already intending to become and I refuse to give it any more rope.
My friend said to meet her at work rather than at her house, for reasons I now have forgotten. You only remember the traumatic or funny bit of stories like this, not the admin. Sorry. I have no idea where her “work place” actually is so I set the sat-nav to somewhere that seemed close and succumbed to it’s gentle, soothing, and sometimes surprisingly sexy voice. And today I wasn’t even using the Alan Rickman one.
I’m not a great driver, I’m one of the 10% of people who think their driving is below average. I don’t lack the skills or co-ordination, but driving is … boring? And my brain just seems to need more to keep it occupied, so it wanders. In this traumatised state, driving to a place I’d never been to before I concentrated on the road LIKE A MADWOMAN.
When we eventually got to my friend’s house, exhausted with concentrating on strips of grey tarmac for half an hour, and I had dumped my stuff in a corner of the room she made tea. That’s what friends do - they make you tea without even asking.
For the next few days I felt like my own cat-sitter. I drove in from Huddersfield, fed them and went back ‘home’ again. It’s a strange feeling visiting your own home when it’s cold and deserted and silent. Well silent that is apart from a large Siamese cat yelling ‘WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN AND WHERE IS MY FOOD?’ every couple of seconds. I don’t actually speak Siamese but Google Translate seems overkill for that.
Three days later the electrician came round and declared it safe to switch the power back on again, a week after that they came to do the ‘strip out’.
… which is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds. It was less ‘The Full Monty’ and more destruction derby with plasterboard. OK, I’ve never actually been to a destruction derby, but there was destruction and one of them was wearing a hat. Though it was a baseball cap. OK, this metaphor is rubbish. Sorry. I’ll try harder in future.
For the next 2 months I was living in what looked like a hipster restaurant. All bare ceiling boards, exposed pipework and dangling electrical cables. If I had been a better cook I could have charged the bearded ones of Leeds a small fortune to eat chips out of a bucket. I’m not sure whether the noise of the industrial dehumidifier would have added or detracted from the ‘authentic’ experience. But I should at least have given it a try.
Ahh the wasted opportunities.
Some years are better than others. This one didn’t start out all that well. In December (which, I’ll grant you, was actually the previous year. Detail) I contracted some form of ear infection that took a while to sort out. The upshot of which was that I had very dodgy hearing for most of the start of the year. This is why, in the previous post, I had no idea where the whooshing noise was coming from. When one ear hears better than the other your stereo image detection is pretty useless. Fun, if you’re a musician, especially one who does her own production.
Not.
If you listen to some of my music and it’s all OVER THERE, then it was probably made around this time.
The other ‘fun’ thing that happened in December but was mostly annoying me in January and February was that I dropped my best video camera on the platform at York railway station. I can confirm, for the curious, the video cameras bounce. Quite well as it happens, more so than you might think. However, they rarely survive the experience intact. It’s probably something to do with them not being footballs. It didn’t look broken, but it didn’t work either. When I switched it on the display came up, it made grinding noises around the lens and promptly switched itself off again in disgust. So that had to go in for repair, leaving me without a good camera and with the promise of a(nother) large bill.
So I was not in the best of moods as I left the house on the morning of ‘the flood’ as you might imagine. In a vain attempt to lift the mood I got a text from the repair people that my camera was repaired and ready to collect. I thought I might as well have one good thing happen today so, before I went to see my friend, I called in at the shop to collect it.
We have to have some small triumphs in our disasters.
While I was collecting the camera the repair man regaled me with hilarious stories of other people’s video camera-related disasters. I do love a little schadenfreude now and then.
And, of course, realising that I’m not the only clumsy idiot on the planet. Or even in this city.
I called in at home to collect the essentials for staying away for a few days. Principally makeup and tea bags. I’m not a huge user of either but living without them would make life even more miserable than it was already intending to become and I refuse to give it any more rope.
My friend said to meet her at work rather than at her house, for reasons I now have forgotten. You only remember the traumatic or funny bit of stories like this, not the admin. Sorry. I have no idea where her “work place” actually is so I set the sat-nav to somewhere that seemed close and succumbed to it’s gentle, soothing, and sometimes surprisingly sexy voice. And today I wasn’t even using the Alan Rickman one.
I’m not a great driver, I’m one of the 10% of people who think their driving is below average. I don’t lack the skills or co-ordination, but driving is … boring? And my brain just seems to need more to keep it occupied, so it wanders. In this traumatised state, driving to a place I’d never been to before I concentrated on the road LIKE A MADWOMAN.
When we eventually got to my friend’s house, exhausted with concentrating on strips of grey tarmac for half an hour, and I had dumped my stuff in a corner of the room she made tea. That’s what friends do - they make you tea without even asking.
For the next few days I felt like my own cat-sitter. I drove in from Huddersfield, fed them and went back ‘home’ again. It’s a strange feeling visiting your own home when it’s cold and deserted and silent. Well silent that is apart from a large Siamese cat yelling ‘WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN AND WHERE IS MY FOOD?’ every couple of seconds. I don’t actually speak Siamese but Google Translate seems overkill for that.
Three days later the electrician came round and declared it safe to switch the power back on again, a week after that they came to do the ‘strip out’.
… which is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds. It was less ‘The Full Monty’ and more destruction derby with plasterboard. OK, I’ve never actually been to a destruction derby, but there was destruction and one of them was wearing a hat. Though it was a baseball cap. OK, this metaphor is rubbish. Sorry. I’ll try harder in future.
For the next 2 months I was living in what looked like a hipster restaurant. All bare ceiling boards, exposed pipework and dangling electrical cables. If I had been a better cook I could have charged the bearded ones of Leeds a small fortune to eat chips out of a bucket. I’m not sure whether the noise of the industrial dehumidifier would have added or detracted from the ‘authentic’ experience. But I should at least have given it a try.
Ahh the wasted opportunities.
