BATH TIME AND BEYOND

I was lazing on the sofa last night with Cat snoozing on my chest when she suddenly did a humungous sneeze and showered me in cat-snot! It went in my eyes, up my nose - everywhere. I moved her off in some disgust - although to be fair to her, she couldn't help it - and immediately felt my eyes puffing up and nose clogging. I head straight for the anti-histimines (being the sensitive soul I am I take one of these a day and keep boxfuls in the first aid cupboard for most of the year) and took one, but by then the damage was done and I suffered for the rest of the evening. My right eye is still a bit puffy today but I haven't broken out in hives or anything so the antihistimine must have done some good, after all.

I realise today that I have not been back and written since I mentioned finding myself in a dense black wood all on my own in the middle of the night in Batheaston last Friday. Obviously when I called for Hubby, his voice floated back from a few feet down the tiny path. "You might have waited for me!" I grouched as I fought my way through to join him. "I thought you were right behind me," he grouched back. We stood amongst the trees, moonlight totally obscured. "Well there's nothing here," Hubby muttered. "Let's go back to the hotel."

Over the rest of the weekend, we saw as much of Bath as we could and it really is a beautiful place. The Roman Baths, Abbey and historic town itself is well worth the visit and we managed to fit in two city bus tours in open-top buses and two trips down the river, as well as the Jane Austin Centre and the Museum of Bath Work. In fact we did so much that by the time we limped home on Monday evening, we felt as if we'd been away for a week at least and sat down to a take-away Chinese for dinner.

Tuesday dawned and it was back to earth with a bit of a bang. Sarah the Publisher had asked me to take another look at the second story book; it wasn't quite what she had expected and she felt it needed more. It is Friday now and it has taken me all week to re-draft it and get it back to her. The third one is due by the end of September and I haven't even started on it yet. The situation is not helped by the fact that I simply cannot get my new Sky broadband box up and running. The first one arrived six weeks ago and I noticed I was having problems with it right from the beginning. At first I couldn't get the new email addresses set up, and then, when I did manage it, we found we could send emails but not receive them. We eventually (with the help of Clever Son-In-Law) got onto the internet but then I noticed that had gone as well. Dozens of phonecalls later, Sky decided I had a faulty Broadband box and sent me a new one but when I tried connecting that up on Tuesday just gone - what a surprise - no email, no internet. Not only is this frustrating and infuriating, it means that I can only email from the office during my lunch-breaks and if I get into the office early (even this blog is being written during my lunch-break!) - which is not good when you are a writer! So I have written one of my Very Angry Letters and told Sky to either refund my £40.00 connection fee immediately so that I can go elsewhere, or fix the problem for once and for all. It isn't the computer, which is a lap top less than eight months old, so it has to be down to Sky! Anyway - we shall see.

Have a busy weekend coming up. On Saturday, Hubby and I are going to Engaged Colleague's wedding in East Grinstead - our sixth wedding this year, so out will come the wedding outfits. Again. And on Sunday we have a particularly gigantic hedge to cut back (what fun!).

Unless Sky can sort themselves out, lucky you won't have to put up with my ramblings until Monday next week.

And by the way - my hot flushes have receded. Am I Over The Worst? Or is The Worst yet to come?

Better go - lunch-break ends in thirty seconds .....