Monday 7th August 2023

Terrible night's sleep...my bad hernia repair giving me gip. Aki got up and made tea, then turned the telly on for the England v Nigeria game. I got up to watch. Porridged. Aki decided she wanted to de-scale the shower head...unbeknownst to me, she removed it without the step ladder...I heard a crash and a yelp, and assumed she'd dropped her cosmetics on the bathroom floor...no, it turned out to be the shower head, which smashed a hole in the shower tray tiling! So the shower is out of commission exactly one day after we got it all going again!!! She alerted Vince, and we awaited his arrival. Meanwhile I set about transferring my smaller Phoenix Life pension pots in to my Savills' Royal London pot...did it all on-line; confirmation may take a few weeks. Made a ham salad lunch. Headed off for Kings Cross and my aortal aneurysm scan...caught a No.259 bus to Killick Street...got there a bit early, so took a turn around the block. It was an ultra-sound scan...it turned out the guy needed to press quite hard, which disturbed my numerous hernia. Felt a little uncomfortable afterward. Walked over to Waitrose and bought a bottle of water, then sat out at the back of Kings Place, overlooking the narrow boat marina at Albert Dock, where Walter is due to dock Arcona tomorrow evening. Read a bit of Dickens then got a No.91 back home. Vince was there when I got in...he'd cleaned up the smashed tiling, and had resolved to cut a bit off a spare grey tile with an angle grinder, hopefully tomorrow. Aki set about cutting the hedge out front, and I did a bit of wisteria pruning before we warmed up the chicken and lentil pie for dinner. Watched a bit of telly before bath and bed...