I never could get the hang of Thursdays

It's been one of those days.

I thought I was reasonably ahead of myself today. I cleaned the bathrooms and loos upstairs, and put a load of washing on whilst I got stuck into one of the jobs on my list - namely a bit of macro code to compare two sheets in a workbook and highlight lines that are missing or different on one of the sheets. The beeper went after an hour to signal that the washing had finished, but the floor in front of the machine seemed a little damp ... The rubber seal on the inside of the door had cracked and leaked, allowing water out during the spin cycle.

My little brain went into overdrive and I reasoned that the rubber glue from the bike puncture repair kit would do the job and allow me to effect a repair. The only problem was the location of said kit. I had a quick look in the garage on the shelf, but it wasn't where I thought it was so I went to have a look in the bits and bobs drawer in the kitchen.

The drawer in question seems to have got rather stuffed with bits and indeed bobs of late, and the more I rummaged the more chaotic it became. A spool of black thread had got tangled around everything, some sticky wax stuff had leaked into the bottom somehow, a whole slew of panel pins were thrown in for good measure and worst of all a small candle bulb had broken as I found to my cost when I got a jagged bit of glass stuck in my knuckle. I sorted out the drawer, threw out a carrier bag full of rubbish (toys, wet wipes from fast food meals, water bomb balloons, empty battery packs et al) without making a noticeable dent in the volume of tat therein, cleaned up the blood but there was no repair kit to be found.

Back to the garage for a second look, and the repair kit turned out to be under another box. Doh. For my first attempt at gluing the seal I used a repair patch, but it was the wrong shape. The second attempt involved the use of some cloth tape, but the rubber glue dissolved it rather two effectively leaving a sticky goo that coated my fingers, including the one that was still bleeding from earlier. The final attempt was the charm and hopefully it will have done the trick and allow the machine to limp on for a few more years.

The afternoon went a bit better, and after a bit of trial and error with setting color (as VB script in Excel insists on calling it) properties I got my macros working as expected and sent them off for testing. Meanwhile, my PHB rang with a whole bunch more work for a new sub office that is going to be sharing some of the invoicing duties with some interesting implications for procedures for posting to the ledgers. Oh joy.

It's a good job Kobudo was fun tonight ... more cuts, another attempt at the stances which remain stubbornly just out of my mental grasp, some practice at the jitsu disarms and finally the formal reishiki bowing on ritual.

Time for BEER and a spot of 80s nostalgia now, methinks ...