Shameful neglect and fresh leaf

I know, it's been an age, hasn't it? You're looking well. How's the leg?

I've got a "must do better" school report vis-a-vis blog frequency. And (let's be honest here) blog quality, too. But I must now hoist my anklewear, put my most exemplary foot forward (and all those other jolly chivvyings) and deliver a marked improvement in both areas of bloggery, in order to keep the newly-exported fella in touch with my day-to-day shenanigans.

For the day has finally arrived. Well, the day after the day, actually. GB was supposed to fly to Uzbekistan yesterday, but his flight was cancelled a few hours beforehand. Presumably they couldn't find a puncture repair kit for the plane or something. So he actually left today at lunchtime, and this is my inaugural "keep him up to date with my goings on" blog. Of course, it is a little premature, since I would not normally appraise him of my day in detail after an absence of just (let me check....) 9 1/2 hours. But still, I am tapping into the current well-spring of enthusiasm.

From dropping him off, I managed to find my way out of Heathrow and onto the correct exit road - well, the A4 rather than the perimeter road that I was looking for, but still a legitimate exit route. This is not a minor achievement, believe me. Let's not dwell on missing the down-ramp in the multi-storey carpark, which necessitated another quick circuit that would have had GB rolling his eyes and making increasingly high-pitched noises of exasperation had he not been sitting in the airport lounge at the time.

On arriving home, I celebrated my newfound freedom by cleaning the kitchen. And I mean cleaning. Including such delights as scraping out the joins in the worktop with a knife, and washing the grease filters in the cooker hood. This was all very satisfying. I kept finding random bits of broken glass everywhere (cupboards, dishwasher filter etc) which means that either (a) the glass I smashed this morning was actually soaked in gelignite and managed to project its shards through some seemingly solid barriers or (b) lots of other glasses have been broken in our kitchen. Nothing to do with me, guvnor.

After my enthusiastic kitchen-scrubbing (and starting to make pickled cabbage a la Mrs Beeton - needs soaking overnight so nothing to report yet), I then (lordy lor!) went out for a run. The only thing that got me out of my chair and into my running kit was the thought of being able to boast about it in the blog. Well, that and not wanting my belly to look like I've got it on loan from Buddha.

My post-torture stretching in the back garden was cut short when a bat flittered overhead and I rushed inside for my glasses and bat-eavesdropper. It only did another couple of fly-pasts, so I was able to get on with the stretching and watering the plants. Which can be done simultaneously - take my word for it.

Now I'm sitting around in slightly odiferous running kit waiting for Her Brittanic Majesty's representative of the Diplomatic Service in Uzbekistan to call...