Day 169: It's a Honda!

No really, I now own a lawnmower with a 160cc Honda engine. I had the day off today, mainly so that I could let some workmen into the house to sand and refinish the wood floors in two bedrooms. The day did not start well as the house had no power when I got there this morning following yesterday's storm. Take it from me, they were not planning to be sanding by hand. So I had to call them off. While I was waiting for them to call me back to let me know what they were going to suggest, I noticed a light glowing on a doorbell in the garage (don't ask me!). I thought it a bit strange, but it was indeed a sign of the power being back on. Back on the phone. To cut a long story slightly shorter, they came to do the work.

One of the guys is from Fife (Scotland), I was shocked that as he was telling me that when it gets hot he starts to want to go 'home' I couldn't identify his accent at all. I nearly asked him if he was Canadian. OK, he has been here for five years and another eight on an off before that and so has a mixture of Scottish and Northeast in his accent, but still! Fortunately, I was only partially humilliated because I just asked, "Where are you from?" without offering any suggestion. Once he'd told me I couldn't believe I hadn't realised before, it was so obvious.

I suppose it is like meeting someone out of context. Even someone who you say hello to everyday can be hard to place if you see them in an unexpected place. Once I met the secretary of the professor of the lab I worked in at the time in a town-centre carpark about 12 miles from the lab. At work, she would have greeted me by name without any issue, but on that occassion she really seemed to not have a clue who I was until I told her where she knew me from. Our brains are fantastically efficient, but even the best software struggles at times.

While the floor people were working, I cut the grass (and assorted intermingled broad-leafed plants). The mower worked very well. I would have needed a long time and a very long extension lead to have done it with my 32 cm electric mower.

We also had an electrician over to do a quote, had a visit from our real estate broker (with gifts), cleaned the fridge and switched it on and sprayed some path-clearing weedkiller around. Not a bad day's work really. We're planning to move on Friday of next week (6th July). Hopefully floors, electricity, air-conditioning and carpet and chimney cleaning will all have been done by then so we can move in without one eye on having to re-arrange things for those jobs.