Spring Fever

Sitting on the seat at the front of my house waiting on stand by for Kerry to drive passed and pick me up with two excited school girls on board molly and Erin to go shopping! Girls don’t need motivation once they hear those words…me on the other hand …. I was sitting with the sun hitting my face for what seems to be the first time this year (it is now February) I am wearing my bobble hat , long sleeved t-shirt and a body warmer and feeling like an alpine ski instructor on the side of the mountain waiting for my ski school to turn up. It seems that the dark days have been here for ever, you get up in the dark, go to work in the dark and come home in the dark and only know if it is raining when people come into the gym wet! When the clocks go back in October you get a little more light to help make the day brighter, apart from babies and young children that have their own body clock and can’t tell the time so just after you have getting them into a sleep pattern so you can get a little more sleep, your world is turned upside down again by one hour so the 6. 30am start to your day just became 5.30am and speaking from years of this telletubbies get on your nerves more at this time in the morning. That first glimpse of sun and blue skies seems to change everyone’s mood and like birds start nesting stealing the dog hair that you just detangled off your Alsatian dog (I used to love watching the birds swoop down like it is a Harrods sale for fur) then watch them carry off half their body weight in hair making them look like a flying hair ball and them with the skill of a master crafts men expertly transform bits of branches and dog hair into a palace of a birds nest with all the mod cons all crammed in . Speaking of cramming do you use the same system as me for sheds? Put it in the shed, but it in the shed, put it in the shed until you can’t get in the shed anymore. For example I am on the ball on Christmas morning over the years of the girls getting doll after doll and all the packaging that goes with them ( they have better security than an the Fort Knox) After you have cut pulled and teased these dolls from the packaging you have a small mountain of cardboard and plastic. By trial and error I have learned not to put it outside were the ice snow and rain split the bin bags and then you have to re-bag them after scrapping them off the wet floor or you rip the bags lifting them up off the frozen ground then re-bag them. So I learned to but the wrapping paper and cardboard into one bag and plastic into another and the Radom and miscellaneous bag is the last of the collection which is dumped into the shed until the trip to the incinerator is needed (when the Christmas queues dies down) meaning late January/early February. The day comes when your shed is full and a spring clean is order by the upper management of the house ( Kerry) and work commences into basically taking everything out of the shed appraising the items like an expert on the antique roadshow, don’t you just love it when they say it is rubbish and not worth anything or how they just want to know how much it is worth and the expert lovely describes every little detail of the item and drags it out for minutes then drops the bombshell of £250,000 and the owner says that it has too much sentimental value to sell …. Yeah right! After tidying your shed and you look at your grass and think will I kill myself if I try to cut the wet grass with my electric lawnmower? Once you think it is safe to do you have a garden tidy day that kills you, my back is so bad I weed my flower beds sitting down on the grass and inch along the garden at the pace of a speeding snail. Scrapping the weeds out of the patio and telling yourself you are going to re-lift the patio and use Tommy Walsh’s magic mix to sort out the weed problem once and for all, but today is not that day so you clear it out sweep it down and but weed killer to keep them at bay until you get around to it. Then you look at your car, covered in dirt, grit and mud from the last 6 months of weather and it is no fun washing your car when it keeps icing over as you do it. So wife and daughters at the ready you tackle the dirt by sponging the car down and someone has to do the alloys, I still often wonder how much time these boy racers spend on their cars keeping them at showroom condition were I am happy to keep it clean for a few weeks at a time. After cleaning it the hose come out with the promise not to wet anyone ‘by accident’ which after the 3rd or 4th time results in an argument and two wet girls going in to get changed or on the other hand a full on water fight resulting in 4 very wet people and as baths are run dad gets to tidy up the hoses pipes, clothes and buckets only to have a repeat performances every 2 -3 weeks. I love being outside in the sun and even when it is raining just the fresh air is good enough for me rather than smelling someone’s armpit as you grapple them or when their sweat drips into your eye or worse still your open mouth … not pleasant. Then when you go back into the house you decide to” brighten up a room” meaning totally gutting it repaint it and throw out furniture that is tired and worn out (put it in the shed until a later date…) and keep the paint (in the shed) you just used for the new room to touch it up in a later date. While we are on about rooms carpets have a 10 year life span as it says on the insurance but yet you replace it far sooner than the 10 year plan suggests because it looks tired compared to the new painted walls and furniture, are we being conned by the carpet companies or is that just life? Sometimes it feels you go around and around cutting things cleaning things and tidying your life and surroundings but you always get a lovely feeling of accomplishment when you see your garden, house or car sparkling and clean so I feel we are not far from what birds feel when they build their nests. The same goes for the AFC we seem to go around the gym making it the best place to train (it already is if you did not know) putting storage systems in the changing rooms and training area to make it nice and tidy , we just have to keep it that way. So that the boys changing room does not turn into a teenage boys bedroom , full of crusty t-shirts and odd smelly socks and one random boxing glove that has no owner and a collection of gum shields the dental hospital could find new owners for …Gross! (ONE NOT SO CAREFUL OWNER) We have just put in a new and improved jigsaw matting in the cage that took the best past of 4 hours to put down due to each piece having to be cut and fitted into place with the great help of ben stoke but now I look at the padding and think I need to recondition it or maybe just dust I more often and reception needs a little make over (more painting) I may even put up my certificates to show how cool I am. (They are in a very special place). Spring fever in all of it forms gets us to do new things and maintain a standard and discipline in our lives ( cut grass every two weeks until you are sick of it or the end of October) tidy your garden and put things in the shed neatly, spring fever brings order back into our lives that we may have let slid over the dark days in winter, but saying that I still have an outside cupboard that we need to paint in the style of calamity jane that we have ignored for at least 3 years but this year we will put it on the spring fever list we just have to have a few clear non-raining or icy days to get it done… As Elvis says You give me fever! Thank you very much “JOHN HAS LEFT THE BUILDING”