It's freezing!!!

So on Friday Oliver came over to give the lizard treadmill a bit of a service - I was planning on boarding up a few of the holes that the lizards can escape through (I have done a stunning job with cardboard, paper and duct tape, even a few band-aids and some sellotape in one corner, and checking that everything is connected where it's supposed to be so I won't have any more nasty surprises.

 

What I didn't bank on was the fact that Oliver is... well... Oliver! He's one of those people who likes to make things and fix things and think up new ways of making and fixing things. He's one of those people who takes pride in (and I think enjoys) doing a job well. I trust his ability when it comes to making and fixing things, and as the guy whol built the treadmill is at a new job and I don't want to bother him unneccessarily, I have no qualms about him taking it apart and checking up on the mechanism (one of the components broke last year and I had him on the phone for about an hour talking me through it all, so that when I found a friendly engineer I was able to explain what was happening).

 

So anyway, after about five hours the treadmill and housing were dismantles, we'd made some progress but it was shaping up to be a bigger job that we'd realised. To tell the truth, although I was exhausted and kept yewning, I had a lot of fun. I learned that you get something called a 'junior hacksaw' which is basically a tiny hacksaw which is totally adorable and makes me wonder if there is a junior lumberjack club out there, where you get a magazine and a mini-tool every month. It was awesome to spend some time with him too, we used to study together and so I'd see him every day, and when he moved to a different campus to do masters we kind of kept in touch but hardly at all, and it was great to sit and chat and generally catch up.

 

Once it started getting cold and dark he went off on his way and I went off to see a movie. Wolverine was sold out which sucked so we saw a spy-thriller conspiracy movie which isn't my usual fare, but the ending was very clever and I enjoyed the evening. I was quite sad that we couldn't go to a later showing of Wolverine (although knowing me and X-men, I would be dyeing my hair weird colours as a result - again) but I had work in the morning and on pay-day weekend I have to be awake and alert and so on at the vet.

 

It wasn't the busiest shift I've ever worked, and the credit card was working (mostly), but the people never stopped coming and on top of it all it was Brian's first shift and he was trying to figure out the credit card machine and the computer system and it was insanely busy! He did really well, but occasionally I had to kick him off the computer and take over when it got really bad, and fortunately I had taken over when the credit card machine stopped working so I was able to sort it out and do a manual thing without him feeling too bad. It also meant there was always someone free to answer the phone (which never stops) and he had to handle the two worst customers, so I figure that as a baptism of fire goes, it was pretty intense and he coped amazingly well.

 

From there it was off to visit Jo for about ten minutes (there was some gossip and girl-talk required and she'd phoned earlier and I hung up on her mid-sentence...) and then off to Oliver's house for treadmill-round-two. Turns out his dad (who has all the tools and the workshop and stuff) was going out, so there was nothing for us to do, so he made me an amazing lunch and we basically hung out and watched TV and chatted until I went off to guitar-hero and pizza evening.

 

The evening kind of didn't end... I ended up crashing in the spare bedroom and waking up feeling like I'd swallowed cottonwool, really needed a shower and had pulled a muscle in my stomach from giggling. 

 

And now I'm off to make lunch for an early mothers day as I'm probably away for the real thing. And then I'll probably end up visiting La at work so that we can discusss everything that happened last night and giggle over it all again!