This weekend was about many things. It was largely coloured by my cold, which was deeply unpleasant, but I managed to achieve a lot, considering.

Friday Night
I raced away from the office and headed to a tile shop, where I spend more than perhaps necessary, on some lovely floor tiles for my new bathroom. I also bought the various accompaniments, like tile underlay matting, adhesive, spacers and grout.

Then to B&Q where I bought a water-lubricated tile cutting machine and some other handy bits and pieces.

Then back to the house where I painted the whole of the bathroom with a 50% water and emulsion paint mix. I had bought some kitchen worktop wood from B&Q which I lay in the shower cubicle, allowing me to put a step ladder in the shower without knackering the shower tray. Neat. I painted every paintable surface, and then, exhausted, sat in bed and watched some of Look Around You before giggling myself to sleep.

Saturday
I awoke at the usual wake up time for work. I went to get breakfast at Subway - never had that before. I resisted the urge to go 12" on my sandwich and put some energy in my system.

Back at home. I then went round the bathroom with bathroom paint, with the radio playing downstairs. Pure brilliant white is aptly named.

Already exhausted from the bathroom, and at about 1pm, I headed downstairs to wash my bathroom painting stuff. Then I painted the ceiling and cornice in the downstairs hall. That was even more exhausting.

I washed up the painting stuff again. Then I headed to Tesco.

By this stage I felt like a limp rag. I was hot, thirsty, out of energy and felt unable even to drive. At Tesco, I bought a late lunch, plenty to drink (non-alcoholic), cold remedy medicine (mixture of paracetamol and caffeine) and some lockets. I sat in the car, listening to the radio and consuming a lot of what I'd just bought. As expected, it perked me up and I was then able to drive 50 or so miles to my sister's house in London.

I sat around at my sister's playing with my niece a little, talking with my family, and chilling out. Later, I made a fix to the broken bathroom door lock - it was more of a bodge. Then I went home.

More Look Around You. More giggling. Setting the clocks forward. Then sleep.

Sunday
I awoke even earlier - in every sense. The absolute time was an hour earlier then the clock time. The clock time was earlier than I prefer. It was early.

I went to pick up a friend from town. He would otherwise be killing time in the outside world, rather than spending it in a house with internet access and, albeit distracted with DIY jobs, company. I brought him back to mine, he played some music while I did some tidying up. Then I put a new string on my guitar to replace the one which snapped at my gig on Tuesday. We played some guitar together and then went for breakfast.

Subway.

Again.

I'd only had my first Subway breakfast on Saturday and my second was the following day. Weird.

Then back to the house. My friend kept playing YouTube comedy clips while I painted the third coat in my bathroom. I was getting tired again, so once it was complete, I decided not to do any more. I washed up, got dressed back in real clothes (not painting clothes) and we went out to B&Q together. I know how to show someone a good time.

Though we went to KFC first. Naughty. Chickeny. Unhealthy. Quite pleasant.

I dropped my friend off at his bus, got a shower (not at home, sadly) and then went off to my gig.

The gig was a charity night in Leamington Spa. I'd be lying if I said I rocked. I did, however, try some new material - written this weekend - and some of it has potential. I also did some of my lower-key stuff, in an attempt to save my voice. It was fun and I'm glad they didn't let me chicken out of it with my man-flu.

Arriving back home late at night I had to make some revisions to the sound-effects CD I will be using tonight. Some of these revisions involved me making the sound effects myself by combining freely-downloaded FX from the internet.

I wish I'd been able to watch the last two Look Around Yous, but they'll have to wait until I have more time.

In Summary
All in all it was a damned taxing weekend and I don't think it cured my cold.