It's amazing really. Somehow, she manages to lay down a big steaming pile shortly before we wake up (no matter what time that may be), so that it's still nice and fresh and soft and noisome when I get up. Nothing like being assaulted by the smell of shit the moment I step out of our bedroom on my way to the kitchen for my day's first cup of tea. Couldn't she at least wait until I've had my caffeine?

After that, more laundry, and assorted stuff for My Main Bane. I refuse to call it "That Fucking Faire" until absolutely necessary, which may happen a whole lot sooner than I would like. (Actually, I'd like it to be never, but we can't always get what we want, can we?)

I spent all last week chasing down the apparently lovely lady who said she'd be delighted to help me with all sorts of stuff. I called her last Monday, and she said she was right in the middle of something and would call me back in an hour. She didn't. I left messages hither, thither and yon, repeatedly, and finally managed to get a hold of her this week. Well, she's very sorry, but she won't be able to help after all. Yippee for me, because there's no one else to help that isn't on vacation or leaving for holiday soon, and there's deadlines for a lot of this crap. At least she got the tables straightened out. Or, at least, she thinks it will be OK, since she never did hear back from them. She did promise to follow up on that, so that's something, I suppose.

Leaves me free to get the menus and costings out of the (actually very nice) woman who runs the place. Someone else was going to do that while we were in Greece, but they forgot. I hauled my ass down there yesterday to pick it up in person, only to be informed that their printer is out of ink and she'll email it to me.

Which would have been fine had she actually done it, but, of couse, she has not.

Later this morning, I went down by the pool and swam laps for half an hour.

I discovered that it is extremely difficult to swim in gale force winds, especially since I had to keep my eyes well above water since I wear contact lenses, forgot to bring my goggles, and couldn't be bothered to go back upstairs to retrieve them for the sake of mere exercise. The result was less than aerodynamic, but what could I do? There were whitecaps in there, for God's sake. Also, I had to get out three times to retrieve my cushion, my towel, my shoes, my totebage, etc., all of which were being blown around on a regular basis. If I had been wearing my goggles, I never would have seen or heard them go, and they'd be long gone, so that was a bit of luck. I ended up putting it all in a pile and weighting the whole thing down with one of the ashtrays, which are large and heavy terra-cotta pots, suitable for the planting of mid-sized trees.

Another stroke of luck was that I was all alone. So peaceful. So after my laps, I read my book for half an hour in the sunshine, until I got tired of holding on to it in all that wind and headed upstairs to make my lunch. On the way up I encountered another resident and her two preadolescent children. They're good kids, but noisy and not conducive to peace and quiet. One flight of stairs behind them was the pool guy, carrying the big pool-cleaning hose.

Poor kids.

Popeye's in town, and now I'm off to get ready to go to the pub. Of course, I'll have to stop by the Center to see if I can't shake that woman down for my menus, which I need for the advertising and so forth. It's not at all on the way, and I'll be late, but it can't be helped, I suppose.