Day: September 3, 2007

Weekend was nice, mostly, but didn't go according to plan, mostly. On saturday, Katy and I drove up to a little pet shop north of Cambs to go buy a fish tank. We got a really nice starter kit for a really decent price. We were told that the tank needed to be setup and working for about a week before we should be putting fish into it (mostly to de-chlorinate the water and let the filter get up to speed).

We got the tank, filter, light, heater and gravel for £85, so go us! We're going to go back next tuesday to get some plants and get the fish on thursday (should be ok by then).

We got back home at 1pm, had tea and got ready for the second part of the day. We wanted to go see a double-bill of Transformers and Bourne Ultimatum in town and then go for a nice meal at Cafe Rouge. We'd planned to take the 2pm bus into Cambs which would have left us with plenty of time to get everything done. Unfortunately, the 2pm bus only showed up at 3:30 – apparently the bus wouldn't start.

Now, you see, in Canada, they'd have just gotten another bus. Apparently things don't work that way here, so they simply cancelled the only – hourly – bus into town while they were trying to pull the finger out. Blergh. Now I understand why Katy says that nobody likes public transit in this country. Oh, and the phone number to complain? They're closed on the weekend.

Anyway, I managed to bully Katy into going in town anyway, and we caught the Bourne flick after a bit of shopping in the city center. The rest of the evening went off as planned, which was nice; and we got a chatty cab back home (which was the reason we wanted to take the bus into town in the first place – if Katy drives us, she can't have a drink when we go out).

Sunday was supposed to be a hedonistic, slobby day. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way – which is partly my fault. We got up and went to Tesco early to get it out of the way so we'd have time to set up the aquarium and then eat, drink and be merry at home.

Except that I wanted to shore up the shelf where the tank is (it weighs 130lbs when filled, so, ya know…). That meant going to B&Q to get some supplies. I also wanted to get a drill pump – a pump that is powered by a drill to transfer liquids. One of these thingies:

Sounds simple, right? The doofuses at B&Q didn't have a clue. The nicer people from Homebase thought we wanted a pond waterfall-effect pump. The 17-year old kid from Halfords at least knew what we were talking about but had never seen one in a store but “whenever I want to buy something, I just go on the internet” (Best comment of the day).

Anyway…

By the time we got home, it was 5pm and we hadn't even cracked a bottle open yet. I also wanted to make coq au vin for dinner, which would take a good hour to make. No worries. The plan was that as soon as we got home, I'd put up the brackets, get dinner on and then get started on the aquarium prep.

Except for the drill incident.

Katy has now decided to buy me a proper drill for xmas to avoid any future incidents of the sort. The cordless drill I brought over from Canada is completely useless faced with masonery walls. I'd borrowed Lennart's drill and had it all set up and ready to go. Until I realized that Lennart's drill, being Belgian, had a continental plug – one for which I did not have an adaptor. In the end, we had to pop in the car and go to Phil's place to pick up his drill. What was supposed to be a 5 minute pick-up jobbie ended up in us having a cuppa and watching the end of Shrek 2 with Phil, Caroline and the kiddies.

So it waa 7 by the time we got home and dinner got started.

In the end, to make a long story short, we didn't get drunk. We had a glass with dinner (which was kick ass), but in the end, the simple goal for that day didn't happen. I admit that I got fixated to getting the aquarium up and running, so it's my fault that things went out of whack.

I'm glad the aquarium is up and running, but I feel bad about the rest :(

Poo.