Dad’s visiting – he came in on Sun. at 2 AM. Yeesh! I was wondering what was going on, thinking he should have just had me pick him up. When he finally got home, he didn’t have a car! The rental place was closed when he arrived – what a crappy welcome. He had to get a taxi to my house.

Sunday, we went shopping and picked up a few things I needed. We went for a nice meal at Swiss Chalet (they served us really quick, it was quite amazing – dinner took less time to arrive than dessert!), as no one felt like cooking. Mike built a deck in our backyard that day, as well, using wood from his parents’ house. Two of his friends helped, and one of them had a powerwasher that really took off all the nasty grey dirt from the boards. It looks great, and apparently we’re going to have a deckwarming party at some point. It still needs to be coated with protective stuff first.

Dad visited some old work friends Monday morning and lunchtime, then came home and fixed some things in the house – we now have a nice showerhead that doesn’t fall out of its prop and our kitchen tap is now fixed and doesn’t need to be wrenched every which way to get it to stay in place. Monday evening, he prepared pork chops, potatoes and broccoli for us. I haven’t had a simple, healthy meal like that in a while. Mike and I usually cook quick meals (spags – sometimes with sauce, taccos) or more complex, but healthy, meals (chicken and rice, fish on rare occasions). I didn’t realize how quick it is to cook pork chops – but meat’s expensive so we don’t buy too much of it (just ground beef, since you can use that in a lot of stuff and it’s fairly cheap).

Yesterday, we had some people around to fix some pipes round the side of our house, outside. Sewage had been coming up for quite some time, and it was really disgusting. People had also been throwing stuff there and the whole place just reeked. They fixed the pipes and put caps on them, but discovered that pipes somewhere in our block had probably collapsed, and that was one reason the sewage was coming up. Anyway, it’s fixed now, but they left all the sewage on the grass, which is a health hazard. Not sure what’s being done about that.

Dad also fixed the pipes under the sink in the laundry room – no longer will water gush out at our basement wall!! Thank you, dad, it’s wonderful! It’s so nice to have a house that functions properly, and not have to worry about these things anymore.

We had “stew in brew” (or something like that!!) last night for dinner. That was a good, hearty meal. I think I might just be having a proper meal every night this week!

Mike’s parents came over for a little while in the evening, to talk and relax for a bit. We traded stories for a while, until it was past bedtime! Not too tired today though, I must have slept well last night.

Well, must be off. Lots of work to do!