To be fair though, Mud does make the occasional list but only once in a blue moon and it’s usually to draw attention to the large number of jobs that need to be done about the house, garden and, more recently, the Land Rovers, for which invariably, he states he neither has the time nor money to complete.
Of course he does set himself impossible targets, writing a huge list of jobs which each take half a day, and then gets despondent when he only manages to cross one or two off at the end of the day.
I, on the other hand, have got the matter of list writing down to a fine art but then I have had years of practice, particularly when planning the monthly shop. This particular list takes hours as I first need to write a menu and then what I need for each meal. It’s worth it in the end though because I can then look at bulk purchases where possible, thereby saving time and money in the process. This is truly a skill that Mud needs to learn ……. and quickly. To be fair though, I ought to mention, that after 9 years of living with me, Mud has started to write short lists for visits to B&Q, the garden centre etc and even manages to stick to them, by and large.
Sadly, list making has yet to find its’ way into the world of Land Rover rebuilds and refurbishment.
Annie, the Series III 109 truck cab, is supposed to be our second vehicle, bought because she goes, has a valid MOT and will do the job in an emergency, if, for example, the Jap truck fails. However, once we’d got her home and Mud had taken her for a drive, he proclaimed:
“I need to sort out the brakes, the suspension springs need replacing, the gearbox needs a refurb’ and the drivers seat is far too low!”
So from the despair of not being able to do any work on Ciggy, Mud was catapulted into the euphoria of ordering parts for Annie to make her a safer car to drive – apparently.
And here was me thinking all she needed was a lick of paint. Thankfully she does have a galvanised chassis, so, unlike poor old Ciggy, at least she’s solid.
So far we’ve ordered 3 lots of parts for Annie:
- the first was intentional;
- the second was to get the part we forgot to put on the first order and, while we’re at it, to order some other bits to make it worthwhile: and
- the third was to order the part we forgot on the first AND second orders (because Mud got carried away ordering other bits) and also to get some of the other items he had realised we needed.
At this point, Mud decided that maybe he needed to write a list so that he wouldn’t forget anything else and so he has a ‘shopping basket’ of parts needed and, last time I looked, he still hadn’t added the part that he has now forgotten to add to the three previous orders.
The Land Rover Owners Ex Wife 