I have been tasked with removing a carpet and replacing it with laminate flooring to make it easier to manoeuvre my Uncle/FiL in a powered wheelchair around our home.
This afternoon I emptied a display cabinet and packed a load of nicnacs into boxes. I then cut up the carpet into pieces, moving the display cabinet around as I went, then cut the underlay into sections, again moving the cabinet as needed. At this point my left upper arm started to hurt a little.
After I carried everything I had removed down to the garage, I used a claw hammer and pincers to pull up the carpet grips and removed a bunch of staples that had been used to fix the underlay.
By this time my arm was becoming quite sore.
Having removed four joining strips I refitted them, and a fitted a fifth where the remains of the old carpet at the top of the stairs will meet the new laminate, then swept and vacuumed the work site. By this time I had had enough.
My health and stamina is not good at the best of times, and now my arm was painful, so I packed my tools away, did a few minor jobs outside, then settled down to watch TV after tea with my Lovely Cousin. A few hours later whilst rubbing my sore arm, it hit me.
My arm wasn’t hurting because of an excess of DIY. It was hurting because I had received my annual flue jab this morning.
Oh what a Whally.