Monday, August 27, 2007

A little later than planned

I’m getting a new car. A blue Nissan Note. It really should have been green this time as I alternate between blue and green but they don’t do green Notes…

It was due in the showroom on 22nd August and to me on 3rd September. Unfortunately there has been a slight delay so I won’t now get it until 15th September at the earlier. A little disappointing but it can’t be helped.

Back in July we ordered a new living and dining room carpet. The little man from Allied said it would only take three weeks. This was ideal as we’re getting a new sofa and it’s due to arrive anytime after 4th September.

Three weeks came and went but no sign of the carpet. The little man I spoke to said it would be here the following week. Nearly six weeks later and still no carpet.

I rang them again (with the customer from hell on standby….), explaining that the carpet must be down by 4th September otherwise I’m cancelling the order. There is no way the carpet fitters are putting their grubby little hands on my new sofa ! ! !

Allied rang back. There has been a problem with the cutting machine in the warehouse so our carpet is due to be cut next week. The little man has arranged for it to be delivered to the store on 3rd September and fitted on 4th.

I do hope for their sake there isn’t a problem getting it delivered from the warehouse to the store…..

Marie

PS Don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for a while as we started our holiday on Friday night. Yippee ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Thursday, August 23, 2007

For sale – one house hardly been used

This afternoon a ‘for sale’ board went up outside our new neighbours house. After giving us a year of hell demolishing the house from within, they are now selling up.

To be honest it doesn’t surprise me as they seemed a couple who had no intention of staying in one place for very long.

In their short period in Neale Street they haven’t gone out of their way to be friendly. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a smile or a hello from either of them. We didn’t even get a Christmas card from them ! ! !

So here are some of the things I won’t be missing when they leave.

The herd of elephants running up and down the stairs.

Him coughing his guts up when he has a shower first thing in a morning.

Bob and Mrs Builder (her mam and dad) always arguing when they come on a Thursday to do the housework.

Bob and Mrs Builder arguing when they come to drop off the ironing.

Bob and Mrs Builder arguing anytime they come.

Their every meal from the microwave. No matter what they have it always takes eight minutes to cook.

Her car remote setting off our phantom door bell.

Their horrendous car parking.

Their slamming of doors.

Bob the Builders fetish with power tools and making a lot of noise.


Wonder how long it’ll take for them to move out….

Marie

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Competent my ****

All this week Davina McCall is standing in for Ken Bruce on Radio 2 and boy is she terrible ! ! ! !

I had the misfortune to hear her previous attempt at broadcasting when she presented ‘Steve Wright Sunday Love Songs’ a while ago and she was just as dreadful then.

After only ten minutes on Monday morning I couldn’t stand it any longer so switched off. Imagine if you will a very excitable sixteen year old who has just started hospital radio and wants to be a ‘DJ’, yet she’s so horrendous that no amount of training will make her even barely acceptable.

She was so awful that I actually complained to the BBC about her. Today I received a reply from them. As expected they said whilst they valued my opinion, they stand by their decision to appointed her as Ken’s replacement as it was based on her experience and talent, and that they considered her competent and had the necessary ability to do the programme.

If this is the standard of presenters Radio 2 are employing, I will definitely be taking my custom else where…

Marie

Sunday, August 19, 2007

We should have stayed for lunch after all

We’ve arrived home from a great weekend away. It was Jenny’s birthday almost-barbecue. I say almost because the weather tried, but failed miserably to ruin the weekend. OK, no barbecue, but still a great night with great friends.

We were also invited to join everyone for Sunday lunch but had to decline as I had to refit the interior doors in Marie’s mothers house after the carpet fitters had done their work.

Only it didn’t work out like that. As the hotel were wanting an extortionate amount of money for breakfast we decided on an Olympic Breakfast at the Little Chef at Trowel Services. It’s not there anymore. So we decided to head on up the M1 until we found a service area that did have a Little Chef. We had passed junctions 26, 27 and 28 when we found the motorway closed and we were diverted off via Chesterfield. The route into town was a decent dual carriageway so it looked like it was going to be just a minor diversion but the road out of Chesterfield to junction 30 was single carriageway with traffic lights and roadworks. It took us 90 minutes to cover seven miles. Then when we got back on the M1 we found three lanes of traffic almost at a standstill. This continued all the way up to the junction with the M18.

We finally got home at 5:15, having set off at 10:00 giving us an average speed of about 25 miles per hour. Obviously I didn’t get to fit the doors. Tomorrow night will have to do. Now had we gone for lunch we would probably have missed the delays and got home at about the same time, but with the bonus of a good lunch with our friends.

And if you’re wondering, Yes – we did get our Olympic Breakfast, at a Travellodge on the A61 on the outskirts of Chesterfield.

John

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

For Sale - One Careful Owner

Over the years many of our blog readers have stayed at the Pullman Hotel on the sea front. It’s now undergoing a radical make-over (not before time I hear some of you say).

The Pullman carriages that formed the restaurant and reception are up for sale on Ebay. If you’re interested you can find them here.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3-x-Pullman-Railway-Carriages-Restaurant-Carriage_W0QQitemZ220139815662QQihZ012QQcategoryZ9883QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

John

For sale – one hairdryer…

…hardly used.

I tried. I really tried, but I couldn’t put up with my ‘long hair’ any longer so got it cut short yesterday morning.

The back isn’t as short as when Gillian, my usual hairdresser cuts it. However I’m happy with the result.

I think this hairdresser was wary of cutting it too short seeing as I was a new customer. She kept apologising for the amount she cut off and I kept replying ‘you can go shorter if you like….’.

Marie

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

It's why I work in IT

Have you ever had your computer go wrong at work and have to call IT to fix it ?

Did they cycle the power – I mean switch it off and back on again. And did that work ?

Cycling the power is no trivial thing. It requires the ability of a trained and skilled operative.

Many many years ago I was sent to London to attend a computer operators course and most of the first day was spent learning just that, the right way to cycle the power. How to hold the breaker, how to move it, what to do if it resists when resetting, and what to do if it jumps back out again. The answer to the last part is that during the day you summon an engineer and if it’s night shift you go home.

Armed with this highly specialised knowledge I knew exactly what to do on Monday night when the television in the BOGOF household misbehaved.

It was, though a strange problem. We were watching a documentary about space flight and the loss of the shuttle Columbia. At the point where the Flight Director realised something terrible had happened the picture changed to black and white – for dramatic effect we thought. Not so. Come the ad break and it was still in black and white. So were all the other channels. The teletext was still in colour as were all the on screen displays. Most odd. Loss of chrominance or something similar.

But I’m a computer specialist, not a television repair man so I set to work. Power off, count to ten, power on. No change. Time for a switch to a mode two methodology. Power off, disconnect from mains, count twenty, reconnect to mains, power on. Success. Colour was restored.

I wouldn’t like to guess how long it will last though. The set is twelve years old so we may need to replace it soon. Looks like we’ll have to move into the 21st century with a silver grey flat screen model or something.

More BOGOF news later.

John

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Where has the time gone

You must be really sick of me saying ‘sorry for the lack of blogs’ so I won’t say it…

So what’s to report.

Thursday 26th July: Mustn’t have done anything exciting as I can’t remember! ! !

Friday 27th July: Went to my mams and her new fire had just arrived. It looks really nice next to the black speckled granite (see July 4th blog).

I had meant to blog about this but never got round to it. She put the fear of God into the company about her slate having no veins so they asked her to come and personally choose the bit she wanted. Apparently they all had veins in (or just enough to annoy my mam anyway) so she went back to her original choice of black granite.

Saturday 28th July: Went to Leeds to meet with Sean and Iain about next years hospital radio awards. On the way home from Durham railway station called off at the Wessington pub for something to eat. We had to as it was too early to go home... It’s the air show weekend and as the police close off a lot of the roads, it’s practically impossible to get in or out of the area between 10am and 7.30pm.

Sunday 29th July: Day 2 of the air show so we’re prisoners for the day. John did a bit of DIY to the drawers in the dining room for when we get the new carpet. I went for a bath to easy my back. I set it off on Friday and it was still playing up.

Had a lovely carpet picnic on the dining room floor listening to some music. Alan and Alison (next door upwards) are away until August 13th so thought this would be a great time to see how loud we can stand the music before our eardrums start to bleed. We weren’t bothered about disturbing next door downwards. It’s called pay back time ! ! !

Monday 30th July: As John wasn’t able to get his actual birthday off work, today is his ‘official birthday’. So after a long lie in we went to the Chinese for lovely meal – a always. For a late tea I made pancakes, yum, yum…

Tuesday 31st July: My car’s first MOT and it passed with flying colours. Rang the little man about my new car and it’s due to arrive at the garage on 22nd August.

Yesterday: Made some tomato soup. The rest of the day was spent designing a narrow boat, Ludwell village and a barrel roof cottage... They’re for my novel.

Today: Still designing the cottage, though having problems on where to put the windows and the AGA… Did the biography of one of the characters and felt a bit guilty ‘getting to know him’ when he’s going to be killed off half way through the book.

As usual went shopping tonight at Morrisons and met Kevin and Maria who live over the road. Stood ages having a good gossip about Greg and Kay who live next door to Kevin and Maria. He left her a couple of weeks ago and we were just asking each other if we knew any more details…

So that was the week that was.

Marie