Friday, October 31, 2008

The not so missing black box

For one reason or another our green rubbish bin and black recycle box always seem to go missing.

Two weeks ago we put our black box* out for the kerb recycle little men to empty and when we came to bring it in, it had disappeared. The next day we noticed that our next door neighbours upwards now had three black boxes, one more than they did the day before…

As the kerb recycle little men come round once a fortnight, John put out the recycle rubbish last night, and as we didn’t have a box, just put the bottles and tins in a cardboard box – like we’ve done many times before.

This morning when I was getting the car out of the garage I noticed next to the garage door was a black box and the cardboard box, which was extremely soggy and damp, and still full of the bottles and tins. Some Jobsworth at the council must have decided that as the items weren’t in a black box they wouldn’t take them.

As we have an old battered and damaged black box in the garage, I assumed John must have brought it out of retirement and put the newspapers and magazines in there. I emptied the bottles and tins out of the cardboard box, put them in the black box, and dragged it into the garage.

When I got home this evening from my mams I told John what had happened and he looked a bit bemused. He never put the old black box out last night, it was still in the garage, and our neighbours still had three boxes so it wasn’t them having a guilt trip and returned it. We don’t know where it came from as all the other boxes in the street are accounted for.

Spooky ! ! !

Marie


*our third one in twelve months. The first was stolen by our next door neighbours upwards, the second one (a brand new one courtesy of the council) was only six weeks old when it was abducted and the third was an abandoned one so we decided to give it a good home.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

I’m in the wrong business

Yesterday afternoon while finishing off our lunch, I flitted through the TV channels on Sky and ended up on QVC. Normally I only watch QVC when I’m having trouble sleeping as it’s a great way of curing insomnia – five minutes watching the programme and I’m in the land of nod…

However this time I stayed awake, as I couldn’t believe what they were selling. For £25 + plus £5 p&p you could purchase six four inch by six inch fruit pies. Yes I did say fruit pies ! ! !

They were also flogging a festive special – a Christmas pudding, four large mince pies and some brandy sauce for £30 (plus £5p&p). For the same price you could also buy six cakes or six savoury pies.

What astounded me was the company had 900 of each package to sell and everyone sold out almost instantly.

There’s money to be made in baking. I wonder how much I can sell my Christmas cakes for…

Marie

Friday, October 17, 2008

Back in the land of the living

***Wrote this yesterday but Blogger wouldn’t let me post it for some reason so just pretend it’s Thursday….***

This time last week we were nicely stuffed with a take-away pizza and looking at a dining room full of stuff for conference.

We were to have set off for Solihull at 11am but several telephone calls amounting to an hours worth of time set us back a little. John had to take his car as my knee wasn’t up to driving such a long distance. We only just managed to get all the bits and pieces in the back of his car. Thank goodness it wasn’t a Spring conference as we have to take three times as much stuff…

The weekend went ok, though my knee was giving me major jip. My body is getting used to the painkillers so they’re not working as good as they used to.

We normally stay over until the Monday but my uncles funeral was Monday so had to come back Sunday afternoon.

As expected my mam was off the planet and into La La Land. I think we’re going to have some fun times ahead with her especially with the run up to Christmas. Still she and my aunt found it a comfort to grieve together at the funeral.

Yesterday, as we always do the Tuesday after conference, we went to the Chinese for lunch. Except they were closed ! !! ! !!! ! They were on holiday for two weeks. If conference had been at it’s normal time of late October this wouldn’t have happened…

So instead we went to the Wessington pub and have pleasant lunch of ham, chips and two fried eggs, followed by apple crumble and ice-cream, and lemon and blackcurrant sponge and custard.

Marie

Sunday, October 05, 2008

This and that

Just a quick blog as we’re pretty busy sorting out for next weeks conference. The printing party for the conference packs is well underway.

Had a phone call from my mam this morning. Her brother died in the early hours of this morning so she was really upset. I’m praying that this doesn’t undo the last four years of her getting over the death of my dad.

Seeing as there has to be a post-mortem I’m hoping this will delay the funeral until after conference. There’s no way my sister will be able to cope with my mam on her own.

My knee is still giving me grief and that’s with taking the painkillers. Thank goodness I go and see the specialist on 24th November.

Marie