The customer from Hell strikes again

At precisely 8.30am this morning I rang Vardy’s about my brake lights. Jenny’s email must have worked as both service receptionists were ‘busy with other customers’… I was told someone would ring me back – eventually. “No”, I replied, “this is a matter of urgency so they will call me back within five minutes”.

Five minutes later (most impressed….) ‘Donna’ from service department rang and asked what the problem was so I explained.
“Can you drop it off sometime today”.
“Er no. It doesn’t have any brake lights.

Donna starts to get stoppy. “Well how do you expect us to fix your car if you won’t bring it in”.

“Excuse me, but it’s illegal to use a vehicle without any brake lights. What happen if someone runs into the back of me or I get stopped by the police. I’m not getting three points and a fine because of something that isn’t my fault”.

“Well, our technicians don’t do house call so you’ll have to bring it in’
“Sorry but this car isn’t moving. You’ll have to bring a trailer to collect it”.
“We don’t have one..”.

She then realises that she isn’t going to win this round so puts me on to her manager.
They will be collecting the car on Friday morning.

In other news. Had a lovely day at Eden Camp. For those of your who don’t know, it’s an old POW camp in Yorkshire which has been turned into a WWII museum. We didn’t however recon that it would be besieged by OAP’s who decided to take a trip down memory lane. I’ve never seen so many walking sticks, wheelchairs and motorised scooters in my life…. It was like going shopping on a Thursday afternoon in Morrisons ! ! !

Change of plan for tomorrow. Instead of going to Alnwick Castle, we’re now heading back into Yorkshire to a place called Leyburn. Rumour has it that there is a chocolate factory there ! ! !

Marie

We’re back

I’m pleased to report that we had a lovely holiday last week in Stratford upon Avon.

Had a pleasant drive down and considering it was bank holiday Monday, there wasn’t much traffic on the road which made a change.

Tuesday we went to Warwick Castle and we were most surprised to find that they had Trebuchet which they shot twice a day. Rather impressive sight.

Wednesday was spent wandering the town and shopping. Could have been seriously poor as we visited my two favourite shops – Lakeland Limited and Fred Winter which stocks some wonderful dressmaking fabric.

Thursday we visited Lapworth. Not only does it have one of the most loveliest places to have a picnic lunch but it’s also the village where I’ve based my novel.

On our way home on Friday we did a detour to Northampton to have a meeting with the hotel.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday and today were spent – yes you’ve guessed it - painting…. However the end is nigh as there’s only the top wardrobe doors to fit and a quick touch up on the walls.

That’ll have to wait until Friday as tomorrow and Thursday we’re off to Eden Camp and Alnwick Castle with my mam. Never been to both places so it should be interesting.

And finally my car went in for it’s yearly service today. Everything was fine until I arrived home.
“I think you’ll be seeing a bit more of Vardy’s”, said John who had followed me home.
“Why”.
“You drove home with no brake lights working…”

They will be getting the call from you know who tomorrow ! ! !

Marie

Stratford here we come

Sadly there may not be any bloggs for a few days as we’re off to Stratford tomorrow morning. The local library does allow non-residents the use of the internet but only 15 minutes per day. Will do our best though.

In other news, the painting is coming along nicely. Most of the glossing is done and what’s left won’t take more than half an hour to finish off.

Tested the new colour on the walls and it looks good. It covered the yellow really well that we may get away with only one coat. Here’s hoping ! ! !

So that’s about it for now. Off to start packing…

Marie

Where has the time gone

Just realised that it’s nearly a week since last blogged. So what’s to report.

Got my Uncle Frank’s cake safely delivered to my mam’s. It’s his birthday party today so hopefully everyone liked my icing efforts….

Did yet more painting – surprise, surprise. I’ve looked at the calendar and I’ve spent all of August painting. Thankfully the gloss painting is nearly finished. Yipee ! ! ! Then it’s the turn of the walls. Boo ! ! !

Had a great time at Jenny’s party at the weekend. Good food, good company – what more can you want…

Checked my nectar points and we have enough for two five pounds off meal vouchers at any Brewers Fare pub. These will come in very handy at the Red Lion in Stratford.

Only six days and counting ! ! !

Marie

De-icer

It’s my uncle Frank’s 80th birthday next Tuesday and my mam ‘volunteered’ me to make the cake for his party.

“Nothing fancy”, she said, “a large fruit cake and they wanted it decorated as well”.

My decorating skills are appalling. I have trouble rolling out marzipan so John always gets that task. Making royal icing is very much a ‘hit or miss’ affair. Sometimes it’s filling removal hard or so soft it spreads like butter.

I did suggest they might like a plain cake but no, it had to be decorated. I did get my own way with the icing. Instead of badly done royal icing snow peaks they have settled for sugar paste.

The marzipaning, although having been patched in several places, went ok. Sadly the same can’t be said for the sugar paste.

I’ve never used the stuff before so had no idea what size cake the packet will cover. I assumed, like marzipan, it would cover an eight inch cake.

Er no… At 7.30pm this evening we were hot footing it to Morrisons before they closed at 8pm to buy another packet as the cake has to be delivered tomorrow morning.

So after re-rolling it, I managed, well sort of anyway, to get the cake covered. As long as you look at it from above it looks ok….

Cake decorating is one hobby I will not be taking up ! ! !

Marie

Day at work = day off

John had to go into work today so I had a day off from painting. Yipeee ! ! ! !

The great hall painting project is going to plan. All the skirting boards, doors, door frames and staircase are painted.

I’m not going to tell you what colour it is, but when we have our party in November please remember – it’s not white. We don’t ‘do’ white….

Sorry for not blogging for a while but day time is spent painting and evenings are spent in the bath ! ! !

Tomorrow John’s up the ladder to attack the coving. It’s red at the moment so it’ll take a few coats to lighten it up a bit. I’ll be varnishing the handrail and other jobs a bit closer to the ground. I don’t ‘do’ ladders…

Marie

The kitchen and other projects

I’m pleased to report that the kitchen is practically finished. All there is to do is clean and re-grout the tiles and paint a couple of end wall cabinet pieces.

The long overdue tidy up of the garage began on Sunday.

Another project for later this year is my workroom. It’s bursting at the seams due to my ever growing craft work and also hospital radio stuff. So we’ve decided to put in more shelving and another work unit.

Regular visitors to our blog will note that we hate painting. I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would want to be a painter and decorator…

However, like ironing (which I also hate…), it must be done so that’s what I’ve been doing today. It was the turn of the spindles and the handrail to be undercoated and like last Monday I ache all over. I put some Deep Heat rub on my back this afternoon. It eased it a little but made the house stink.

The first thing John noticed when he came home from work wasn’t the smell of the paint but the pong of the Deep Heat ! ! !

Marie

Aches and pains

It’s my own fault. I push myself too far so I’ve got aching muscles and my pains are bad from having spent Monday and today painting.

I had yesterday off as I had a dentist and hospital appointments. Never got to the dentist though as my electric garage door is playing up so wouldn’t open. It does have a manual override but I’m not tall enough to put the string…

I rang the dentist to say I couldn’t make it but was too embarrassed to say I couldn’t get my garage door open so said I had a flat battery.

Thankfully the garage door did decide to open a couple of hours later so I was able to attend my hospital appointment. Lesley, my specialist nurse, noticed that my knee was swollen (from painting) so I got wrong for doing too much… Will I take any notice – no ! ! !

Got a day off from painting tomorrow as I’m going to be busy finishing off making two blouses for my mam.

However it’ll be back to work decorating this weekend. Oh goodie…

Marie

PS John says that last month we had 235 hits on our blog. However he thinks most of them were him trying to get our holiday gallery working…

Revenge is so sweet

Yesterday on our way back from the paper shop we met up with our neighbours Sandra and Alan. They too live next door to the noisy neighbours.

Sandra commented on how quiet ‘Bob the Builder’ had been this week. It turns out that Alan had had a quiet word with him - ‘if you don’t stop this bloody noise, I’ll wrap your power tools around your bloody neck’. You do not want to get on the wrong side of Sandra and Alan ! ! !

Sandra also happened to mention that our new neighbours were having a BBQ this weekend. As it rained last night (shame it wasn’t during the day so the air show could have been cancelled…) it was postponed until today.

This weekend John was installing the new doors in the kitchen while I was busy putting white undercoat on the red bits in our hall. Yes, we’re finally getting rid of our red, gold and yellow hallway.

One of the new doors needed to be made smaller so John popped into the garage to saw a bit off. Seeing as the new neighbours were busy with their BBQ, he decided to make as much noise as possible with his power tools.

Nothing like a taste of their own medicine….

Marie

A round up of the news

We spent the weekend doing phase two of the kitchen - putting in new worktops and sink. Next weekend (airshow weekend) will be phase three – the new doors.

It’s taking some getting used to the new worktops as they are black. I always said I’d never had dark worktops as I thought they would be unhygienic because you can’t see any dirt. However having seen how well it went with the new doors in B&Q’s showroom I changed my mind. I have a feeling though that I might become obsessive with cleaning them for a while – until the novelty wears off ! ! !

Sadly we had a little blip in our diet on Saturday. As the kitchen was a mess, there was no water and we were both knackered (well John actually. All I did was supervise…), I decided it would be quicker and easier if we had a takeaway. Macdonalds large BigMac meals have never tasted so good…

We also had another blip in the diet today but it was for a very good reason. It’s John’s birthday today. After he finished work this morning - he normally takes the whole day off but had to go in for a couple of hours - we went to the best Chinese restaurant in the entire universe for lunch.

I mentioned a couple of days that even though we live by the seaside we don’t get good weather, well today was one of those rare occasions when the sun does actually shine. The Chinese restaurant is right opposite the seafront and probably for the first time this year, there were people on the beach.

There were even a couple of very brave souls who ventured into the sea...

Marie

Living by the seaside….

Isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Today was supposed to be the hottest day on record. There were fears about people getting badly sun burnt (though what do you expect if the latest scaremongers claim sunscreens don’t work); schools closing because of the heat; roads melting; the national grid might go into overload so there could be power cuts etc, etc.

We live less than 800 yards from the sea and in seaside places such as Scarborough, Blackpool, Brighton our street would filled with guest houses. It isn’t.

Whilst the rest of the country enjoyed beautiful sunshine, here in Fulwell we had sea fret*. The fog horns have been sounding all day and it was rather depressing looking out of the window to see grey sky and fret blowing past the window.

The sun did eventually come out but not until late afternoon. Now it’s back to dull grey.

This happens quite regularly but still catches quite a lot of people out. Go five miles inland and it’s a glorious day. People suddenly decide to flock to the beach only to be extremely disappointed.

About one or twice a year we do have lovely weather so it can make for a pleasant stroll along the sea front. However everyone else has the same idea so it can get quite busy…

I will however, be praying that the fret comes again not this weekend but next (29th/30th) as it’s the Sunderland International Airshow. It’s the largest free airshow in Europe so one million people descend on us every day. It’s hell on Earth ! ! !

For two days we’re virtual prisoners in our own home as we can’t get in or out because of the traffic. The aircraft noise is horrendous and the vibrations are so bad that it sets off car and house alarms. Normally we go away but this year we’re doing some DIY in the kitchen.

I just hope we don’t need any thing urgent at B&Q. One year it took John two hours to drive two miles to do an errand for his mam. I think it might be quicker if he’d walked ! ! !

Marie


* Local term for fog/mist

No more swaying

I’m pleased to report that I’ve got my dry land legs back so the swaying and feeling sick have gone. It was a rather strange experience suffering from seasickness while on dry land.

In other news. We’ve started our diet again so our nine o’clock glass(s..) of wine have stopped.

So has the large hunk of cheese and crackers on Wednesday night washed down with a bottle of wine; the packet of crisps on a Thursday night; the free packet of prawn crackers with our Chinese on Friday night.

If you can think of anything else we’ve missed please let us know.

Marie

Holiday Pics !!!

Yes - they're finally here.

Take a look at the links in the sidebar on the right and click on Holiday Pictures.

John

ps for those of you who were wondering why it took so long, I had mixed case in the filenames and the B***** unix server that hosts the site couldn't cope. Give me VMS any day ...

I see no ships

We’re back on dry land but Marie is suffering from seasickness !!!

At least that’s what the doctor said. Thinking it was an ear infection Marie went to see the doctor and was told that there’s no infection but she’s got a sort of “dry land” seasickness. No problems at all on the ship but now she’s swaying whenever she stands up, and suffers nausea then she tries to read, type, look at a computer screen etc.

Personally I think she’s sea sick in the same sense as home sick. Missing the sea and wants to go back.

Sorry no gallery yet. It’s coming, but as I’ve said before, I hate HTML …

John

Home Sweet Home

Yes – we’re back, safe and sound. Well safe anyway.

If you have ever been on a ship before you will know that for a few hours after you leave you continue to sway a little as you sit, stand and walk. Well, Marie is still swaying. Looks like a bit of vertigo brought on by two flights on Saturday and the after affects of her cold.

You’ll be pleased to know that our luggage made it home safe and sound. You don’t know how pleased we were to see it at Newcastle Airport.

We’re currently putting a link to some pictures in the sidebar on the right, and a full “back home” blog will follow soon.

John

Stormy Weather

Today is Friday - this must be Bonifacio, right. WRONG - this is Portevecchia !

You'll be pleased to know that the Captain calmed down after his swimming pool rant yesterday. However, as we were about to leave Genoa he came on the PA to say that the weather in Bonifacio was bad. Force 6 winds and rough seas. As we were to anchor and get the tender ashore this was bad news. So we diverted. Not that it bothered us. Corsica is Corsica.

We went to dinner last night expecting a quite table for two but were turned away !!

They told us to come back in fifteen minutes as we were to eat with the officers. The Hotel Director who is in charge of accommodation, food and drink on the ship invited us and two other couple to dine with him at the Captains table. OK, the Captain wasn't actually there, but hey, it's still pretty good.

No blog tomorrow as we vacate the ship at 9:30 for the flights home. Roundup to follow on Sunday, plus a link to some pictures.

Marie and John

The Italian Job

... or - I want my MTV

Today we docked at Genoa. A lot of people thought we ought to have docked in PortoFino next door as it's much prettier. It turns out that Genoa has ship repair facilities and the docking was to replace the satellite television dish.

This is in a sort of "golfball" about ten feet across. Anyway, the workmen started to remove the old one with an angle grinder, sending clouds of dust across the pool deck and all five people sitting around it.

Enter the Captain, incandescent with rage. He points to the pool, then points to the workmen, then lays in to their boss. Boss then points to the pool and lays in to the workmen. Hoses are produced to damp down the dust and the pool is drained. An uneasy truce was declared, but being Italians this was done with much hand waving and shouting.

Other than this it's been a lazy day, sitting by the pool and watching our next door neighbour in port. It's called the Costa Concordia and it's reputed to be the biggest cruise ship operating in Europe (4000 passengers against our ship's 295). Today is it's maiden voyage so the quayside has been a bit busy.

We're off to Corsica tonight at 6 pm and even though we don't leave the ship until Saturday morning, tonight is the Captains farewell party. Let's hope he's calmed down ...

Marie and John

Monte Carlo Or Bust !!!

We're blogging a bit later today as there are no needlework classes so Marie has an afternoon off.

We spent this morning walking the Grand Prix circuit.

Wow - what a difference. It's great to see Monte Carlo when the streets aren't lined with stalls selling tat and the bars aren't full of Italians celebrating the purchase of yet another Ferrari badged piece of tat.

It's also interesting to look over the waterfront and not have to look through a grey-blue haze that smells of burnt rubber and Castrol-R. The Castrol reference was especially for those who remember a bygone age of motor racing.

They say that where there's muck there's money so how can somewhere so clean be so wealthy. The place is dripping in ostentatious wealth, but there's no obvious sign of wealth creation.

It's a remarkable place. We spent the morning looking around the city centre and then after a fortifying lunch back on board, we took a trip round the Grand Prix circuit.

Beginning at the start line it was off to Ste Devote and then up the hill. Past the location of Rosies Bar (where in the good old days mechanics used to drink all night) and the Tip-Top bar, then a brief rest at the top of the hill, by the Hotel De Paris. Magnificent. Next was casino square. What can you say about such a place. The history, the architecture.

But no time to waste if we're to get back to the ship in time for afternoon tea. So it’s down to the Mirabeau, round the hairpins and into the tunnel under the Grand Hotel. Out of the tunnel, and a quick left-right flick round the “new” chicane, hard left at tabac and past the swimming pool. Never seen it with water in before.

Now for the final sector, round the back of the pits, the scene of the original pitlane, then round Rascasse, which used to be the town gasworks but is now a fine restaurant, and on to the last corner, and the most difficult on the circuit, the virage Anthony Noghes, with it’s adverse camber before heading back to the start line.

Off for afternoon tea now, then tonight we set sail for Genoa

Marie and John

ps spent yesterday afternoon watching dolphins from our veranda !!!

That Riviera Touch

... or ... Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Today we anchored off St Tropez and took the tender ashore. Boy, was it hot. The place is fine if you like (expensive) shops but it does have a lot of tat on sale along the waterfront. We bought a picture. It cost 15 euros. Guess where we bought it ...

Other than that it's been a lazy day. Back to the ship, several cold drinks by the pool then a nice lunch (with wine !!).

Nothing to do now except laze around until we get to Monte Carlo tonight.

John and Marie

ps Marie has been conscripted to help teach needlework classes !!

We Are Sailing !!!

Great News !!!

When we got back to our suite the luggage fairy had made a delivery. Our suitcases had arrived.

We were going to title this blog “all at sea”, which is true. We’re en route from Barcelona to St Tropez, leaving Barcelona 11pm Sunday and arriving St Tropez 8 am Tuesday.

The ship doesn’t really go that slowly, all Silversea cruises spend an entire day at sea.. Normally during the day people are either out exploring, shopping or on organised trips (a bit like HBA conferences) so the ship can be a bit empty. Not that this bothers us, but during the day at sea, it’s a great way to get to know people, after all, everyone has to be there.

You’ll be pleased to know that the food is of it’s usual standard, as is the wine. Service is six star and the staff are very friendly. I think it’s because tipping is not allowed. They’re not in competition with one another and have the time to talk to you. One think that comes over is that all the staff genuinely seem to enjoy being there.

Off to visit the on-board shops next ...

Marie and John

Important blog information

The ships computer system thinks it's Thursday 29th June so please ignore the dates and times on blog entries. It's really Sunday 2nd July right now.

John & Marie

Holiday Checklist

Holiday checklist item no :

215 Charge camera battery Done
216 Install holiday blog header Done
217 Retrieve sunglasses from car Done
218 ...

John

100 and counting.

No, it hasn’t any thing to do with our holiday (t-20 hours and counting…) but the number of blogs we’ve done.

It doesn’t seem that long ago since we did our maiden blog on 25th October. Since then here’s some of the things we’ve shared with you:

Our new neighbours (who still by the way are constantly banging and hammering…).

The quirkiness of my mam (she did two great motherisms yesterday while at Sainsburys which I’ll save for later).

Our various ailments (including two trips to the A&E department).

My various culinary disasters (I am quite a good cook – honest ! ! ).

Our wine cellar (which will be restocked shortly…).

Me being the customer from hell and having tantrums in Morrisons.

Our various DIY projects (and our hatred of the paint company with an X in their name).

And the arrival of Gertie.

Here’s to the next 100 blogs…

Marie

Feeling excited

We’ve stopped counting down to our holiday in days and are now down to hours. Lift off from Newcastle is t-34 hours and counting…

We’ve done the first sift through the clothes, having decided what’s not coming. Tomorrow afternoon will be the final sift.

Update on the cold. One minute my nose is running like a tap and the next I’m bunged up. Been putting plenty of vaseline * on it so I’m looking a bit like Rudolph.

Marie

* it’s supposed to stop me getting cold sores – never works though…

BARCELONA !!!

... but only just

Thanks to faulty air-con the flight from Newcastle to Gatwick was delayed. We caught the flight to Barcelona with seconds to spare. Our luggage wasn't so lucky ...

As of 9:30 am Sunday we're still waiting for it.

Now onto the good bits.

It’s a bit of a strange thing, saying that the cruise runs from Barcelona to Rome when all you see of the two cities is the road from the airport to the docks. But hey, we’ve still got St Tropez, Monte Carlo, Genoa and Bonifacio to go. It’s going to be great seeing Monte Carlo when there isn’t a Grand Prix and the streets aren’t full of stalls selling Ferrari branded tat.

The shipping company collected us from the airport and whisked us across to the port and our ship. As soon as you see the port you start straining your eyes and asking “Which one is ours”. In fact ours is probably the smallest cruise ship in the port. Maximum capacity is only 265 people. But then we find small groups much better. Silversea ships have just one restaurant, no matter who you are, and you can eat at any time you wish, and sit with anyone you wish. On the really big ships, you can only eat in the restaurant that matches the level of your ticket, and sometimes you can only sit on a certain table and eat at a certain time. No thanks, we prefer the Silversea method.

Speaking of food, the company claim that you can put on as much as four pounds a day if you really try. Think about it, you can have an early breakfast in your suite (definitely NOT a “cabin”) , then a second breakfast from the buffet in the terrace café, plus a third breakfast in the restaurant. Come eleven o’clock and the poolside grill will be open. You can have two lunches, one in the terrace café and a second in the restaurant. Then it’s back to the poolside grill (and bar!!) before afternoon tea (with the most delicate sandwiches you have ever seen). Finally there is dinner in the restaurant, usually quite formal. There is an informal buffet style dinner in the café, and of course if you’re still peckish room service is free. Add in unlimited wine, beer or cocktails and you can see where they get their four pounds a day. I presume that on the three week cruises passengers explode before the end. I should point out that we only have one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner each.

Off to our suite now to see if the luggage fairy has left us anything.

John & Marie

Feeling better

After my bath last night I felt so rotten that I didn’t even have a glass of medicinal ! ! ! Instead I curled up on the settee with a mug of hot chocolate and a hot water bottle.

I’m pleased to report that I’m feeling much better today. My sore throat has gone but I’ve still got the sniffles.

3 days to go. Yippee ! ! ! ! !

Marie

Feeling rotten

I’ve got the lergy ! ! !

My throat is sore. I’ve got the sniffles and the sneezes and I’m aching all over.

The timing for this is perfect. Not…

Off to have a long hot bath then a drop of medicinal - to help me sleep you understand.

I could be drinking vinegar for all I know as I can’t taste a thing ! ! !

Marie

I don’t believe it

There’s only five days to go before our cruise and guess what I’ve got – a sore throat…

I’m hoping that it’s just a sore throat and not the start of a cold. I’m taking paracetamols as they are supposed to help fight sore throats and colds. Plus I’m drinking lots of fluids and sucking extra strong throat lozenges.

Typical ! ! !

Marie

Christmas is coming

Today is June 25th which means that Christmas is only 6 months away.

Today is also Paddington Bear’s birthday.

Marie

PS only 6 days to our holidays…

One week to go

This time next week we’ll have arrived in Barcelona and already drinking the glass of chilled champagne that had been thrusted into our hands (it would be bad mannered to refuse…) when we first boarded the ship.

It doesn’t seem that long ago since I set outlook on my computer to reminder me when it was eight months, seven months etc to go. Now it’s only seven days away.

Yippee ! ! ! !

Marie

Opps I did it again

No I haven’t had another disaster with John’s trousers…I’ve overfilled the bath again. Thankfully I caught it just in time but did have to let some out again.

I’m so glad we don’t have a water shortage in the North East otherwise I’d be fined every time I take a bath. In my defence the bath fills up much quicker since we had the boiler replaced in December.

Only 10 days to our holidays. Yippee ! ! ! !

Marie

PS called in at B&Q and PC World tonight and boy were they empty. Wish England would play every Thursday so it’s quiet when we go shopping at Morrisions…

Fathers day

Seeing as I did a blog for Mothers day it's only right to do one for Fathers day.

Sadly my dad is no longer with us as he died of cancer aged 65 on 17th May 2004. I was going to do a blog on his anniversary but thought Fathers day was more appropriate.

So what was my dad like. He was a life long labour supporter so must have wondered where he went wrong when his two daughters became yellow and blue supporters.

He used to be a butcher but couldn’t bring himself to slaughter the animals so wasn’t able to become a master butcher. I think I was a bit of an embarrassment to him as I can’t bear to touch meat. If I have to then I’ll only do it with rubber gloves on.

His favourite football teams were Liverpool and Sunderland. I was only four when Sunderland won the FA Cup in 1973 but can vividly remember my dad screaming when they scored a goal. He woke me up so got told off by my mam.

He liked most sports, especially cricket. In his younger days he used to play for the local team. I can always remember we used to fight over the television as he wanted to watch cricket while I wanted Wimbledon.

He was a quiet, placid man who listened a lot. I can honestly say that I never saw him loose his temper. Apparently when he did, which was extremely rare, he made his feelings known…

He liked plain and simple food with Sunday dinner being his favourite. He wouldn’t, no matter how you tried, eat anything foreign.

He was a creature of habit to which you could almost set your watch by him. When he went off to church (the working men’s club but he liked to call it church) he would meet up with his drinking chum. He would leave the house at precisely 8.23pm. Not a minute before or a minute after. He was like that for most things.

Whereas my sister was (and still is…) my mam’s favourite, I was always daddy girl.

He was a lovely dad and I think about and miss him everyday.

Marie

Opps

I made a slight boo-boo whilst sewing this afternoon.

I bought John some new trousers for our cruise a couple of weeks ago and have only just today got round to turning up the hems.

There were four trousers in all, each with a different amount to be hemmed so I doubled checked each trouser to make sure I took the right amount off. I should say I did until pair number four.

It was only after I had cut a piece off the bottom of the leg did I realise that I had in fact mixed up inches and centimetres. Instead of four centimetres, I had removed four inches ! ! !

Oh dear…

So it was off to Matalan for a replacement pair. Thankfully they were only £14. I would have cried if they had been expensive.

I’m now beginning to wonder if I did the same thing for the other three…

Marie

Overdue

Just checked and the last time I blogged was Tuesday so one is overdue. Sadly though there isn’t a great deal to report.

John went back to work today having been off all last week with the flu.

My parcel from Amazon finally arrived on Thursday.

Had a good moan with Sandra, our neighbour two doors down, about our new neighbours and the constant banging. Sandra lives on the other side of them so knows all too well about it. She’s not very happy about them either. Upset Sandra at your peril. If you thought I was bad, Sandra is worse ! ! !

Managed to finish off the two cocktail dresses I was making for our cruise (two weeks and five days…). Gertie really came in useful, so much so that I wonder how I ever coped without her.

Went out in the sun on Saturday without my factor 60 so although I’m not sunburnt, my arms and neck have come out in a rash * Lovely ! ! !

That’s about it for now. Told you there wasn’t much to report…

Marie

* I have an allergy to the sun. It has a fancy name called polymorphic light eruption.

Bet she wished she hadn’t turned in today

Today is Tuesday and guess that didn’t arrive - my parcel from Amazon which the little man from the Royal Mail said would come today.

Time to ruin someone’s morning ! ! ! They must have got wind that I would be calling as the phone was engaged. However I’m not put off that easily.

I redialled again and one of the options on offer was to make a complaint. Perfect.

The poor girl didn’t stand a chance. I appreciate it wasn’t her fault, but hey if you work in the complaints department what do you expect. After much shouting:

“I will send an email to them asking for your parcel to be re-delivered on Thursday”.
“I was told previously by yourselves that they don’t look at their emails very often”.
“Well they are supposed to”.
“So will my parcel definitely be here on Thursday”.
“No, I can’t guarantee that”.
“Why not”.
“They might not have looked at their emails. Ring back on Thursday morning to see if they have. If not I’ll send them another email to arrange another day”.

I give up ! ! !

Marie

PS John’s still got the lergy. It must be bad as he’s gone off alcohol ! ! !

Six months down the line

Something lighter today following yesterdays blog.

First things first. John’s got the lergy. It started late on Saturday (must be a reaction to all the credit card usage in the Metro Centre…). Yesterday he spent the entire day in bed. I’ve had to keep him off school today as he still not very well.

So back to the main event.

On the second of January I wrote in a blog about my ‘want’ list for the coming year. As we’re half way through the year I thought I’d check to see how I’ve got one.

1: I want to win the lottery. It doesn’t matter if it’s the normal lottery, the extra or the Euro. As long as it’s the jackpot and is over £1m I’m not bothered.

Still paupers I’m afraid.

2: I want to lose a stone and a half in weight.

I did loose four pound but put it back on over our mammoth chocolate eating spree at Easter.

3: I want to finish my novel.

Never touched it.

4: I want to continue my piano lessons.

Other than dusting the piano, never been near it.


Pathetic ! ! !

In my defence.

Number 1: It’s not my fault they’re choosing the wrong numbers.

Number 2: Because of my IBS, my weight is always up and down so I could have lost the weight but didn’t know about it (ok clutching at straws a bit ! ! ! ). Once our holidays are over I’m going to make a serious commitment to loose the weight.

Number 3 and 4: It’s been a very hectic six months so my free time has been extremely limited. However after October I’ll have a lot more time on my hands so will be able to put pen to paper and tickle the ivorys….

Marie

Ding dong the witch is dead

I make no apologies for this blog.

Yesterday when we were shopping at the Metro Centre for things for our cruise (27 days and counting…) I happened to bump into an old work colleague who I hadn’t seen since I had hip done in 1998.

We got chatting with the usual how are you, etc and she mentioned that our old boss had died of cancer last December. She was quite upset about it so I tried to appear sympathetic. However inside I was jumping for joy singing ‘ding, dong the witch is dead’. This woman was one of three of the most vilest, nastiest, bigoted people you could ever have the misfortune to meet *.

With the exception of the above mentioned colleague, the office crawler and the office snitch, she was hated by every single member of her staff.

On occasions when departments were short handed, staff would work there for a couple of days to help them out. There was always grumbles from staff as they didn’t like being moved. We loved it as it gave us a couple of days away from her. I wouldn’t say our boss was disliked but other departments eventually refused to help us out because of the way she treat her staff.

I had a couple of run-ins with her, including one which resulted in me having to make an official complaint for harassment and discrimination. I first took my complaint to her boss but she refused to do anything about it (bad move, but then they were as thick as thieves), so I took it to the harassment officer.

I was about to have my hip done so would be on sick leave for several months but was assured that it would be dealt with. I never did find out exactly what happened as I was off work for 18 months. However I did find out that my boss was eventually moved to a department with no staff under her and ‘advised’ to withdraw her application for promotion, and that her boss having been summoned to work on her day off, was told she was to be moved to another department, again with no staff under her, with immediate affect.

I’m glad she is dead and pleased that she was in pain for much of her illness. She used to enjoy holidays in the sun, well where she has gone it’ll be lovely and warm for her ! ! !

Marie

* The other two: One is already in the warm place and the other unfortunately is still with us…

It’s amazing what you can do when you shout

Yesterday the postman tried to deliver a parcel but as it was childminder day I was out when he called.

Even though Amazon said it wouldn’t be here until the 6th at the earliest I knew it would come on Friday. Everything comes on a Friday, no matter when we order things. Order on a Monday with next day delivery and more often enough there’s a problem so guess when it comes. We’ve even tried ordering our wine on Wednesday as they say it can take 14 day delivery. Guess when it comes, yep two days later…

Sorry, I’m digressing. So this morning I ran the Royal Mail depot to arrange a re-delivery. As usual you never get to speak to a human being so I was in the middle of leaving a message on their answer machine when a human voice butted in.

Having explained that I wanted a re-delivery I was told I’d have to ring back on Monday after 3pm as my parcel hadn’t arrived at depot and they can’t arrange re-delivery without the parcel being there.

Customer from hell mode took over. “Sorry but that’s not good enough. Every time I have to arrange a re-delivery, it takes two, sometime three phone calls because you can’t be bothered to pick up the phone; don’t even bother to call me back when promised, or simply don’t re-deliver when asked to do so”.

My parcel will be with me on Tuesday. Woe betide if it isn’t ! ! !

Margo Ledbetter eat your heart out…

Marie

Under warranty

I had to go back to the dentist this afternoon as I was still having toothache.

The intense pain when drinking anything hot or cold had gone but it was extremely painful when touched.

When I rang the dentist this morning I had the choice of either seeing Kim, my usual dentist, tomorrow at 1.30pm or being seen this afternoon by another dentist. As much as I like Kim I couldn’t wait until tomorrow so settled for the latter.

Seems simple enough – err not quite. We are talking about the NHS and their new dental charges…The receptionist explained that there were two queries.

Query 1: They would have to charge me £15.50 because I’m not been seen by my usual dentist. If I was prepared to suffer in agony another day there would be no charge.

Query 2: Even though my toothache came on while I was in the middle of on-going treatment, because they had signed me off on Tuesday I would have to pay another £42.40. It didn’t matter that Kim said to come back if I had any more problems with my tooth.

These were my options. Suffer until my next 6 monthly check-up. Pull out the offending tooth myself or pay up. I decided to go for option three.

So back to the tooth. Having told the dentist (who was really nice) my symptoms, it turns out that I have an infection in the nerve.

The only treatment is to remove the nerve completely, leave the 'wound' open then fill it up later. As the infection is quite bad I've got to take antibiotics for seven days. Thankfully I can still drink ! ! !

While I was thanking her for seeing me at such short notice she said she was going to waver the £15.50 and put the work done today and the two necessary follow up appointments as on-going work from Tuesday – thus saving me another £42.40.

Guess when I have to go back – 25th July at 11.00am which was when my appointment was to have been originally…

Marie

Numb, numb

I’m pleased to report that I was able to get an emergency appointment at my dentist this afternoon so didn’t need to add the dental hospital to my list of A&E’s visited this year.

Having been poked, prodded and x-rayed, nothing untoward was found so she decided to remove the existing filling just in case it was leaking.

While she was busy drilling it occurred to her that she could do the small filling and polish which were still outstanding *.

I came away from the dentist £42.40 poorer and with an extremely numb mouth having had both side of my mouth frozen…

Fingers crossed my tooth will be ok as I don’t have much luck when it comes to toothache. The last two occasions resulted in paying a fortune for the pleasure (or should that be torture ! ! ! ) in having them removed.

Marie

* My original appointment was 13th February but couldn’t make it because of my ankle. It was re-scheduled to 8th May but my dentist slipped a disk in her neck so the next available appointment was 25th July.

Roving toothache

On Saturday I developed toothache after eating ice-cream. I have sensitive teeth so have to be careful eating or drinking anything cold otherwise it’s oww, oww, oww…

The toothache started in one of my lower back ones, then worked its way up to the upper teeth and ending at my upper front ones. I took some painkillers and it settled down for a while.

When I woke up on Sunday the pain had gone. My yippee turned into oww the second I took a mouthful of orange juice. The pain has now decided to put all its energy into one of my upper front teeth.

So tomorrow morning I’m going to have to either ask my dentist for an emergency appointment or it’s a trip to the Dental A&E.

If it is the latter then that’ll be three different A&E departments visited in the past 4 months…

Marie

Gripping

The tickets for our holiday arrived today. Now that may not sound much, but when you book with Silversea they come in a nice box covered in silver foil, and the tickets themselves are in a leather wallet, together with much more information about the cruise itinery. So far so good.

But then we checked the flights on the BA website to make sure the company had booked the right ones. Only Marie's bath was running ....

No, we didn't get a wet floor, but we had a very full bath. Full of VERY hot water. So all Marie had to do was let some out so she could put some cold in. Except how do you put the plug back in if the water is scalding hot.

Then I had this idea. Many years ago Marie was immobile after an operation. The hospital gave her one of those "grasper" tools with a handle on one end and a pair of grips on the other. Just the thing to plunge into the water, remove the plug, and replace it after letting out the right amount of water.

OK, so it's not exciting, but it's not as bad as yesterdays joke.

John

Groan

John found this joke on KGB’s website *

A couple go for a meal at a Chinese restaurant and order the "Chicken Surprise." The waiter brings the meal, served in a lidded, cast iron pot.

Just as the wife is about to serve herself, the lid of the pot rises slightly and she briefly sees two beady little eyes looking around before the lid slams back down.

"Good grief, did you see that?" she asks her husband.

He hasn't, so she asks him to look in the pot. He reaches for it and again the lid rises, and he sees two little eyes looking around before it slams down.

Rather perturbed, he calls the waiter over, explains what is happening, and demands an explanation.

"Please sir," says the waiter, "what you order?"

The husband replies, "Chicken Surprise."

"Ah... so sorry," says the waiter, "I bring you Peking Duck."

Marie


* Not THE KGB but the blog of one Kevin G Barkes

How did that get in there

Yesterday we had to go to down to London for a meeting. We had to be in London for 11am and as GNER were yet again doing engineering work, the rail network was a shambles. So we had no option but to fly.

Bleary eyed, well wouldn’t you having got up at 4am… we arrived at Newcastle airport and because of the wonders of the internet didn’t need to check in having already reserved our seated and printed off the boarding cards the night before.

For once we both got straight through the metal detector at the security gates. I usually set them off but that’s what you get when you have a metal hip ! ! !

We weren’t so lucky with John’s bag as there was something inside they didn’t like.

‘Oh it’s probably the stapler. It always looks suspicious’.
‘Not this time, it’s a pair of scissors’.

‘Scissors’, we both cried then tried wracking our brains as to how they could end up in John’s bag.

It turns out that they were a very old pair of kitchen scissors that John kept in his tool bag. They must have fallen out when the bag was last used at Blackpool conference.

The little security man said we couldn’t take them with us, but we could either get a jiffy bag and post them home or check-in John’s bag. Considering the cost of posting them home or the hassle of checking in the bag we decided to leave them at the airport.

Another lethal weapon to add to their collection…

Marie

A tweak here and a tweak there

Last night was the first time since Gertie came to live in the Bogof household that I’ve have time to ‘programme her in’, so to speak.

For those of you who don’t know what a tailors dummy is, it’s an adjustable mannequin which is used to aid dressmaking.

John very kindly helped measure my vital statistics and these were then put into Gertie.

She still wasn’t quite my body double as I don’t have a small bust or a washboard stomach so this morning she became the proud owner of a padded bra and a spare tyre around her middle.

If this is not an incentive to diet I don’t know what is ! ! !

Marie

Motherisms

Regular visitors to our blog will know my mam is a little quirky. Yesterday was a good day.

It started with the milk. As you know she is obsessed about milk and best-before dates. Well, I noticed the coffee was a little creamy (you would just think it had been made with full cream instead of semi-skimmed) and I made the mistake of telling her this.

‘I noticed it started to go off on Monday’, she replied. She only bought it on Saturday and the BBD wasn’t up until 14th May. She was convinced she could taste the deterioration in the milk as each day went by…

As she put the milk back in the fridge I noticed the thermostat was lower than normal so mentioned this as it could have been the cause of the creamy milk.

Bad move. I tried to convince her that the food would be fine as the dial was only down two notches. No doubt her wheelie bin had a good feed that night.

On Monday she asked if she could try on one of the pairs of trousers I was sending back to my catalogue. She was already keeping a black pair in the same style so wondered what the stone one would look like.

Having tried them on, they were too big. She then decided that she might not keep the black pair as she had gone off the idea of wearing them seeing as the stone ones didn’t fit. Don’t ask ! ! !

Then she took both pairs and laid them on top of one another. Even though the black pair fitted perfectly, she was adamant that if they were the same size then the black pair was going back. Again don’t ask ! ! !

Thankfully the black pair was smaller…

Marie

See for yourself

In case you were wondering why there was no picture of Gertie on the blog, all can now be revealed. I re-installed windows not so long ago and forgot to re-install Explorer Version 6. And with a low-5 version you don't get the Blogger post editor toolbar, and without that you can't add pictures. It's now done, so here's a picture of Gertie for you.

I'm sure everyone will be pleased to know that Gertie has settled into the Bogof household very quickly and has already proved to be a great asset. Every home should have one !!!

John

Just for you Jan

As Jan quite rightly said on Saturday night we are ‘boring old farts’ for not blogging so thought I’d put one together. Well it was either this or do some hospital radio work. The former wins hands down ! ! !

We never did get our early night last night as we stumbled across a programme on Channel 4 about one hit wonders so stayed up to watch that.

John had to take his car in for a service and MOT this morning and as I had to pick him up from the garage and take him to work it meant an earlier than usual alarm call.

After dropping John off at work I had planned to go straight to my mams but a call of nature meant I had to dash home instead. Too much information I hear you cry…

Once back from my mams (it was only a flying visit to drop off some bottled water and a couple of pairs of trousers) I then had to catch up on some three letter word * stuff.

This afternoon was spent in a more pleasurable way – watching more of my new Buffy DVD’s.

Normally at this time I would be looking forward to a glass (or two) of wine but we’re back on our diet so no wine tonight. Grump, grump.

Marie


* HBA

Exhausted

Having got told off this weekend by our friend Jan * for not blogging for ages I thought I better do one.

So why am I exhausted, well we’ve just come back from a wonderful weekend away in Derby/Nottingham for the wedding of our friends Chris and Jenny.

Two very long nights spent in the hotel bar have finally caught up with me. Sorry to Jan, Andy and John for keeping you up so late on Saturday…

An early night is called for ! ! !

Marie

* It was more on the lines of ‘you haven’t blogged for ages you boring old farts’.

A new arrival

We have a new member to the Bogof household. Her name is Gertrude (or Gertie for short) and she’s my new tailors dummy.

When she arrived she was lovely and slim. However now, having put my measurements into her, she’s rather tubby ! ! !

I was going to show you a picture of her ‘naked’ but this is a respectable blog…

Marie

Spend, spend, spend

John came home from work on Thursday with a lovely surprise. Every member of staff had been given a bonus and his was a four figure sum ! ! !

Seeing as John worked hard for his bonus it was only fair to let him decide how it should be spent. So it’s being split three ways. John, me and the house.

John has bought himself a new digital camera.

I’ve bought myself a tailors dummy, the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD (yes I know I’m sad…) and series eight, nine and ten of M*A*S*H on DVD. I’ve also done something which my gender doesn’t do – I haven’t spent it all ! ! ! !

The house has decided it would like its share to go towards DIY projects.

Marie

Easter weekend

I’m pleased to report that both banned weekends went splendidly.

Hospital radio wasn’t mentioned all weekend which was wonderful – could get used to this - and our banned food were yummy ! ! !

We spent Good Friday, Saturday and Easter Monday painting. Well isn’t that what Bank Holidays are for…

There’s still a little bit more work to do next weekend so once it’s completed some before and after pictures will be posted.

We had a good try at eating all the Christmas chocolate over the weekend but I’m afraid to report that we failed miserably. There’s still two half bars of Toblerone left plus a hardly touched box of Flake chocolates from my mam (she decided to give us them instead of an Easter egg).

All this chocolate isn’t helping our diet. There’s only 10 weeks to our holiday and we promised ourselves to try and lose a bit of weight before then.

Once the chocolate is all gone we will get back to our diet – honest ! ! !

Marie

Banned weekend

No I don’t mean the thing we banned in yesterday’s blog, but something else.

Every bank holiday we have a banned weekend. This is a weekend where food that is normally forbidden because they’re too fattening is allowed.

So this weekend we’re having bacon sandwiches, sandwiches from our local deli, pate, hot dogs, garlic bread, nan bread and chicken Kiev. Plus lots of chocolate, cake, and hot cross buns.

Can’t wait for the next bank holiday ! ! !

Marie

Normal service has resumed

Yes folks, we’re back. Blackpool conference and hospital radio work I’m afraid took up rather a lot of our time, hence no blogs.

To protect our sanity and give us a bit of a break we’re made an executive decision that from now until the end of Easter the subject of HR will be banned.

So what else has happened while we’ve been away. I’m pleased to report that the cold sores in my eye has cleared up and no damage has been done.

I’m in the wars again. Last Saturday I was a bit over zealous chopping an onion and chopped my finger nail instead. I couldn’t bear another trip to A&E so we managed to patched it up ourselves. Whilst I was at the doctors on Wednesday collecting a prescription, I asked the nurse to have a look at it. It’s still looks a bit yucky but is ok. However until the nail has grown back I have to keep it covered with a plaster. Thankfully the chemist had a 3 for 2 offer on plasters…

We now know why there was a lot of banging, hammering etc coming from next door. We don’t think they are very quick at DIY. They are having a brick wall build at the front and it’s taken them two weeks to remove the old small wall and two days to lay a wall nine bricks high. When we had the same thing done it only took a day to do.

We had loads of chocolate left from Christmas so decided to hide them and eat at Easter instead of an Easter egg. As there was too much chocolate to physically eat in a couple of days we decided to start early. Monday and Tuesday saw us polish off a dark and a milk Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Yesterday was half a box of chocolate truffles. Tonight will be the other half… Still to eat is a box of Celebrations and two large Toblerones – and not a ‘Steve’ in sight ! ! !

Marie

Eye eye

Typical. No blog for days then two comes along…

All day Friday and Saturday my right eye was really itchey and sore. I had a bit of a poke around but couldn’t find anything wrong.

This morning I found out why my eye was so itchy and sore. A nice clump of cold sores had appeared both near and in my eye.

Normally I would have gone straight to the doctors as cold sores in the eye can cause you to go blind if the infection spreads. However this is a weekend and our doctor surgery only work weekdays, it meant a trip to the A&E department of the local Eye Hospital.

Thankfully we only had to wait 1 1/2 hours as the notice board said the waiting time is between 2 to 3 hours, and longer at weekends.

As the cold sores have affected only the white part of my eye, I don’t have to take oral antibiotics. I have them in eye drop form instead. Excellent news as I wouldn’t have been able to drink at Blackpool if I were on the tablets. Yippee ! ! !

At the moment my eye is painful, swollen and blurred, and doing nothing for the bags under my eyes…. Hopefully it won’t get to the purple stage as that’s when it resembles a black eye.

You can image the comments I’ll get next week. I think I’ll have a ‘it’s not a black eye’ badge printed just in case….

Marie

Mothers Day

As it’s Mothers day I thought I’d tell you a little bit about my mam.

I’ve already mentioned previously that she thinks everyone is telepathic. What I haven’t told you is that she has a finely tuned sense of smell, taste and hearing.

She can smell Carbon Monoxide. Gloria, her next door neighbour, had a leak of Carbon Monoxide and my mam claims she could smell it seeping though the walls.

She knows when the food is nearing its ‘best before date’ as she can gradually taste it going off. This happens especially with milk .When the ‘bbd’ is up everything suddenly tastes awful. Whenever I’m shopping for her, I must make sure that the date stamp is well in advance otherwise she won’t have it.

Confession time – I once bought her some milk and forgot to look at the date stamp. It only had two days to go and knowing her obsession, tore the label off so she wouldn’t know. I half expected a phone call two days later complaining about the milk. No phone call. A week later and she was still using the milk…

She came to ours for Christmas day and was convinced she could hear the roast potatoes burning. The sound would have had had to pass through the Aga door, through the closed kitchen door, along the hall way, through the closed dining room door then into the living room.

Whenever we go shopping at Dainty Supplies (a haberdashery shop where I get my dressmaking fabric), we always bicker over fabric and patterns. The assistances know us very well so act as referees.

She is a red head so had a temper to match. I used to have quite a bit of red in my hair when I was younger so the arguments we used to have were beauties.

For all her ‘quaintness’ she’s still a wonderful mother.

Marie

No more lady Vicar

First of all, apologies for not blogging for ages but we’ve been rather busy with Blackpool conference. I’ve stored up what I was going to blog so will tell all later.

Now about this lady vicar. For the past couple of months my hairdresser Gillian has been encouraging me to grow my hair. I fancied a changed so decide to give it a go.

Three weeks ago and I was (excuse the pun) tearing my hair out. It took ages for it to dry, kept sticking up and worst of all showed up all my grey hairs ! ! !

I decided to perceiver as Gillian was coming in a couple of days time. Then I got a phone call. ‘Sorry Marie, but James (her son) has to go into hospital to have his tonsils out. I have to cancel your appointment and can’t fit you in until another three weeks time’.

Aaaaahhhhhhhh

As each day went by my hair got worse and worse. Then the most frightening thing happened. I started to look like a lady vicar….. I’ve got nothing against these lovely ladies but they do seem to have disastrous hairstyles – think Christine from a Seaside Parish. It got to the stage were I was embarrassed to go out, it was that bad.

Gillian came this morning and I’m really pleased to report that I’m no longer a lady vicar as I’m back to my normal short hair.

Wonderful ! ! !

Marie

What no Blog

Apologies for not Blogging for a while.

At the start of the week we were both feeling pretty rotten – and no it wasn’t alcohol related ! ! ! John was in the middle of a cold and I was just starting one. We were so rough on Sunday that we didn’t get up until 2pm…

I’ve made a start making my dress for Blackpool conference. As I couldn’t find any patterns suitable (see a Stitch in Time), I decided to reuse one of my previous patterns. However the last time I made that particular dress I was at least a stone lighter so consequently I’ve had to alter the pattern.

The last time I wore that dress I was also smaller in the bust region so seeing as it’s backless I was able to wear one of those multi-way bras. Not this time.

Yesterday I went to the Metro Centre with my mam – the first time out shopping since tearing the ligaments in my ankle – and I went to M&S to get measured for a bigger size multi-way bra. Having taken my measurements the assistant then went looking for the bra in my size but came back empty handed. They don’t make them in my size.

The only thing she could recommend was a strapless bra, in a size bigger than I would normally have, then pull the back bit down and secure it in place with some toupee tape. I bet Jordan doesn’t have this problem ! ! !

Sorry Jenny but more references to Blackpool. We went shopping this morning at Makro and came back with nice things for conference packs. Having taken a large delivery last Wednesday from Viking Direct, our dining room is now rapidly looking like a stationary warehouse. What’s worse is that the nice things from Makro are also in there too ! !

Marie

PS if you like dogs and have satellite television, have a listen to GlobCast Radio as they are presenting Crufts FM. If you hear a man with a North East accent, that’s John Hindhaugh - he was best man at our wedding….

Right Of Reply

If anyone feels that we're being unfair by denying you the right of reply when we post these ramblings, our only defence is that it's not our fault. I changed some settings and the "leave comment" option has vanished. I can't get it back and I can't even ask you to leave a comment telling me how to put it back.

John

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

When we opened the bedroom curtains this morning everywhere was covered in snow. There must have been at least 3 inches.

My late father in law always took great delight in saying that it never snows by the coast.

My very first Christmas living ‘by the coast’ and we had a 6 inch white Christmas.

Whenever it snowed I used to remind my father in law about what he said only to receive the reply – ‘It’s your fault. We never had snow until you moved to Fulwell’.

So if anyone wants snow in their area, let me know…

Marie

P***** Off

As you can see I’m a little cheesed off. Three guesses as to why…

Yes that’s right, it’s our new neighbours.

I had hoped that seeing as they spent their first night in their new home, they would have finally ceased with all the banging, drilling, hammering and their obsession with power tools.

How wrong I was ! ! !

It would seem that they are now starting to replace the floor boards in the remaining two bedrooms. As one of the rooms is adjacent to my work room, the noise in here is deafening.

I’m starting to wish ‘John’s theory’ would come true. He thinks they have bought the house to modernise it then sell it for profit.

To say I hate our new neighbours is an understatement…

Marie

Moving in time

It would seem that there is moving activity next door as today the new neighbours started bringing in some furniture. You would expect this to be a quiet affair. Our new neighbours quiet – you must be joking. Every time they unloaded the car, it set off our phantom door bell.

Of course no day would be complete without a bit of banging. They had their television Arial replaced…

It look like we’ll be getting more new neighbours as Greg and Kay who live opposite have today put their house up for sale and the house at the end of our street has also just gone up for sale.

Was it something I said ! ! !

Marie

You know when it's getting close ...

You know when it’s getting close to an HBA Spring Conference when :

Marie is looking at dress patterns.

Our dining room is full of boxes.

Viking Direct raise our credit limit.

We start thinking in terms of days to go instead of weeks to go.

Paul starts to blog about minibus hire.

Our alcohol consumption rises (the stress, the stress !!)

Large quantities of cash are stolen.

Not long now ...

John

Marie’s Theory

Apologies for not blogging for awhile but there hasn’t really been anything exciting to report.

My ankle is still swollen and rather painful so haven’t ventured into the outside world by myself. Weather permitting I’m doing that tomorrow – wish me luck ! ! !

We went to Blackpool on Friday night for a meeting with the hotel on Saturday morning to finalise things for conference. Driving there was fine (moving the accelerator pedal was good exercise for my ankle), however walking wasn’t…

Still the pain was worth when we checked into our room. The hotel had given us a suite and to say it was huge is an understatement. We counted eight different rooms ! ! ! Shame we were only there for less than 13 hours.

Anyway about my theory. It concerns the new neighbours. Having ‘moved in’ 17 weeks ago, they’re still hammering, banging, drilling and demolishing from 8.30am – 6pm, seven days a week.

Because of the current state of the housing market, the new neighbours wanted a new modern built property but couldn’t afford one.

They bought Dennis’s house due to it being in need of a little TLC. As modern properties are open plan, bland and soulless, they decided to rip out all the glorious features of a 1910’s terrace house.

That’s the only plausible theory I can come up as Dennis’s house was a little tired but really only required cosmetic work doing to it.

Marie

Upset me at your peril

Remember my encounter on Friday with the nasty nurse in A&E. Well I made a complaint against her this morning.

I didn’t like doing it but she gave me no choice as her behaviour and attitude was not what I expected from a member of the medical profession.

The Matron in charge of A&E rang me this afternoon and was most apologetic. She has assured me that the matter will be dealt with.

My ankle has been throbbing this afternoon. I wonder if the nurse has been putting pins in a ‘Marie’ doll…

Whilst I’m on the subject of the NHS, I had to cancel my dentist appointment. I was meant to be there this afternoon but because of my ankle I couldn’t make it. The earliest rescheduled appointment they could give me is 4th May. By then it’ll be six months since my initial appointment.

I’m glad I’m not suffering from toothache ! ! !

Marie

Snap

You know I hate shopping, and in particularly grocery shopping. Well it took it’s revenge out on me last night.

As we were walking out of Morrisons I heard and felt a snap in my right ankle. To say it was painful is an understatement.

Thankfully the car was parked quite close to the entrance so I didn’t have far to hobble.

During the night my ankle decided to swell and as the pain was unbearable, I decided this morning to call NHS direct to see what I should do.

As the little man said ‘anything that snaps isn’t good’, so I was told to go to A&E as he thought I’d snapped my Achilles tendon.

John had just arrived at work only to receive a phone call asking him to take me to A&E.

Having been seen by two lovely triage nurses and waiting over two hours we finally got seen by a nurse practitioner who must have been suffering from Friday blues as she wasn’t a nice person at all.

She was extremely blunt, had no bed side manner and could have done with a couple of lessons at the local charm school. Her diagnosis – I hadn’t snapped my Achilles tendon but failed to say what the problem was and would get the physio to come in to see me. Then she left the room. No good bye, sod off, nothing…

It was the physio who told me that I had torn the ligaments in my ankle. So I’ve got to rest it for a few day, take loads of painkillers, put an ice pack on it twice a day and it should take about three weeks to heal.

All I can see is thank goodness I did it now and not a week before Blackpool conference! ! !

Marie

A stitch in time

It’s that time of year again were I start planning the dress I’m going to make for the HBA Spring conference.

Having looked through all the various pattern books I’ve come to the conclusion that:

A) I’m too fat
B) I’m too short
C) I’m too big busted

All the patterns I like are no good because they fall into one or more of the above.

I can do something about A but not in the timescale. There’s only seven weeks to Blackpool so not much chance of loosing that much weight.

Unless I get leg extensions there isn’t much I can do about B.

And sadly dieting does nothing to reduce my bust so my only option would be surgery. Not something I quite fancy.

So it’s back to the drawing board – now there’s an idea….

Marie

A to Z

Thought I’d copy Gottle so here are my A to Z’s.

[A is for age:]
37
[B is for booze of choice:]
Wine, wine and more wine and Pimms in the summer
[C is for career:]
Housewife
[D is for your dog’s name:]
Don’t have one
[E is for essential items you use everyday:]
Computer
[F is for favourite song(s) at the moment:]
‘Penny to my name’ sung by Eva Cassidy and ‘I’ll build a stairway to Paradise’ sung by Issy van Randwyck
[G is for favourite games:]
Backgammon
[H is for hometown:]
Sunderland
[I is for instruments you play:]
Piano (badly), recorder and used to play the clarinet
[J is for jam or jelly you like:]
Blackcurrant
[K is for kids:]
No way ! ! !
[L is for last kiss:]
1 minute ago
[M is for most admired trait:]
Loves animals
[N is for name of your crush:]
The football player Bryan Robson when I was at school
[O is for overnight hospital stays:]
Lots
[P is for phobias:]
Thunder and lightning, loud noises and creepy crawlies
[Q is for quotes you like:]
‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard’ President John F Kennedy
[R is for biggest regret:]
Giving up teacher training to join the civil service
[S is for sweets of your choice:]
Chocolate and fizzy cola bottles
[T is for time you wake up:]
Several times during the night
[U is for underwear:]
Non-wired bras and anything from M&S
[V is for vegetables you love:]
What’s them…
[W is for worst habit:]
Having to the loo three times before going to sleep
[X is for x-rays you’ve had:]
Loads
[Y is for yummy food you make:]
Fruit cake
[Z is for zodiac sign:]
Virgo

Marie

Friday part 1 (again)

It may not be word for word perfect but here goes…

On Friday I took my mam shopping at Sainsburys. Food shopping with my mam is always an experience but as she had a cold it was like shopping with someone on speed ! ! !

The fruit and veg section. “Do you know were er is”.
I should explain. My mam thinks that everyone is telepathic so doesn’t need to say anything else other than ‘er’.

After a process of elimination I finally guessed what she wanted only to have to repeat the process over and over again.

Still in fruit and veg. “Do you want some tomatoes”.
“Mam, I don’t like tomatoes and you know I don’t, yet you ask me this every time”. “Well I only asked in case you changed your mind”.

The uncooked meat aisle. She spends quite a while looking at the variety of sausages then says “I don’t like sausages”.

The ready made meals aisle. “What can ‘you’ have for a change”, she asks.
“Mam I don’t have RMM”.
It transpires that ‘you’ means ‘I’ (I’ll have to remember that one…). She spends ages looking at the different meals then said she doesn’t like RRM either.

The dairy aisle and she’s standing facing the yoghurts. “Can you see any er”.
“A clue would be helpful”.
“Yoghurts”.
I resist the temptation to be sarcastic so ask “what kind”.
“Sainsburys own”.
“Narrowing it down, any particular one”.
“The Winter Collection”.

After spending ages searching I couldn’t find them.
“Found them”, she says picking up Autumn Fruits…

This is the edited version. Imagine the whole thing ! ! !

Marie

Friday part 3

For some strange reason Friday part 1 has disappeared from my blog….

I did publish it – honest ! ! ! John will be my witness as he remembers reading it.

I’ll type it up again tomorrow.

Marie

Friday part 2

While at Sainsburys on Friday I decided to hand in my prescriptions. I needed more tablets for my IBS, more cold sore cream and a sachet of penicillin for when I have my teeth scaled and polished at the dentist next Monday.

These three items cost me £19.50 ! ! ! The woman in the chemist commented that it’s expensive to be ill. Too right…

One thing drove me to drink on Friday and it wasn’t the cost of the prescriptions. It was the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I’ve mentioned before that the programme is a lot funnier when accompanied by alcohol. Don’t ask me how I would have coped watching it sober.

Boy was it awful ! ! !

Marie

PS John says I should have called my blog ‘Friday the Third, part 2’. Now I do need a drink…

Too good to be true

Yesterday for the first time since the new neighbours started demolishing (sorry – renovating…) their house they did so in relative silence.

I know what you’re thinking they were having the day off. No I could still hear them going up and down the stairs (no carpet + heavy shoes = slight noise) but no banging, hammering, drilling, sawing. Nothing.

Having had one of the worst weeks of noise last week, this was a welcome relief. Last week they decided to remove the chimney breast from the kitchen. You can imagine the noise. It was so bad that I couldn’t hear anyone on the phone, no matter what room I was in…

Sadly peace and tranquillity has ceased as they were back working today on the chimney breast again. If that wasn’t enough the council are digging up the road in the back lane just outside our house.

Where did I put my ear plugs ! ! !

Marie

I hate plumbing.

We’ve got a leaky pipe, and it’s got previous form.

Let me explain. When our heating system was installed, years before we bought the house, some of the pipes were laid across other pipes. They began to rub, and eventually, after about a dozen years or so one of them (the main hot water feed from the tank) wore through. The leak was under the floor in my office, and the water appeared in our living room at about 10pm on New Years Eve, three years ago. Temporary repairs were made and the next day a proper repair was effected.

All was fine except for a slight drip and even this stopped once the joint settled in.

That is until we had the boiler replaced, and now one of the joints in the repair is leaking again. I suspect it’s because the hot water is now pumped instead of being gravity fed (more pressure). It’s an awkward spot and I can’t get any more leverage to tighten it without doing serious damage to the rest of the pipework. It loses one drop every 45 seconds or so. This one showed itself on December 29th. Just as well it didn’t start two days later or we would have returned home from Jan’s party to a rather damp carpet. I put a tray under the leak to see how quickly it filled and a day or so later there was only a wet stain to be seen.

And guess what. We were sitting minding our own business after lunch today when Marie thought she heard a sound coming from one of the radiators. The sort of “ping ping” sound you get as they heat up or cool down. Only the heating was off and it wasn’t “ping ping”. It was “drip drip”. So up came the carpet and floorboards in the office, and yes, the tray was full. It’s a funny thing but I was only saying to Marie yesterday that next weekend we’ll fix the paper on the ceiling where it was affected by the damp, and check the tray. So now we know we’ll need to check it about once every three or four weeks until it gets bored and seals itself.

I hate plumbing.

John

Room 101

Sunday’s blog was the challenge set by Jenny to blog 5 things that define my own particular brand of quirkiness.

Well today I’m going to give you a list of the things I’d like to be put in ‘Room 101’.

Wasps: Unlike the bee which has a purpose in life and dies when it stings you, wasps don’t. They should be issued with ASBO’s…

Cold sores: It starts with a tingle on the lip, or an itchy nose or eye, then seconds later a huge blister appears and for the next five days it’s sheer hell. Not only are they painful, but you can’t eat or drink properly and no kisses ! ! !

Trifle: Three of my worst foods rolled into one: custard, soggy sponge cake and cream. What more can I say.

Arran jumpers: Apologies to the lovely residents of Arran but their jumpers are awful. John had a very out-of-shape one which he liked because it kept him warm when working on rallies. As soon as we got married I threw it out when he was at work. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me…

White cars: They always seem to be driven by people who don’t give a damn about other road users, and don’t get me started if the car happens to be a BMW.

Gregorian chant:*: John loves them. I hate them. They are supposed to be very calming. I must be missing something as they drive me up the wall ! ! !

And finally for people who really know me ‘Saturday arrivals’…

Marie

* For those of you who don’t know what a Gregorian chant is, it’s acapella church music from the middle ages.

Thanks Jenny

This blog is brought to you in association with Jenny who got the idea from Stu.

I have to blog about 5 things that define my own particular brand of quirkiness. So here goes but in no order:

Toilet rolls must be white. I can’t stand coloured loo rolls. I’d rather use newspaper (as long as it’s white…).

Books in bookcases must be arranged in height order by author, with the tallest on the left – this drives John mad as he does his by subject.

I take my coffee very very weak. About three granules per cup. I’ve been known to ask for a jug of hot water at conference gala dinners to dilute the coffee.

I grind my teeth in bed. Apparently, so I’m told as I’m asleep at the time, it sounds like a bag of marbles been shaken.

I can go all day without going to the loo but once I get into bed I have to go at least three times before I can get to sleep.

Marie

Foiled !!

Regular readers will know that Marie is pretty fed up with the new neighbours and their power tool fetish (even on Christmas day !!).

So imagine how pleased she was when I said that I needed to drill a hole not in, but right through a wall. At last, a chance to give the neighbours a taste of their own medicine.

Sadly it was not to be. Last Christmas Santa brought me a super duper SDS-Plus hammer drill, which, with a brand new 16mm bit ate it's way through the wall in less than 30 seconds. My old drill would have taken nmore like 30 minutes.

On the plus side I can say I'm very pleased with the drill. I can honestly say that the performance was awesome, and at less then £30 from Screwfix the manchine is a bargain.

John

Things never go to plan

Tonight’s meal was going to be oven baked lemon chicken and vegetables.

However it didn’t quite work out like that. It normally only takes the chicken half an hour to cook so the vegetables were drained and put on the plates waiting for the chicken to come out of the oven.

On opening the foil parcels the chicken was a lovely shade of pink ! ! !

Not to worry, I’ll put them back in the oven for another ten minutes and reheat the vegetables in the microwave.

10 minutes later and the chicken still wasn’t cooked.

Another 10 minutes and it was still pink so we decided to have pie and chips instead.

An hour and a half after the chicken was put in the oven it was finally cooked.

Any one want some lemon chicken…

Marie

It’s all Paul’s fault

After reading Gottle’s Blog about grabbing the nearest book, opening it at page 123 then writing down the text of the fifth sentence, we decided to do this with the books we currently have on the go at the moment.

Here’s Marie’s:

‘I was supposed to pick up this girl and take her home, but when I looked for her she had disappeared.’ A talent for Genius – The Life and Times of Oscar Levant

‘A Tora roller is sometimes called an aytz chayyim (plural, atzay chayyum,), meaning “tree of life”, the name by which the Tora itself is sometimes called.’ The Jewish Book of Why

‘One of the greatest pleasures of this passage for me is its varieties of language.’ The Joy of Writing Sex

‘As one teacher remembers: Those who had lived on bread and cakes with jam, cheese and chips, as many of the poor did, no longer had them and were much healthier for it.’ Bombers & Mash

‘One very good contrast is afforded by a pound of rumpsteak at fourteenpence, and a pound of beans or lentils at twopence.’ The 1915 edition of Mrs Beetons’ Book of Household Management


Here’s John’s:

‘The confusion arose largely because of one man, John Wallis, who wrote a self-serving account of the early days of the Royal in 1678.’ The Fellowship – The Story of a Revolution

‘Throughout history, most armies (there are some exceptions) have been composed of a triad of three arms: infantry, whether Roman legionaries carrying short swords and javelins or modern troops carrying assault rifles; artillery, which has ranged from stone-throwing ballistae to the Multi-Launched Rocket Systems of the Gulf War; and a mobile arm.’ Forgotten Victory – The First World War: Myths and Realities

‘His wife and teenage daughters were waiting back home, hoping Daddy got Europe and cycling out if his system before his ankles melted.’ French Revolutions – Cycling the Tour De France

‘We always leave and take a chance, said Monica, and we always break down.’ Narrow Dog to Carcassonne

And finally:

‘He noticed Kate was standing watching, but chose to ignore her.’ The Flower of Ludwell by Marie Harper (unfinished…)

Marie & John

Ouch, ouch, ouch

I have quite a high pain threshold. Well with my pains I have to otherwise I’d never get out of bed.

That is however until I start plucking my eyebrows. Then I become a whimpering wreak begging myself to stop as the pain is unbearable.

The only way I can get the job done with a moderate amount of pain is by doing it while lying in a hot bath, which is what I did last night.

Women, why do we do it ! ! !

Marie

Bits and bobs

Late on Thursday night I remembered I’d forgotten to get my mam some wheelie bin liners. It’s Morrisons’ fault again. If they hadn’t caused me to have two tantrums I would have remembered.

Feeling guilty that I’d forgotten them I decided to be brave* and call in yesterday morning on my way to my mams.

I’m pleased to report that they had restocked the shelves so I got the peppers and the milk. No such look with the leeks though. Can’t expect miracles can I.

Last night while eating our Chinese** John let me watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I normally watch it when he’s at work as it’s not quite his thing. However as I’d been at my mams all day I had to video it as she doesn’t have Sky.

The plan was to watch something else once we’d finished eating. 1 ½ hours and a couple of glasses of wine later it was still on and although it’s funny normally, under the influence of alcohol it’s hilarious. Even John thought so ! ! !

John mentioned in his Blog that we went to Makro this morning. What he didn’t tell you was while he was unloading the car at the front of the house, the lady new neighbour was seeing off visitors and completely ignored him. No ‘hello I’m your new neighbour’, no smile, no acknowledgment. Nothing.

Looks like they won’t be getting a welcome to your new home card…

Marie


* Every weekday between the hours of 9am and 5pm it’s crammed with senior citizens who treat grocery shopping as a day out.

** We’ve abandoned having pizza on Friday night. It took ages for it to arrive by which time it was cold and re-heated pizza isn’t that appetising…

Restored !!

Yes - my faith in all things good has been restored. We went to Makro (the cash & carry) today and we didn't see a single easter egg on the shelves. Bet there's plenty in the stockroom though ...

John

Calm down dear it’s only a supermarket

We’ve just come back from Morrisons and while we were there I had two temper tantrums.

I hate shopping at Morrisons but as it’s less than a mile away it’s very convenient, especially as we can be there and back within the hour.

My first tantrum was caused by them having no peppers or leeks. Well actually they did have peppers but only if you wanted a mixed bag of four microscopic ones for 99p. I wanted four green ones and a red one.

The second tantrum happened because they had ran out of milk. Now is it me or am I asking too much of them to at least have some milk.

There’s a lot to be said for online shopping…

Marie

They’re back

Yes I’m afraid the new neighbours have returned to work today and they still have a power tool fetish. What ever happened to using a screw driver ! !

Remember the December Blogg ‘Scrooge of the week’. Well I was watching Richard (he’s so cute) Hammond’s programme on ITV this afternoon and they did a feature about complaining.

They advised people never to write to the customer service department or the complaints department but to complain directly to a named person, preferably someone at the top. Good point. I’ll remember that next time.

They also advised a woman who was having ongoing problems with a department store to take her complaint higher up the chain.

Well that’s exactly what I’m going to do with a certain paint company with an X in it’s name.

I’ll keep you posted.

Marie

All quiet on the Western Front

I’m getting worried. The new neighbours haven’t been seen since Thursday afternoon.

They were exceptionally loud on Thursday as they were sanding the newly replaced floor boards – imagine air raid sirens only a thousand times louder.

John was at work * so I was able to drown out the noise by playing my music a little louder than normal. Think house vibrating.

Could it be they’ve got the message that us neighbours are sick of the noise and need a break. Nahh ! ! !

As it’s the start of a new year it’s customary to make resolutions. I’m not a resolutions person however I do have a ‘want’ list.

1: I want to win the lottery. It doesn’t matter if it’s the normal lottery, the extra or the Euro. As long as it’s the jackpot and is over £1m I’m not bothered.

2: I want to lose a stone and a half in weight.

3: I want to finish my novel.

4: I want to continue my piano lessons.

Marie




* he thinks I’m being childish when I turn my music up. He’s probably right but

a) he’s at work all day so doesn’t have to put up with it.
b) there’s something therapeutic in doing so especially when I inflict my singing on them as well…

Peace on Earth - you must be joking

I know our new neighbours want the building work done as soon as possible but is it really too much to ask that they give us a break from all the noise for a day or so.

Not a chance it would seem. They were hard at it all day on Christmas eve. They even did some work yesterday – yes Christmas day ! ! ! . It’s now Boxing day and they’re still at it.

As you can see it’s now getting on my nerves. I appreciate that they want the house renovated but have they once given us neighbours who are either side of them a thought. After all we’ve had to put with all the noise every single day for the past eight weeks.

I’m beginning to hate our new neighbours and they haven’t moved in yet ! ! !

Marie

Ain't WiFi Wonderful

Well yes, it is. Sometimes. I'm sitting in the lounge beside the Christmas tree with a laptop on my knee connecting through a wireless access point in the spare bedroom.

On the minus side, we have two access points (yes, two - but one is used as a bridge for certain functions) and in the past month BOTH power supplies have packed up and both access points needed their firmware reloading. You don't get those sort of problems with a length of CAT-5 cable.

Of course being the sad engineer type that I am whenever something electrical gets thrown out I always keep the power supply. So when I needed a 5 volt 1 amp supply with a 3.5 mm connector ...

Merry Christmas

John

Every little helps

Ever since we’ve been married we’ve always saved one and two pence coins that’s either been in our change or what we’ve found lying on the pavement and given them each Christmas to the Salvation Army.

Sadly due to one thing or another the amount we give has been declining each year. Gone are the days when they received over £25.

We’ve never missed the money, well one and two pence’s you don’t, so if everyone put aside their small change this would really benefit charities.

There is however one down side to this - the government would run out of one and two pence coins….

This will probably be the last Blog until Christmas so I hope you have a great Christmas and that Santa brings you lots of presents.

See some of you on 31st.

Marie

PS here’s hoping the builders next door decide to take a long holiday as I could do with a bit of peace and quiet ! ! ! ! !

Scrooge of the week

You may remember I wrote a complaint letter to a certain paint company who has an X in their name (see ‘It’s been a busy old week’ on December 4th).

Today I have received a reply.

First of all they have me down as ‘Ms’. If they had been bothered to read my letter properly they would have seen that I am in fact ‘Mrs’.

The letter makes no reference to the complaint I made regarding their technical help department.

What the letter does do is waffle on about how good their products are but offers no explanation as to what the cause of the problem could be.

As a ‘gesture of goodwill’ they enclose a cash redemption voucher to the value of £15 against any of their products. In order to get my money back I have to send them a receipt then wait 21 days for a cheque to be dispatched.

Considering the paint costs us more than £15 we are financially worse off. Then there’s the amount of time we spent giving the paint work four coats and the time next year in having to redo the whole thing. Plus we have to buy a product of theirs in order to get your money back, something we are not prepared to do.

I certainly think their ‘gesture of goodwill’ is pretty poor.

I have written and received replies to a good number of complaint letter and everyone of the companies have been extremely generous. This one has got to be the worst.

Marie

Mention mince pies at your peril ! ! !

Goodness knows why but I had agreed to make 8 dozen mince pies for various people. As there wasn’t enough room in our original freezer to store them I had to wait until the new one came.

So Thursday was my baking day. Everything was going perfectly until I tried to get them out of the so called non-stick bun tins. Out of 4 dozen only 26 were salvageable but in no fit state to be given to anyone.

To make matters worse the workmen next door spent the entire day ripping out the old kitchen units and as our kitchens are back-to-back it was pretty noisy.

I was not in the best of moods ! ! !

As I’d already made the pastry I had no option but to plod. Thankfully you can freeze uncooked mince pies in their tins and cook them at a later date.

I didn’t want to take the risk of having a repeat performance so bought two new non-stick tins at Morrisons on Thursday night.

Yesterday afternoon the rest of the mince pies were baked and guess what – they stuck ! ! ! At least this time most of them were in reasonable condition to be given away.

Next year I’m buying them from Sainsburys……

Marie

“Why don’t we get another one?”

Every year around this time I always moan that the freezer isn’t big enough.

I don’t know why but items, no matter how small they are, when bought to be eaten during Christmas take up loads of freezer space.

Our freezer is so full that I’ve told my mam if she runs out of the meals I make her then I’ll have to cook them at her house as there is simply ‘no room at the inn’….

After 11 years of putting up with my annual freezer moans John replied ‘why don’t we get another one?”.

“Don’t be silly”, I replied, “we have no where to put it”.

“How about the cupboard under the stairs”.

So this morning we took delivery of another freezer.

It’s come just at the right time as Dennis, our ex-next door neighbour called round this morning with three jars of home made mincemeat.

I can now get started on making the eight dozen mince pies ! ! !

Marie

Heat wave

Don’t worry some mystical power hasn’t bestowed Fulwell with gorgeous weather (you can tell I’ve been watching too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer….). We actually have a warm kitchen.

I should explain. When we bought the house we replaced the small kitchen radiator for a larger one. For as long as either of us can remember it has always been cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

We thought it was due to it being the last radiator on the central heating system so only got hot when the other radiators didn’t need the heat. Hence being hot in the summer.

Last night we noticed that the radiator was cold at the top and warm at the bottom so guessed it must have an air lock.

When the boiler man came back to tidy up any loose ends this afternoon he asked if everything was working ok so we mentioned the radiator.

It turns out that there wasn’t an air lock after all but a blockage.

For the first time in 11 ½ years we have a hot (and I mean hot) kitchen radiator.

Which means:
No more frozen pipes in the kitchen
No more using the electric fan to heat the room
Food taken out of the freezer will actually defrost
And most of all it won’t be warmer outside than in…..

Marie

Yippee ! ! ! !

Five weeks since our wheelie bin was stolen we’ve finally been given a replacement. So no one ‘steals’ it again we’ve painted our house number and street name on it.

We’re sitting in a cold house with no water or gas as we’re having our central heating boiler replaced. Who’s bright idea was it to get it replaced in the middle of winter – mine…. Thankfully the weather is better than it was two weeks ago. Then it was actually warmer outside than in our kitchen ! ! !

They’ve just gone off for lunch with the old boiler out and the new one sitting on the bedroom floor waiting to go in.

There’s also a nice hole in the wall and a lovely draught coming though it.

Marie

Great Wall Of China

They tell us it's an urban myth that you can see it from space. However, with a little help from the satellite photos on Google Earth there are three very interesting things you can see from space.

1 Our garage roof (see upside down "L" shaped white object in picture).

2 Marie's car parked outside her mothers house.

3 My car in the car park at my work.

John

It’s been a busy old week

Yippee ! ! ! We’ve finally downed our paintbrushes. It’s taken us three months but we’ve managed to get the living room and dining room done.

However thanks to a certain paint company who has an X in their name we’re going to have to redo the dining room. Four coats later on the wood and metal work and it’s still not covering over the old colours.

I phone their help line on Monday wanting advice as four coats seemed a bit excessive especially when their non drip gloss was anything but. I got a snotty little man on the other end of the phone who tried to fob me off with all excuses known to man.

It must have been near his tea break so took my phone number, said he’d look into it and ring me back the next day. You guessed it, he didn’t.

Nearly a week later and still no phone call so the customer from hell has put pen to paper. Lets just say the letter will burn it’s way out of the envelope. Upset me at your peril ! ! !

I also had to shout at our electricity company on Monday. We received an estimate bill the beginning of November even though the meter was read twice in three days – don’t ask ! ! ! So yet again they were given the meter reading and we waited for a revised bill to be sent.

No revised bill came, only a letter demanding payment for the estimate bill otherwise they will cut us off. I was not amused and made my feeling known to the poor girl who happened to take my call. It would seem that there is no record of either of the two readings nor of the one I phoned in – wonderful….

So what did I have to do, yes you’ve guessed it, give them yet another reading. I was assured that I would not be cut off and that I would receive a bill on 8th December. The bill arrived on Wednesday – so much for 8th December…..

Good news on the replacement wheelie bin. I had to ring the council asking if they could send someone out to clean up the mess as the local scavengers who patrol the streets ahead of the bin man had very kindly emptied the contents of several black bags in the back lane. While I was on the phone I asked if the wheelie bins were in stock. ‘Yes Mrs Harper, they’ve just come in so you should be getting yours shortly’.

Finally got all the Christmas cakes made. Now to start on the eight dozen mince pies ! ! !

Marie