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’.