14 October 2007

Where did the weekend go

Well I dunno what happened there, one minute I was sitting at my desk looking forward to 5pm on Friday, and now its ten past ten on a Sunday evening - its like I got sucked into one of those 'time space continuims' that used to plague captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager.

I know where two hours of the weekend went - I spend that last night watching a DVD that my cousin Graham lent me - it was called 'Scenes of a sexual nature' and followed the lives of different people on Hampstead Heath one summers day - it was a really different film to what I normally watch but I can see why he recommended it to me.

And in other big news this weekend, the cat ran away ! I was hanging some washing out yesterday morning and Slim was in the kitchen chowing down on his fishy biscuits, so I thought it would be ok to leave the door open. I sat waiting for him and he eventually popped his head thru the kitchen door and ever so gingerly walked out onto the patio. It was then that I saw the look on his face that told me he wouldn't be going back in the house. He sort of half opened his mouth and took a deep breath making a hissing noise - I know what was coming and I tried to head him off but he flew past me and leapt up on the shed roof - oh well ! I rang the RSPCA and they didn't seem too concerned - she said he will come back when hes hungry and if not they will come and put a cat trap down for him - nice !

Found this site too tonight - give it a go, its really go - you just keep on clicking !

http://interact10ways.com/usa/information_interactive.htm

11 October 2007

Kinda sums me up at the minute !

toothpaste for dinner
toothpastefordinner.com


Well all in all its not been a good week.

I don't know whats the matter with me but I seem to be on a bit of a downer at the minute. I think that I suffer with SAD but I don't think its worth going to bother the doctor with, just better to get used to the dark nights and wet days - ho hum.

So yesterday the journey into work was horrible, I got there too late to get into the car park and then had to park miles up the road - not a good start. Then in the afternoon I had my appraisal with my boss which wasn't bad in itself, but I just find those things a total waste of time. Questions like "Where do you want your career to go in the next three years ? " when youre rapidly approaching 46 and have been in the job for 18 years is so pointless !

Then today I had the M1 fiasco - ok the accident was quite serious but was it really necessary to close five whole junctions for 12 hours ? As a result Watford ground to a standstill this morning and it took me an hour and twenty minutes to do an 8 mile journey - coming home this evening was no easier as the motorway only reopened once the rush hour was in full swing, so everybody was diverting back through Watford again - doh !

The only brightside to the day was that I got a new foster cat this evening - I was meant to be getting a ginger and white 10 year old girl on Saturday morning, but RSPCA Sarah called me this morning to say that she was a bit 'feisty' (the cat - not Sarah )and would I like to try something else. I said ok, so I have a 4 to 5 year old stray called Slim (although hes not thin in the slightest - bit of a fat beast to be honest) pics to follow soon.

and my washing machine stopped working tonight too - can't decide to get a new one or see how much a repair will come too - decisions decisions !

04 October 2007

Sunny outside

Thursday already - this week has really flown past.

So much has happened since my last entry on here - for starters I had a very enjoyable week in the Lake District with Odd Thomas. The weather wasn't as nice we were expecting but it was still nice to get away and see a part of the country that I'd never been to before.

Most of this week I've been going through my 1000 ish photographs and trying to get them into a reasonable order for posting onto Flickr - I've been posting them up at one day of holiday per day - its not so stressful that way :O) and you can remember the places that you went which is even better.

What else has happened...well Paul my housemate left his job at Seat after ten days and is now working at Jaguar instead - hes swanning about in a brand new X-type with a sports kit which looks pretty flash (even if it is an old mans car !) lol

I'm catless at the minute too - CJ got adopted the week before my holiday which was good for him - I did left myself get a bit down in the dumps after he went which is silly really - I'll have to try not to get so attached to them in future but its quite difficult. I'm waiting to hear from the girls at the RSPCA as they said they would call me when they had something suitable for me.

My car goes in for its first MOT on Saturday, I'll be like a proud parent taking their kid to the first day at school ! Thats assuming it passes, if not its up to the knackers yard and Honda Civic here I come - woo hoo !

I'm off to see my friend Sarah this evening (Shes the one that got me started on fostering cats) not seen her for a while so it should be a nice evening of wine and nibbles.

catch you later on

17 September 2007

Missing inaction

Well look at that, you take your foot off the gas for a minute and three weeks whizz by without a single posting :O)

Quite a lot has happened since the last post - I've had two weeks annual leave from work, Paul my housemate had a job, got a new one, lost the new one then got another one - and today hes got another new one ! and its his birthday today so happy birthday Paul ( pity Newcastle had to go and lose to spoil it for him ! )
CJ the cat got adpoted on Saturday so even though I miss him loads, its better for him that hes gone to a permanent loving home

And next week I'm heading up to the lake district with odd Thomas for a week of photography, bike riding and hill climbing - I'm really looking forward to the break - work is starting to get a bit pants again lately.

Oh well, time for an early night - but its great to be back - watch this space !

29 August 2007

Bank Holiday Monday

I called my friend Odd Thomas this morning (getting him out of bed) to see if he fancied a run out to take some photographs - he said that he did so I picked him up and we took a drive to Stowe Ornamental gardens near Brackley.

Despite having been there last summer, almost a year to the day, I managed to get lost on the way and it was only thanks to TomTom on my phone that we found the place.

Unfortunately, despite it being nice in Watfford when we left, it had turned a bit overcast when we arrived there which didn't really make for inspiring shots - still we had a nice afternoon pottering about and did have some tea and cake in the only restaurant on the estate. We should have eaten when we first arrived as by the time we had gone back for the second attempt at queueing, all that was left was overpriced and underfilled.

On the drive up there O.T. had said that he always had this idea about taking pictures of bales of hay in a field - so on the way back when I saw the ideal 'photo opp' for this, we made a sudden stop to grab some photos. Unfortunately O.T. didn't appreciate my driving skills as swerving in front of a fast approaching car did nothing to settle his nerves - still, it didn't hit us, did it ??

When we got back home, we looked thru the pictures, which can be seen here, and here, and then we finally got around to booking our week up in the Lake District - woo hoo !
We're having a week away taking pictures at the end of the months, really looking forward to that as I've never been further north than Sheffield !

Knebworth House

I was meant to be meeting me friend from Cambridge today - there was a Classic Car show on at Knebworth House which seemed a good reason to meet up with him and to get some nice photos at the same time. Unfortunately when my phone woke me at ten past twelve it was Paul asking which part of the show I was near so we could meet up - doh !


Anyway after a speedy shower and whizz up the A1, I made it to Knebworth by 1:00 pm which was pretty good going. It was nice to see such a variety of cars from my growing years, but most of them had the bonnets raised to show off the engine bays which didn't make for very good pictures - I did take quite a few though and you can see them all here.


My best comment was to my friend on a car that he used to own "Did your one have eyelashes too ?" "No, they're headlamp covers" - well they look like eyelashes to me :O)


The highlight (or not) of the day had to be the Dinosaur area. This was a part of the park where they had model dinosaurs to enthrall and frighten the kiddies - now I don't know what you think, but I've glimpsed myself in the mirror just after waking up and I'm much scarier than anything on show here.

23 August 2007

food for thought




Jan and Chris were just talking about eating in JD Wetherspoons pubs, and wondered what the chances were of getting Zebu meat in your burgers. This was a bit of a pointless discussion as Jans been vegetarian for about the last 100 years, and Chris has got to be one of the fussiest eaters I’ve met.

Apparently there was some show on the other night which basically said that you don’t always get what you were expecting when you order food. I’m always very wary when eating out, generally sticking to either fish or chicken so you have a pretty good chance of recognising what you are eating.

Anyway, this is the famed Zebu and what a sad looking animal it is – it can’t be much fun having all that loose skin hanging around its neck – and that’s without the second head growing on its back !

22 August 2007

water laugh

I’ve just been looking up on the Unison website to see what’s happening with our pay rise this year – the increase was meant to come into effect on the 1st April but so far there has not been any movement.

Anyway, I started to read this page about their ‘water@work’ campaign, which is trying to get employers to provide mains drinking water for their staff, rather than shipping in bottled water with all the associated transport costs, disposal of the plastic bottles etc. Now I’m sure that it’s a very well intentioned campaign but this paragraph did make me laugh, and I quote ..

“The second (point) is to make sure that employers provide adequate drinking water for their staff. "It's about getting drinking water out of the toilets and into the workplace," says UNISON senior national officer Steve Bloomfield. “

Hmm, well if it’s a choice of toilet or bottled, bottled wins everytime – just call me old fashioned !

20 August 2007

The lull before the storm :)

You can probably guess from my lack of postings that nothing very thrilling has happened over the past few days – don’t worry its not that my creative juices have dried up, more a case of nothing spectacular to blog about.

Highlights since my last post include ordering a memory card for the new camcorder, going to visit my cousin in Pinner and taking Friday off to let Comet have a second bash at fixing my oven ! Whoopee doo I hear you cry :O)

Thinking about it, taking Friday off wasn’t too bad as I managed to get the lights wired into the decking whilst I was waiting for the Comet guy to arrive. Incidentally I now have a fully functioning oven and Rene is my new favourite name :OP. That’s the one good thing about scheduling work to be done on a Friday, it makes for a nice short week and an extended weekend.

So the Comet visit went quite smoothly but alas the memory card was a bit of a kerfuffle. Now I don’t know what happens where you live, but our postman has a habit of not knocking when there is a recorded delivery – he just slips a card thru with the regular post so by the time you’ve picked the mail up, he’s long gone and you have to go to the sorting office to collect your package. This happened on Thursday with my memory card so I went to the sorting office on Friday to pick it up. Despite the card saying that I could collect the letter 4 hours after receipt of the card, they couldn’t find my package and said that I should go back on Saturday morning - doh! So I went back again on Saturday morning and after a twenty minute wait they finally found my package filed under D which is neither my name or my road name – they’re really useless.

Sunday afternoon I went for a troll around Watford with Odd Thomas but thankfully he didn’t get me to spend anything this time – he’s a really bad influence when it comes to making a fool part with his money :) We did go into Prescence for a nice coffee / smoothie and a couple of huge biscuits though.

After a quick drive around looking for garden water feature shops we went back to mine where we messed about with the camcorder trying out the various settings etc – trust me, seeing yourself close up on a 37” screen isn’t good – still we did get the hang of most of the controls.
After that we had a play with the PS3 and downloaded a couple of trial versions of games, one being Rub-a-Dub. I’ve never liked all the killing and violent titles on the Playstation, so finding a game where you guide rubber ducks around a maze avoiding clockwork sharks could have been written for me !

15 August 2007

light fantastic

My second parcel was waiting for me when I got home last night – this time it was the LED lights that I had ordered from a shop on Ebay. Originally when I’d been looking for lights for my decking, I’d been quite taken with the idea of having colour changing lights running the length of the path. My ex always called me a Magpie and said that if it sparkled or changed colours then it was ideal for me, anyway I digress :O) *

The only places that stocked them were Homebase and Argos but both of those stores had no stock and couldn’t advise when more would come in – dammit !
So in the end I picked this set up from Ebay, I had the choice of white or blue and I went for the white ones on the basis that they would throw out more light – only time will tell.

That garden is gonna rival Blackpool Illuminations by the time I’m finished with it :O)

And I played around a bit more with the camcorder last night – I managed to get a video of CJ playing with his toys on the bed, but that silly cat has no camera sense and keeps turning his back to the lens – doh !

* This brings to mind an episode last Christmas when I went to Bluewater with Odd Thomas and had what can only be described as a 'funny turn' in Girl Heaven - that shop is so cool - why on earth don't they do shops like that for boys. And NO, O.T., I might have picked up the pink angel wings, but theres no way that I would ever have worn them :O)

14 August 2007

Monday - Surprise package


Paul called this morning to tell me that a parcel had arrived for me – now much as I love surprises I knew that it was going to be one of two things. Either the LED decking lights that I had ordered for the back garden or a rather sweet little camcorder that I had seen and decided was this months ‘must have’

Knowing that there was something at home waiting for me made the day pass quite quickly and I was in quite a good mood for a Monday which is a pretty rare event. Anyway when I got home it was the camcorder – whoopee! Now at this point I really have to give credit to the online store
E-Atay – I’d ordered the camera on Friday morning and had opted for the free delivery which was stated as 7-10 days, seeing as I wasn’t in any great rush to get it. Having it there waiting for me on Monday evening was very good service in my book !

Now back to the camcorder – my reason for wanting one was that last weekend when I went to Brighton Pride, I’d recorded parts of the parade using the ‘movie’ mode on my stills camera and unfortunately they didn’t come out very clear , especially when you try to view it at anything bigger than a postage stamp size. Now I’m no budding Spielberg, all I wanted was something neat that would take a reasonable movie clip that would let me have a decent memory of days out.

After not very much research, I opted for a Sanyo Xacti DV2, based on the fact that it recorded in High Definition , it was the right price and it was small enough not to attract attention when I’m using it. I hate having things that get me noticed, especially when it comes to cameras and gadgets – blending into the background is the only way to go :O)

So I spent last night charging up the battery and having a bit of a play around with it – I’m not planning on winning any Oscars but hopefully I can get CJ doing something funny that I might be able to post on Youtube!

Sunday - the morning after

Needless to say I didn’t feel in top of the world come Sunday morning – Paul (housemate) got up to go to football training so I went downstairs and grabbed a cup of tea as he was getting ready to leave. That’s the trouble when you have pets, no matter how bad you feel you still have to get up for them – Paul had let the rabbits out for me, but CJ the cat had been standing over me for at least ten minutes, pawing at my face and using his ‘death breath’ as a final threat – I don’t know (or want to know) what he does to get it smelling so bad !

Things got worse when I had a bowl of coco pops and hadn’t realised that the milk had turned until I was on my second spoonful – blargh ! I think I was still under the effects of cat breath.
Then I thought that a shower and a walk around the shops would help to wake me up a little – the shower helped but going into Watford wasn’t such a good idea. Yes it was nice and quiet but I was walking around like some zombie thinking ‘sleep, sleeeeeep’ – I needed a nap

Plus the reason I went there was to check out if Monsoon had any different bargains in Watford to what the London Colney store had – alas no – more of the same and however great the reductions, theres only so much that you can do with stripey shirts !

So then I went back home and spent the rest of the day drifting in and out of consciousness on the settee – you’d not think that a night spend drinking J2o’s and Cola would have such a devasting effect – just imagine the mess I’d have been in on Fosters and Smirnoff Ice :O)

Cambridge - saturday night

On Saturday evening I was going to Cambridge with my friend to meet up with another couple (lets call them P and S) for a night out. The day started pretty well as I drove to London Colney to get my food for the week – the Sainsbury’s there is huge and they always have ‘odd’ bits that the other stores don’t stock. After the food shop I took a walk over to the other side of the park where there is a Next and Monsoon – basically because I wanted to see if I could find something smart to wear for the evening. I found a t-shirt and polo top in Next, but my biggest bargain was in Monsoon where they had a 70% off promotion – picked up a lovely brown striped shirt for £13.50 reduced from £55.00 (Yes, I couldn’t work out the math either!)

I picked up my friend at about 5:30pm and we arrived at P’s on the outskirts of Cambridge just around 7:00 – we had a cuppa there and then went to collect S, arriving in town at about 8:00. Theres something weird about going to new towns and looking around, especially at night. Its like they’ve picked up your local High Street and put all the shops and bars back in the wrong order – you know that you’ll find a Top Man, Miss Selfridge, JD Wetherspoons and Millie’s Cookies there somewhere, its just a matter of time !

We started out at a bar called Revolution (there’s one of those in Watford) which was quite busy but had a guy about to start playing bongos so we got out of there after just one drink ! Then we went for something to eat in Wagamama which was quite nice although not as good as Osatsumas in London. I had a strange drink in there, it was like a smoothie but with Pomegranate, cucumber and something else – it looked like a cappuccino but tasted of freshly mown grass (you know that smell – that’s what it tasted of)

After we had eaten we decided to have a walk about the town and try out some different bars. Now all week P had been saying to me that S used to be an estate agent and knew Cambridge like the back of his hand – well I can only assume on Saturday night that he was wearing very thick gloves ! We must have gone to at least 3 places that were ‘really cool bars’ only to discover that they were now restaurants, closed down, or pound shops ! But overall we did have a good night, going to about 4 different bars ending up in one of Cambridges pubs for ‘gentleman who moisturise’, called The Rose and Crown. To be honest this was really quite a nice friendly bar and we stayed there until it closed at 2:30

After that we dropped S and P off home and drove back to Watford, getting back to my place at 4:10 am

There were three things to be learnt from Saturday night

1. You don’t have to get drunk to have a good night out – I was on pop all night
2. Most towns are much the same, it’s the people you are with that make the difference
3. If you’re going to have people to come up and visit you – don’t let them catch you chewing the face off somebody else in a pub doorway :O)

10 August 2007

boring..

Been really tired for the past couple of days and severely lacking in motivation, so theres not a great deal to write about.

Work has been ok this week, made better by the fact that I've done too many hours so I have to finish at 1:00 today so as not to lose my Flexitime! I'm hoping to make good use of the day by going to B&Q on the way home to buy some decking stain - then I can get that treated this afternoon.

Going to Cambridge at the weekend with my friend - going out for a bite to eat and a drink with some mates - looks like it should be a nice night out.

anyway, thats about all for now - watch this space eh !

** Friday afternoon update - Couldn't find the decking stain that I wanted in either B&Q or Homebase - they had loads of products but none that were the right colour. And the hunt for 'colour changing LED lights' drew a blank as well - I'll look on the internet later.

08 August 2007

Film night

I went to see Transformers last night with Paul my housemate (he didn’t like being called ‘Paul the Lodger’, probably because it sounded like a challenge!) and Odd Thomas. Having never seen any of the original cartoons I didn’t really know anything about Transformers apart from them being cars that turned into robots or vice versa.

The action started within a couple of minutes of the film credits and was pretty constant all the way through the whole two and a half hours. My only gripes were that some of the ‘transforming scenes’ did go on a bit too long, and that when the robots were battling, the camera view seemed to be in too close – it might have been better to see the whole fight scene rather than up close – still I guess that would have pushed up the special effects budget.

Overall it was a good evening and probably helped to take Pauls mind off the car accident that he had on the way home – now if only he could get that Rav4 to transform and repair itself he’d be laughing !

Another good thing about the cinema are the trailers, there were three previews that really caught my eye. Stardust, Run Fatboy Run and Superbad – take a look at Stardust especially, that one looks really promising.

07 August 2007

charm offensive

I booked yesterday afternoon off from work as I had the Comet repairman coming to fix my oven (you might remember that its developed this phobia about getting hot and switches itself off when it gets to 150 degrees – not a good selling point for an oven). When I’d booked the appointment for between 12 and 6 they told me that the engineer would call an hour beforehand to let me know he was on the way, giving me time to clear the decks.

So anyway, at ten past ten my mobile rang – “Hello, I’m the Comet engineer, I’ll be there in about 15 minutes”

“Hang on, you’re supposed to be there between twelve and six, I’m still at work”

“Well that’s no good to me mate, I’m in London this afternoon, I’m doing all my Watford jobs this morning”

I decided that it was pointless in arguing with him and managed to get home for an hour to let him in – thankfully he got there 5 minutes after I got home.

As luck would have it the cooker cut out just as he was saying that he couldn’t see what the problem was. He took the top off and prodded around inside for a while, finally deciding that he needed to order some parts

“So I’ll book you in for a service call on Friday 17th then, can’t give you a time I’m afraid”

“But will the parts be in on the 17th”

“No, I’ve not ordered them yet”

“But theres no point in me booking a day off if the parts aren’t in is there, who do I need to contact , you or Comet”

“I really don’t need this today, I’m having a bad day and I really don’t want to be here”

“So who do I chase up to see when the parts are in, am I better ringing Comet”

"Yeah, ring them mate, the numbers on the top of this slip, sign it by the cross, ta"

And that was it – gone in 10 minutes – no cooker for another week, and a snotty letter winging its way to Comet Customer Services!

As an aside, my housemate went to a Foam Party at Destiny last night, he rolled in at 3am (on a school night too!) you should have seen the state of him heading to work this morning !

06 August 2007

"No, its frostbite !"

Well dear readers – what a stunning weekend, the sunshine came back with a vengeance didn’t it ? Unfortunately on the hottest day of the weekend I went out totally unprepared and so I’m sitting here on Monday, glowing a lovely shade of dusky pink !

But I digress, I’ve got three days worth of postings to rattle off here so I better get going :O)

Friday evening I went to visit my cousin who lives in Hoxton Square near Shoreditch. If you’ve never been there you really should give it a visit (not my cousin of course, the square!) It’s a green haven in the middle of an otherwise pretty grim area. A nice square with trees and grass and the perimeter made up of clubs, bars and eating houses. It’s a bit too busy for me, coming from the leafy backwater that is Watford, but it is nice being able to leave the flat and have this vast selection of places to go on the doorstep.

I stayed over there far too late really, considering my plans for the weekend, but managed to make it back home by 2:00 am

Saturday morning I was up at 7:30 and went around to collect my friend as we were going down to Brighton for the day for the Pride carnival. We made excellent time, arriving there at 10:30, and managing to get parked almost exactly opposite Preston Park where the after parade party takes place. We took a nice walk down the parade route and decided on our vantage point to get the best photographs of the procession – thankfully a steward pointed out a traffic island where we had an excellent position, didn’t get squashed nor asked to move on.

After about an hours wait (which passed quite quickly) the main parade started to pass us. This was the first time that I’ve seen the parade and it didn’t disappoint in the slightest. The theme this year was musicals and some of the costumes and routines were excellent. The highlight for me was the Wizard of Oz float with the 30 Dancing Dorothys – if I can work out how to post it onto you tube, I’ll post the link here.

After the carnival passed we waited for a while, comparing out photos, before walking up to Preston Park. I can honestly say I’ve never seen the park so mobbed – the combination of the good weather and a great atmosphere must have bought the crowds out. We stayed in the park for a couple of hours before taking a drive into Brighton and getting something to eat.

Now the last time we went, we found this Tapas bar on the seafront which looked really good and we said that we would go there next time we visited. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to expectations . We had to wait about 15 minutes for a table, another 10 minutes for a waitress to come and take our order (Meatballs, spicy potatoes and chicken/chorizo stew) and an hour later we were sitting there looking at empty drinks glasses and still no food – I think it was about seventy minutes from placing the order to getting served – really spoilt the meal.

Now I’d arranged to meet up with my mates from Cambridge whilst we were down there and he called just as we finished eating – he was leaving the park and coming into town. The idea being that we would meet up and go for a bite to eat and a drink with them. Unfortunately I’d only put 3 hours on the parking ticket, so thought it was better to go back to the car and put some more money in. Only to discover that after a 25 minute walk in the blistering heat , the car park was free after 6:00 (by now it was 6:30! Bugger :O( We just grabbed some water out of the boot and walked back along the seafront into Brighton

We eventually met up with Paul and Simon at around 8:00, found some nice little restaurant around the corner where I had fish and chips (nice) and they all had pizza / pasta dishes.
After that we just walked about trying out the bars and people watching – a really nice way to pass the evening. By the time we’d said out goodbyes and got back to Watford it was 2:00 am but a very enjoyable day – roll on next year !

Yesterday morning I work up quite late feeling the effects of two late nights, a lot of driving and the quite a bit of sunburn – ho hum !
I called my friend Odd-Thomas and asked him if he wanted to come and help me put down the decking in the back garden – luckily for me he said yes
So he arrived armed with a bag of Magnum ice creams and we started working. Unfortunately I bought the wrong type of drill to use on the concrete path and after 5 holes, it gave up the ghost on the 6th – the end snapped off and it turned into corkscrew !

Eventually we got about a third of the decking done, then my housemate Paul came in from work so we called time for the day and relaxed with beers, Jack Daniels and a barbeque – a fitting end to a great weekend !

So this morning I’ve come into work, still looking a lovely shade of lobster, and people are coming up and asking “have you been in the sun over the weekend ?” No, I got caught in a blizzard and its frostbite !

03 August 2007

Shopping fun

I went shopping in Watford last night, trying to find clothes and a pair of trainers for the weekend. Now unfortunately I never have much luck when looking for clothes – everything that I like always looks better on other people, or I’ll see somebody wearing something that catches my eye, and I can never track the thing down.

T-shirts and tops are the worst, why on earth do they make them longer, the larger size that you pick up. Generally I fit most ‘M’ sizes, but if I pick up a top that’s a bit more ‘fitted’ I have to go up to an ‘L’ – this usually ends in the item fitting around the chest and arms, but it hangs down past my waist and well on its way to my knees. I think the only retailer that is any good in this respect is H&M. Don’t they understand that not all men have that are large around the chest have beer bellies and need the extra length of cloth to cover their girth :O(

Another of my gripes are the ‘greeters’ – to me theres nothing more offputting than seeing a shop with no customers, six staff laying in wait and an array of things that are screaming ‘buy me – you know you want to!’ You just know that as soon as you set foot in the door, one of them will peel off and ask if you are ‘ok, mate’ or if you need any help. NO ! I just want to look without feeling like I’m a prospective shoplifter being watched every step of the way .
And then you always get the one that follows you around the displays, just a couple of items behind where you are looking, straightening up the piles or adjusting the items that you have looked at. Grrrr !

This reminds me of shopping in Burtons in Harrow years ago when this assistant wouldn’t leave me alone – he must have asked me six times if I needed any help or if I knew what I wanted. In the end I said “yes, you can help me – I’m trying to get one of these jumpers up my coat without anybody noticing – do you think you could turn your back for ten seconds ?” Eventually he muttered something and walked off – and I walked out ! :O)

Anyway, last night wasn’t too bad in the end – I managed to get a couple of tops in Blue Inc and a pair of trainers from Sports Soccer – at least in that shop the assistants actively avoid you :O)

01 August 2007

And then there were two

Paul, my housemate returned from holiday last night – he’d been for a 10 day break to Dubai and came back looking sickeningly healthy with a lovely tan, and he reckoned that he’d lost loads of weight over there as it was too hot to eat

I wonder how long I’d need to be there to get the figure that I’d like!

His most poignant comment to me yesterday was ‘I can’t wait to get back home to have some decent food’ – it just didn’t seem the right time to tell him that the cookers broken :O)

On another note, Chanelle has left the Big Brother house – well hurrah for that !
I was discussing it with one of my colleagues at lunchtime – Jan was of the impression that Chanelles outbursts were down to the way that she’d been treated by Ziggy – personally I think she was just a bit of an attention seeker who was worried that she might get a few boos when she finally left the house. Did you see the fuss she made about playing that violin and in the end she was quite good – and then when Ziggy had to perform his song / dance routine she was running about telling everybody that ‘my boyfriend's a pop star’ – it was ok when it suited you love, wasn’t it !

31 July 2007

Cat naps

Isn’t it funny how a couple of sunny days can raise the spirits. After the last dismal few weeks I’ve been fairly flying out of the bed in the mornings. Its so much easier waking up to sunshine and blue skies than the pattering of rain on the windows

Having said that I’ve not been sleeping too well lately, although that’s not entirely down to me. Firstly my flatmate has been away on holiday, so I think I’m more conscious of noises in the night. Floorboards that creak or the sound of the neighbours shutting their bedroom doors disturbs me.

The second cause of my disturbed sleep is down to CJ, my latest foster cat. Now he’s always craved a bit of attention and wants picking up or fussing at every opportunity, but in the past few nights CJ had taken to getting under the quilt with me. Now I don’t have any problems with him sleeping on the bed as he’s spotlessly clean, but I wasn’t too sure about him getting under the quilt – more for the fact that I could lay on him in the night or he could possibly have trouble breathing under there.

It started off on Friday night when he woke me up by laying across my neck – now I’ve always been wary of cats doing that, ever since I saw the Stephen King film where the cat creeps up and tries to suck that sleeping kids breath away. So I moved him off and he sort of stuck his head under the duvet cautiously getting further underneath – he stayed there for a good couple of hours before waking me up when he got out

So that’s been the routine since, he follows me up to bed, walks around the edge of the bed a couple of times before vanishing under the covers for the night.

I’ll have to tell Paul the lodger that I’ve had a hot pussy in my bed for the past few nights – he’d never believe me ;O)

30 July 2007

too many cooks

Well here we are again – is it really a week since I started keeping this thing – time flies :O)

I had quite a good weekend, I bought the decking for my garden path (hopefully this is the end of the spending now), assembled my raised bed made out of the railway sleepers, did loads of stuff around the house, went out to Cambridge and baked a cake!

On the downside, my oven which is coming up to four months old decided to throw a wobbly and started cutting out without warning. The first time it happened on Saturday afternoon, I just thought there had been a power surge because the display panel was flashing.
Last night I had whipped all the cake mix together and had the oven on to pre heat – just as it was coming up to temperature the oven died again. Thankfully I did manage to get it back on again for long enough to bake the cake, but when I later tried cooking my chicken for today’s lunch it took 3 attempts and almost an hour to cook. As you can guess the end result is a little like chewing on a lump of biltong rather than ‘succulent chicken breast in a crispy crumb coating’.
Talking of cooking I noticed in Sainsbury’s at the weekend a range of stuff called ‘2 minute meals’ – basically it’s a whole meal in a plastic sachet that you zap and then eat – I know its probably riddled with additives and e numbers but I was sorely tempted to try it – if only it had been on BOGOF

BOGOF = Buy one get one free

27 July 2007

Car trouble

The battery in my car’s bleeper died yesterday morning – not good.

I drive a Renault Megane (the ‘Shaking dat ass’ one) and you can only open the doors by having this key card thing on you. Now I’ve known for a few weeks that the battery was on its way out, but being too smart to buy a new one, I figured that if I kept removing the battery and huffing on it, I could get at least another couple of months out of it :o(

Unfortunately this time it gave up the ghost totally, I stood there like some common car thief, rattling the handle in the hope I could get in, but it was having none of it. Then I remembered that there is an ‘emergency’ key thing that you can push into a hole in the lock and it should open the doors – that didn’t work either.

Then it started to rain, and I was faced with the choice of

walk back home and see if I can find a battery that will fit or
find somewhere to shelter

I went for the shelter option and spent two minutes huddled under some bush that was alive with spiders, waiting for the shower to pass. Unfortunately with the wind blowing quite strongly the bush didn’t provide much cover and I ended up getting quite wet.

So now I’m damp, running late for work and have the possiblilty of spiders laying eggs in my ears - brilliant.

I reach for the handle for one more try and ‘ker-ching’ it opens

Didn't you just know that was going to happen

26 July 2007

Think pink

I had an email from one of my mates, part of our daily ritual of around 30 messages back and forth between nine and five :O)

Now B, as we shall call him, is quite well versed in IT – he does loads of clever things with websites and programming, if he recommends something it’s usually a good choice. So anyway, he’s contracting at the minute but his job is coming to an end so he has to return the nice laptop that they had lent him.

The bones of his email were that he has to give the laptop back and he’s been looking at this new one that he really would love to get – he’d added a link at the bottom for me to take a look.

So where does B go for advice, ‘Computer Buyer’, ‘IT World’, some other nerdy tech magazine with pictures of circuit boards in suggestive poses – no. The link was to ‘Shiny Shiny TV – A girls guide to gadgets’ – I kid you not

http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2007/05/toshiba_g40_a_s.html

and then he has the cheek to say that it was the first link that came up on a Google search – yeah right !

25 July 2007

Well at last - Part two

Way back in 1984 I bought a book ‘The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾’ It was the ‘Harry Potter’ of its day and simply one of those books that you had to have. I bought my hardback copy for the princely sum of £5.50 and put it on my bookshelf to read whilst I was on holiday.

The holidays came and went and it stayed on the shelf – a year or so later it went into the top of the wardrobe when I decorated the bedroom and it didn’t get touched again until I moved house in 1998. It was safely packed in a box, transported from South Harrow to Watford and promptly placed in the top of another wardrobe.

In March this year I decided to rent out my front bedroom and as a consequence, had to clear out all the boxes that had been in the top of the wardrobe untouched since the day I moved in.

Its amazing all the stuff that I’d crammed into those boxes – old birthday, Christmas and Valentine cards - ok, not so many of those :o(, editions of newspapers from when we went to war over the Falklands, old C90 cassettes of the chart show illegally taped from Radio 1 on a Sunday afternoon, a bag full of sugar sachets (strange), a 28 year past its sell by date sachet of drinking chocolate (stranger still) and loads of other stuff too personal or embarrassing to list here.

Needless to say that whilst I was going through the boxes, I found my copy of Adrian Mole, still in the original W.H.Smith bag with the receipt in the front – only the yellowing of the pages a clue as to how long it had been hidden in the box.

So today, twenty three years, two months and eleven days after buying it, I finally finished reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole – now quite a lot older than thirteen and three quarters!

And I never did watch the series on the telly, so I didn’t know the ending – not that it really had an ending anyway. The actor who played Adrian Mole is now a nurse working somewhere in Leicestershire apparently – so much for his 15 minutes of fame!

Quick update on the railway sleepers – I took advantage of the sunshine last night and managed to treat two and a half of the six foot ones before running out of preservative. The small ones are nearly dry (as long as you don’t rub them too hard) – I did check on the Cuprinol site and they said it can dry in up to 7 days depending on weather conditions, typical!
And my special fixing bolts are waiting for me at City Link in Hemel Hempstead so I’ve got to head up there this evening to collect them – rush hour on the M1, oh joy!

24 July 2007

Well at last - Part one

Finally, after nearly 8 weeks of waiting, that rancid witch Charley should get her comeuppance on Friday night and be thrown out of the Big Brother house – hurrah.

Now normally I’m quite a placid and tolerant person but that girl would try the patience of a saint – how on earth the other people in the house managed to put up with her for so long is beyond me. So yes, on Friday night her fifteen minutes of fame will be over and we can forget all about her and her evil mouth – unless of course Big Brother producers decide that the ratings will take too much of a hit if she goes, and they rig it so that she can stay in there – you have been warned !

I think there’s something wrong with glorifying behaviour like hers – sure it gets Channel 4 high ratings figures but would you really want to live next door to her. If this was real life you’d have the police around every five minutes and she’d either be tagged or slapped with an ASBO.

This is the first year that I’ve made a point of not watching the show, apart from on Fridays in the vain hope that the housemates with hear the chorus of ‘Get Charley Out’ and act on it. Ok people have said that she’s a ‘character’ and creates a bit of interest – rubbish, shes a very clever bully who should have gone a month ago but again, because it suited the producers, certain votes got discounted and she stayed in there.

On a lighter note, at least its tried to be sunny today – I’m counting at least 9 hours of sunshine so far and its still only the afternoon :O) It’s good news for those people who were threatened by flooding too, not so good if your three piece suite is floating around your lounge on a lake of sewage though.

And I never thought I’d say it but I think that Gordon Brown has come across as being genuinely concerned for the peoples plight – I’d rather give birth than vote Labour, but he seems to be very genuine and nothing he does or says looks ‘stage managed’ – unlike the days of phoney Tony.

23 July 2007

Monday blues

Monday already - where do the weekends go to ?

Still all in all it wasn't a bad weekend - I managed to get a fair amount of work done in the garden which is my ongoing project. I went to Ayletts in St Albans to buy some railway sleepers with which I'm hoping to build a raised flower bed next to my new patio. I opted to buy new ones rather than reclaimed sleepers basically because old ones start leaking tar all over the place when they get warm and you don't want that on your clothes !

I did two trips to the garden centre (not wishing to risk damaging the suspension by putting too many in there - I've given Renault far too much of my cash so far this year !) , after that I went to B&Q to get some timber preserver to treat the joins where I'm having to cut the ends.

Now I'm sure that the stuff that I bought is very good, but unfortunately it flicks off the brush like nobodys business - it seemed no matter how careful I was to make sure that I didn't splatter, I ended up looking like some ginger person caught in a heat wave. Thankfully a quick shower and copious amounts of IKEA body scrub did the trick and returned my skin to its usual pasty palour - not that I have anything against freckles, but antique oak is just SO not my colour!

So after I finished painting the sleepers I got around to reading the instructions on the tin (like all professional DIY'ers do ) - now it seems like this preserver is going to take up to 5 days to dry properly and could remain slightly damp for a number of weeks - bugger ! So much for getting it finished for next weekend :O(

Talking of the damp, I've just been watching the evening news - my thoughts go out to all those people who's homes have been decimated by the flooding - makes my wet garden pale into insignificance really