Venturing into civilization

Hill snow

Today, being one of those rare days that PG and I were both off work together had long since been designated as 'venture to civilization and get essential supplies' day. 'Vital supplies' is a term used loosely here, for even in gemmaks-ville true vital supplies are available, despite being a little remote.

This planned day out was not, I have to say, on the top of my 'want to do list' today but having spent the majority of yesterday in bed rattling with paracetamol and the like, and the guy with the jack-hammer having had the good grace to bugger off, I agreed, somewhat po-faced to go..... providing PG did all the driving.

What a waste of time, most of our required essential supplies where not to be had for various reasons and with the whole of Edinburgh's retail opportunities at my feet I could still not raise the appropriate interest. I think the sum total of my outlay was in the region of £10! Not to be off-put we made the obligatory bi-monthly pilgrimage to Ikea, not that we needed anything but when it's there you just have to do it....again a paltry outlay. We wandered disinterested with the usual flock, picked up a few candles (well you have to don't you?) and headed for home.

All was not lost. Sat in the passenger seat like a pudding, staunchly sticking to my 'I'm too ill to drive' routine, I was treated to some beautiful sights. Edinburgh is surrounded on three sides by mountains and hills, all of which were still snow covered. To me, used to London, a city surrounded by such scenery is still awe inspiring and to drive along main routes through a city and see the snow capped landscape is breathtaking. I have to add here my apologies for the quality, or lack thereof, where the photograph is concerned....it was the best I could do at dusk in a moving vehicle, through the windscreen and where no convenient stopping places presented themselves! Godamn urban roads, I'm used to just grinding to a halt these days without risk of prosecution, or worse still causing an accident!

Finally as we approached home the highlight of the day, a Barn Owl, unusually active in early dusk, flew alongside the car for maybe 300 yards, swooping and hovering, wings at full span, beautiful face looking intermittently straight at us. Once or twice I have caught a glimpse of one but never so close or for such a period of time.

So we drove, or rather PG did, 150 miles to spend only £20 but I got lunch out and a rare close up of a Barn Owl...... himself is out at a meeting for the evening so I have the pc all to myself and the ailing bits of me are on the mend.....yup, things could be a whole lot worse!

Cat-ch that cursor.

Ditto.

Jack-hammer and whisk

Yesterday I was dispatched back home from work within two hours of arriving as the result of some heinous interloper invading my body. Said invading little critter has come equipped with a large jackhammer in my head and a whisk in my stomach. Bleugh.

I got up this morning to investigate the state of play in time to get ready and go.... but things are no better. The delightful (not) description of 'bleugh' still reigns and now I have to sit and wait another hour and a half in trepidation of making the 'I can't make it in' call, as soon as someone arrives at the store. I wanna go back to bed but I dare not for fear of oversleeping and not making the call at the appropriate time. Unusually yesterday I was treated with sympathy and kindness, it was my good fortune that the duty manager was one of the few with a heart and it made a big difference but it doesn't prevent me from dreading calling in today.

It's taken me 40 minutes to type these few paltry words and a pc screen isn't helping my head any, I'm off now to feel pathetic and guilty........

Some days........

.....don't you just feel like doing this to someone?!

Friday's feast (37)

Ok Jack, this is for you....have patience man! Heh. :o)

Appetizer - Name something that makes you scream.
Spiders, nothing else makes me scream.

Soup - Who is a musician you enjoy listening to when you want to relax?
I don't often listen to music other than as a background in the car but if I do listen to relax then New World stuff or what PG refers to as 'screaming women', the like of Celine Dion/Whitney Houston etc.

Salad - What was the last book you purchased?]
A world atlas.

Main Course - If you could live one day as any historical figure, who would it be, and what would you do?
I would be Captain James Cook and I would do exactly as he did, that way I would get to see all the places in the world, by sea, that I would like to.

Dessert - Tell about a time when you were lost. Where did you end up? How long did it take you to get back to where you were going?
I don't think I have ever been lost other than at about age 3 when I 'mislaid' my mother in a department store for a few minutes! One minute I was by her side, the next she vanished, or rather I wandered off. I can still remember the feeling of utter panic and terror vividly, although it only took her a minute or two to track me down and attach me to 'reins'!.

Woman sues Hewlett Packard

Whilst on the subject of internet and computer related stories in the news today this less alarming, but none the less annoying, item came to my notice.

An American woman is currently suing Hewlett Packard for allegedly programming the chips on their ink cartridge's to 'expire' at a certain date, regardless of whether they are empty.

The ink cartridge price situation has long been a bone of contention among those of us that use printers. While the cost of a printer is now minimal, in many instances the cost of running one can be as high as £1700 over the life of the machine!

The issue of an expiry date is a new one on me. I am well aware that the chips alert the user that the cartridge is 'empty' (not) long before it genuinely is and promote the changing of said cartridge way before it is necessary, but to shut it down and render it useless is not something I have experienced. On the rare occasion that I have used an original cartridge I have been able to print perfectly well for perhaps 20, A4 sized high quality prints after Epson's chip has told me it is no longer viable!!

The answer to this problem is simple and cost effective. A set of Epson original cartridges for my printer is over £50 so I don't buy them. Instead I purchase generic cartridges via the internet at the cost of £12 a set. Ok, so I render my guarantee (for what it's worth) invalid but compare the cost, it doesn't take a genius to see that the guarantee is in effect an extremely heavily priced piece of nonsense. Three sets of ink and you have a new printer...... and a pretty reasonable one at that. Here in the UK an acceptable every day model will only set you back about £40, less than one set of cartridges.......no contest, I'll take my chance, if it breaks, even at £250 I'm quids in and I'll buy another.

Arash Sigarchi jailed for 14 years

The Iranian blogger Arash Sigarchi was yesterday jailed for 14 years for criticizing the arrest by the authorities of other online journalists in Iran!

Mr Sigarchi was charged with a string of crimes against the Iranian state, including espionage, insulting the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In actual fact what he was doing was what so many of us do, promoting his opinion via a blog.

This is an outrage.

We in the Western world, at times, take for granted our freedoms. We may not be as free in some instances as we would like but Mr Sigarchi's situation brings our difficulties into a stark perspective. Many of us consider the risk of losing our employment as the result of blogging, a crime against our freedom of speech and fight it fervently. To risk being incarcerated for such a 'crime' is unthinkable.

I am not naive enough to think it a completely alien concept, that what may be considered subversive, published opinions would not attract the attention of authorities here, in fact I know of one such case, but to be jailed by a kangaroo court for such actions just would not happen.

For more information see related links:

The committee to protect bloggers

Reporters without borders

Stuff and other stuff

The last two days have bought with them my wished for snowfall. The snow fell on and off for 48 hours but was punctuated with spells of bright sunshine and hence the covering only ever managed to attain approximately 3 inches in depth but that was good enough for me. The landscape turned a beautiful white, the sun glistened on it's surface and Ditto had a fine time.

The weather forecasts last night promised further snow and this time with promises of severe disruption and 10 inches overnight. Full of glee I went to my bed in expectation of a beautiful deep snowfall this morning. What did I get? Rain! Damp, miserable, grey, wet, rain. There is an odd phenomenon it appears in this years forecasting, each time I look the same conditions are prevalent but have been 'pushed' in the region of 10 hours hence. At this rate snow will still be forecast to fall in mid August!

Along with the damp, rainy morning came another surprise, my car's brakes seized yet again, yes, I know I paid over £200 to get them fixed not ten days ago......don't go there, just don't! As a consequence of this I was late for work, having churned up the driveway here for twenty minutes freeing them off. Things go no better.

The heating, that has been in a state of collapse in my place of work for the last few weeks was repaired yesterday and so I hadn't regaled myself in various elegant items of thermal fashions, guess what? Ok, so it had been repaired but is now giving forth a sound similar to that in the boiler room of a steam ship and for the main part had to be turned off to enable basic conversations to be held with those we serve. Add to that, the main entrance door were being 'worked on' and so were parked wide open all day. Heavens above!

Finally my new cell phone crashed and died for no apparent reason.

On the up side, yes there is one, the retailer from who I purchased the phone is next door to where I work and changed it without the expected furore and aggravation, I only had to work a 6 hour shift, the BIG snow is still forecast for mid June tonight and I have a day off tomorrow. Yayyy.

Right then, that's me done for now, I'm off to download MMS and GPRS settings to my replaced phone yet again.....oh the excitement, I can hardly contain myself!

A learning curve

(Click to enlarge)

What's this then?


Smells ok.......


Yup, it tastes ok......


Not sure tho.... where's that back foot gone?

Love em or hate em.....

....agree or disagree, Charles and Camilla are going to be married come hell or high water and the Queens decision not to attend, hotly denied by the palace as a snub, seems to be just that! The reason given? That the couple want it to be a low key affair.....do mothers not normally qualify under the term 'low key'?

She may have her reservations, she may disapprove, we will doubtless never know the true 'goings on' surrounding this wedding that is fast sliding into a state of utter debacle but come on, she is his mother. One thing is for sure, if I were the 'happy couple' no amount of official statements or excuses would prevent me from feeling snubbed and furthermore in a situation where the queen is concerned about the image of her family this won't help. Much as I admire the ability to have the courage of one's convictions this in my opinion, not the most appropriate time or place for it.

Snow at last!

(Click to enlarge)






I just had to get up early this morning to check out the snow situation and yes, at last I was greeted with some proper accumulation of snow. Yaayyyy. Last nights midnight fall had been added too and it was all brand new pristine, beautiful, foot print and car track-less. It began snowing again about an hour ago and hasn't stopped, the forecasters are suggesting this is only the 'thin end of the wedge' and PG is laughingly warning me I will wish I had been more careful what I hoped for by tonight when I have no heat, light or internet connection!

Ditto is loving it, she ran off into the whiteness at her first chance, chasing flakes and kicking it up around her at the first opportunity of an open door and has not been seen since.......Poppy on the other hand, looked out of the window and settled back down in her bed!

My little blue car.......

.....is turning white!!!

And yes, call it dedication, stupidity or obsession......I have just been out at past midnight to take these pictures! :o)


Turning white

Ditto came too, or rather she snuck out and made her way somewhat gingerly in this new white world. At two years old this is her first experience, though it seems to have met with her approval.......I want to go to bed now but I'm still waiting for her to decide she has 'played' enough and to come home for the night........


Treading carefully.

'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day'

For an explaination click HERE and the links on the buttons.

Nokia girl

Yeah ok, so months ago I could have told you I would do this, one doesn't get to er.....40 'something' without being aware of one's own foibles.

Cell phones are one such foible! I have had more of the damn things over the years than you can shake a stick at and rarely am I happy with them. In November I upgraded and for the first time deserted Nokia, in my opinion the only phone to have. I should have stuck with them but no, I just had to try something new! So Samsung it was and a flip phone into the bargain.....and could I get on with it, could I hell. I have persevered but nope....... it was not to be.
The final straw came these last two weeks when it became starkly and frustratingly apparent that the reception equipment installed in said phone just wasn't up to bad weather coupled with isolated locations. For two weeks PG and I have been unable to call anyone successfully from home but put the sim into an old Nokia 3310 and hey presto, no problem!

And it was thus that today I bought yet another phone, a Nokia of course. I was reasonably well behaved, I didn't purchase the top of the range as is my usual habit, to be frank I was so fed up with video, mp3, radio and all manner of bells and whistles that I rarely used and made the thing so unnecessarily complicated that I plumped for something simple and a bit more fun, a funky bright coloured affair with flashing lights that does nothing more than take a photograph and would you believe it make a call! Yayyy.

All is not lost on the financial front either, the Samsung I got free with my contract and can be 'ebay-ed' for at least as much as I paid for the new one!

Result, a phone with decent reception, the comfort of the Nokia menu and no economic pain!

Looking hopeful

(Click to enlarge)

Snowing

Tiny white

We awoke this morning, after promises all weekend of disruptive falls of snow, to a tiny white dusting, a little more fell soon after but for now that seems to be it. Further East a few inches fell overnight and the forecasters are promising it's heading this way! Chickens are not being counted but fingers are crossed for the promised white-out and perhaps even some snow pictures of a more impressive nature!

(Click to enlarge)

Snow clouds


Dusted.

Hide and seek!

Hiding!

More mishaps

Incredibly my place of work suffered yet more out of the ordinary happenings yesterday, I'm beginning to feel like the place is jinxed right now. Nothing happens year after year here and then suddenly in two days it's one thing after another.

So yesterday the first incident resulted in a posse of armed police officers making a rapid attendance, hell, I didn't even know we had armed officers so readily available in this quiet backwater, thankfully this incident was a false alarm and the result of someone hitting an alarm in error. The second incident involved a guy who wandered into the store, a foreign national with limited English, who had apparently been beaten in the car park. The details where unclear but again the attendance of the police was necessary and the poor guy left with them some time later.

Nothing and I mean nothing of any note ever happens here, in comparison to retail life in the city we are rarely even subjected to the standard interests of shoplifters and the consequent hoo ha that accompanies them, we don't get brawls, stolen vehicles or robberies and suddenly in two days the place has turned 'pear shaped'

With luck and a prevailing wind, today things will return to their normal state of sleepy seaside town!

Friday's feast (36)

Appetizer - Name 2 things you do that you consider beneficial to your health.
Does eating chocolate count? Well it does release endorphines and makes me happy so that has to be good for me! .......aside from that most other things I do are probably bad for me.

Soup - If you made a New Year's resolution, how's it going so far?
I only made one, to blog every day this year, thus far I'm on 100% but it hardly rates with giving up smoking etc. now does it?

Salad - Name something that has happened lately that bothers you.
The disappearance in Hull of Joanne Nelson.

Main Course - What is your favorite quote, and who said it?
"The pursuit of happiness is the greatest cause of unhappiness ~ Anon"

Dessert - What do you collect?
Clocks but only in a small way, some may say husbands!

Dancing blue footed boobies

This cheerful, amusing picture appeared before my eyes this morning and made me smile. As someone with a passion for birds it was a happy start to my Friday and I couldn't resist sharing it despite probable copyright infringement...... no risk is to great for you, my loyal reader(s) :o)



Dancing blue footed boobies. ©De Roy / Minden Pictures
(Click to enlarge)

(No obvious quips please, their name is not my responsibility)

Late shifts, my favorite....NOT!

Today and Saturday I am on a 'late shift', gah.....I hate it. I'm not one that enjoys lying in in the morning so that's no treat and the early part of the day I just seem to spend clock watching waiting for the appointed hour at which I must drag myself gleefully work-ward. Having completed said shift and arrived home somewhere close to bed time it takes me far too long to unwind, I can't sleep and the following day is generally a haze of tiredness. Roll on Monday and my next day off!

On the up side the weather is progressing thus far in the direction it is is forecast it should for my hoped for snow. The atmospheric pressure is dropping nicely, the wind direction has changed to that which is required and it's speed has picked up appropriately. Maybe this weekend won't be so bad. :o)

Hells bells and little fishes!

What an horrendous day today was, one disaster after another, you couldn't make it up!

Last night a member of the night shift was admitted to hospital having been taken very ill and still remains there. This morning one of the guys working on the rebuild cut his head badly and presented himself to me requesting first aid..... looking decidedly pale-faced and dripping the scary red stuff. The afternoon bought a more serious incident in which a colleague only narrowly missed being seriously injured when fixtures carrying extremely heavy stock collapsed, thankfully fork lift trucks have a heavy duty cage protecting the operator and in this case it did just that!

Latterly a customer reported a car on fire in the car park, upon investigation it turned out to be a brake caliper seized to the disc but the car was no longer fit to drive and so consequently we had to arrange a rescue service. What amazed me was how the owner had driven 30 miles and never noticed her wheel smoking, the smell nor the fact that it had become so hot the wheel trim had melted, let alone the pull on the brakes it must have resulted in!!!! And this lady has a driving licence????

I hasten to add (she says looking over her shoulder and winking at Michelle) none of these incidents was the fault of my employer. Paranoid? What me?

The day ended with my hitting a pheasant while driving home. I don't know if I killed it, it flew off but it hit hard and the thought that it might have a painful end is worse than knowing it died immediately :o(

Gah....I need chocolate and sleep!

Feeling anti-social!

Ditto

Just maybe

Ok, ok, I'm becoming I'm obsessed I know....... but look here and here! :o)

I may not have snow....

....but I have friends in the blogosphere doing their damnedest to alleviate my snow 'shortfall'!

For me these pictures are virtually (no pun intended) impossible to imagine. I don't recall seeing snow like this since I was a child and believe me that was some time ago. This snow fell in just an hour this morning in New York and Just Jade kindly thought of me, braved the flakes, took some pictures and emailed them to me before the snow had even stopped falling.........can you believe......all this in just an hour!!! Heaven.


New York today

Not long after Jennifer left me a gift on her blog.....more of the beautiful white stuff I so long for, hers too fell quickly, clear last night and a stunning white covering when she woke this morning!

A big thank you to the both of you, it seems I am not completely snowless after all :o)


New York 16.02.05

I hasten to add, though of course as I mentioned a few days ago I am not any longer looking at the forecasts, I, er..... happened to notice after I received Jade's mail that there is a 30% possibility of snow here over the next 9 days. Well, given that rumour has it we get a few days later, what New York has now, it would have been rude not to check!

A worrying thought

An extremely concerning realisation came to mind this morning regarding this unusually mild winter that we in the UK are experiencing. Those among you who are glad of it, nay relish it and pray not for snow and sub zero temperatures might like to consider this:

Without the bone chilling, sustained freezing temperatures of years gone by the arachnid population thrives. Come spring there will be many, abnormally few, courtesy of a cold winter, having passed to the great spider's web in the sky and worse still, much much worse,......come September-ish time and 'spider season,' having had far more time to mature than they deserve, the specimens creeping and crawling around your home will be of gargantuan proportions. Forget the glass and piece of paper for spider trapping activities, you're gonna need a bucket and paving slab for these mothers!!!

Jackson ill?

So Michael Jackson has been rushed from court to hospital apparently 'very very ill'.

Forgive my scepticism here but it all seems very convenient. I may be forced to eat my hat on this one but we'll see, I have a feeling his entourages definition of very very ill may well not be that same as yours or mine.

Siesta anyone?

I have to get out of this habit!

Of late I seem to have adopted the Mediterranean habit of taking a 'siesta' somewhere around about mid afternoon, at least I had until I began this working lark again and still have a tendency toward it on my days off. My excuse of course is that the body's natural sleep rhythm would dictate such a siesta if given its head, what the body's natural rhythm of course does not dictate is that one stays up and surfing the internet until 2 or 3am most mornings! That of course is the real reason I have adopted this strange pattern of sleep!

PG can happily go for 48 hours without sleep and apparently with no ill effect, though of course he rarely has cause to.....me? most nights I promise myself an earlier night but get engrossed in something and then don't crawl off to bed until stupid o'clock, unless I have work the following morning.

No matter I hear you say, I have no children, my odd sleeping habits affect no one but they do! I wake up, 'post' siesta, feeling like absolute crap. Maybe the body's natural sleep patterns in the UK are not supposed to include mid afternoon.

It has to stop, I must show some self discipline!

Contrary creature

'Small cat' in the normal vein of cat behaviour has a tendency to nervousness, make a loud noise, move too quickly or ring the door bell and she jumps out of her little furry jacket and instantly adopts the 'red alert' cat position of stretched neck and forward facing whiskers and ears. Not so it seems where the vacuum cleaner is concerned.

She has utter disdain for the usual grooming procedures involving brush and comb and wriggles unendingly offering teeth and claws in resistance......but point the vacuum cleaner in her direction and she immediately puts her head down and her rear in the air, a position in cat behaviour normally reserved for more base activities, and will happily be 'vacuum groomed' for as long as the pleasure is on offer!


Cat-vac

Valentine sunset

Valentine sunset

I will get a grip

I knew the novelty (was there ever a novelty involved?) would soon wear off. I am talking about my new found necessity to earn a living, it's wearing thin already, I have been spoilt for the last few years on the work front and getting back 'into it' is rapidly turning out not to be my idea of fun!

How do people fit everything in I wonder.....and work nigh on full time? Perhaps it just takes practice again, I used to do it. I think have to re-learn the art of NOT being so laid back!

PG and I seem to be like ships passing in the night, the cats are wondering why I am suddenly not there to attend to their every whim and all I seem to do is fall in the door tired, eat and sleep, before it all starts again.... Pah! I remember it well and along with the memory I recall why I was so glad to be out of it for those few years.

Add to that have I barely managed to post these last few days and my blog-surfing has been sadly minimal, I promise, I am still here even if I haven't commented quite as often as my norm and I will get a grip of my new routine, it's just taking me, um.....er....... a few days longer than I had anticipated to get re-organised!

The stuff of dreams!

Ok....I wanna move to Boston!

(Click to enlarge)

Boston blizzard 2005.


Boston blizzard.


Boston blizzard.

Thanks to Michelle, for a whole power point of Boston snow.

That's it!

No more wishing for snow, I've given up, it's just not gonna happen in any serious manner!

As I left for work this morning it began to snow, not the big fat flakes of blizzards but millions of beautiful little flakes dancing around in the wind, they continued to fall for half of my journey and then stopped as abruptly as they had started. An hour later and there were fat flakes falling in abundance as I poked my head out of the door at work. Not long later the sun broke through the cloud and melted the light white covering within minutes......and that was it, fin!

The remainder of the day was freezing cold and accompanied by 30mph winds whistling again through the broken store doors. The customers where cold, we were cold, it was a thoroughly horrible day.

Home at last and four hours later I am just begining to thaw out. I have a day off tomorrow and we have more snow forecast but this time I'm going to ignore the whole issue!

Snow? who needs it? heh.

Yay......

....there is snow forecast for our little patch of Scotland today, we have a howling gale already and sub zero temperatures so it's looking hopeful.I won't be buying skiing equipment just yet mind!

Gotta run, I'm late for work.........

Bank policy

This is an actual letter that was sent to a bank by a 96 year-old
woman. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published
in the New York Times.

Oh to have this presence of mind at 40 something, let alone 96!

To whom it may concern,
I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I
endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three
nanoseconds must have elapsed between his depositing the check and
the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of
course, to the automatic monthly transfer of funds from my modest
savings account, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for
only thirty-one years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief
window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of
penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has
caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas
I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try
to
contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging,
pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has recently become.

From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a
flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan repayments will
therefore
and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by
check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your
bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offense under the
Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status form which I
require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight
pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank
knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies
of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary
Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation
(income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by
documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN
number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it
cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the
number of button presses required of me to access my account balance
on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery.

Please allow me to level the playing field even further. When you
call me, you will now have a menu of options on my new voice mail
system to choose from.

Please press the buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.
2. To query a missing payment.
3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.
4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.
5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.
6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.
7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my
computer is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later
date to the Authorized Contact.
8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 - 7.
9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be
put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service.
While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music
will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an
establishment fee of $50 to cover the setting up of this new
arrangement. Please credit my account after each occasion.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New
Year.

Your Humble Client,

Blogger comments

Hells bells...... just as I change to Haloscan, Blogger tart up their comments system, is it just 'pretty' I wonder, or will it work from here on in?

Er...I won't be removing Haloscan just yet!

Friday's feast (35)

Appetizer - What do you want for Valentine's Day?

If I told you it wouldn't happen....it likely won't anyway but I'm hedging my bets :o)

Soup - If you could change the color of something you own, what would it be and which color would you make it?

I don't have anything I don't like the colour of, colour is important to me and I buy stuff the colour I want it or not at all. I would change the colour of my hair to lighter blonde but does one own hair??

Salad - What's your favorite day of the week and why?

Any day off...the reason? It's playtime :o)

Main Course - What excuse do you use most often?

'I'm too busy'

Dessert - Name something or someone you feel sorry for.

Any animal that has been or is being mistreated.

Daylight robbery

I am fuming, steaming, spitting fire, yup I'm angry and it's not often I 'do' angry.

My cell phone bill landed on my doormat this morning and somewhat stunning it was too......well over twice my normal charges and most items unsolicited!

A while back I stupidly fell for the 'crazy frog' advertising and feeling full of amusement I ordered said item from it's distributor, a delightful company with it seems no integrity what_ so_ ever.....yes, you guessed it JAMSTER. What kind of damn fool woman am I?

Subsequently Jamster have repeatedly sent me text messages offering more of their products, screensavers, ringtones and the like. I have never downloaded anything from them, in fact the initial and only item I requested failed to arrive, but none the less I have been charged............and at extortionate rates into the bargain!

This morning I have spent over an hour on the phone sorting out this fiasco. It seems that if one orders an item from this company a 'club' is unwittingly 'joined' allowing for these messages to be sent. Apparently if one reads the small print, though where exactly that is available is not clear, it allows for this to happen. Ok, I can live with the odd text message but it's not as simple as that. The messages they send out to members of this less than illustrious club, merely offering their products are charged, regardless of whether one chooses to download an item!!!! WTF!

The only thing I can offer in their defence is that having spent more time than I cared to embroiled in an argument on the phone this morning, they have at least agreed to refund me the charges.............though it will take them 3 weeks to do so. It sure as hell didn't take them that long to charge me!

I now await said cheque to arrive from Germany, somehow I feel this may not be the end of this, my faith in the agreed refund arriving is not high!

Cat loving queen

My, er..... loosely themed 'valentines' header images of the last few days seem to have caused a small problem (see here) for Deanna who's daughter the 'seven year old cat loving queen hangs' on her shoulder to see what 'the cat lady' has done today! Ooopsss.

So this is especially for you 'seven year old cat loving queen', in the hope that you will forgive me!

The quarterly hair horror

The dreaded three monthly hair appointment was today! Regulars will know my dislike of this necessary evil, I have blogged it on more than one occasion. I hate it, nay detest it, the faffing, the inane conversation centered around holidays and hair colour drives me demented, luke warm instant coffee and hairdresser egos are just not my thing.

Today's foray into the nightmare that is the hair salon was, it transpired, amusingly different. This establishment is for a small town, reasonably upmarket and at least boasts well qualified stylists, post 1960's decor, (unlike it's counterparts in the town, that favour the blue rinse brigade) and a comfortingly full appointment book.

A rare calm greeted me upon my arrival, only one or two clients instead of the usual melee where apparent and thankfully my regular stylist 'Fiona' was ready and waiting for me. As time has gone by she seems to have learnt of my dislike for the usual bowing and scraping afforded clients as the norm and has relaxed a little. She knows my dread of the backwash and instructed 'hair washing junior' appropriately, to only 'wash once' and 'no conditioner', thereby affording me an early escape from this neck breaking contraption.

As time passed and she snip, snipped away we chatted comfortably about all manner of subjects, we giggled and joked and all was looking well. At this point things became a little strange, we noticed suddenly that we were alone, the other staff had all 'disappeared'. Little did we know but this hair appointment was about to become like something from an episode of a poorly written soap opera.

'Go find out where they have gone' I suggested and laughing she disappeared into the back of the building, leaving me alone and half done. Returning moments later, shaking and red faced she reported there had been a disagreement of sorts and the absent staff where embroiled in an argument concerning the perpetrator of a large number of 'strange' phone calls they had been receiving of late. This argument carried on, intermittently spilling over into the front of house when one or other of these girls appeared, pretended to be working and was then summoned back by one colleague or another in hissing whispers.

Amid all of this and without warning 'young hairwashing junior' suddenly appeared in floods of tears....enough is enough was Fiona's response and amid apologies she ushered said hairwasher briskly out of sight. She returned minutes later, hairwasher had not it seemed become involved in the cat fight as suspected, instead she had just been dumped by her boyfriend of many months..........via text message..... Nice guy...... and was still wailing uncontrollably from somewhere out of sight but most certainly not out of earshot!

Professional it was not, but damned entertaining it all was. Ok, so the luke warm instant coffee was still appalling, no change there, but the conversation was improved and the entertainment was certainly more amusing than that normally provided during the dreaded salon visit!

Oh....and in the end I did get my hair cut!

French tips perhaps?

(Click to enlarge)

Inspection.

Happiness is a leaking tap

Since the age of 20 until I moved here to Scotland I owned the home I lived in, or rather I and my assorted ex husbands owned them. For various reasons that I won't go into here PG and are not in a position to buy a house and as a consequence rent, something the thought of which, did not fill me with glee at the outset.

Why I had a problem with renting I'm not sure, I have no children to leave property too should I turn up my toes and historically, for me it has never been a good investment. All bar one of the homes I owned lost money through a combination of circumstance and economic climate and that one I had to agree to give my share of along the oh so pleasant route to divorce!

I love the flat we live in and I love where it is but it is not mine and it has always bugged me.......until this week.

This week the plumbing seemed to spontaneously combust, first the kitchen tap sprung a leak and then last night the waste pipe under the bath gave up! Suddenly tenancy as opposed to ownership is showing it's positive side. No fighting with basin wrenches, copper piping and PTFE tape for me....nope....just call the landlord and out he comes, job done, no hassle, no financial outlay........ Yup, I reckon this renting lark isn't so bad after all!

Who said romance is dead!

How to impress.

Casting aspersions....me?

Not of course that I would ever dream of casting aspersions on the 'interests' of you my loyal readers, nor consider you anything other than proper, polite and individuals of good taste but the thought came to mind, that of all the pictures I have ever used on my header only one was requested (and still is) to be returned! Only one drew comments and requests for a copy.....it was the only slightly risque image I ever used, the couple on the beach! Hmmmm.

And yes, I have made promise to return it again sometime, for someone, but I have to have a change for a day or two, so perhaps the above will do for now :o)

I can't miss a day!

I'm having one of those days.....the one's where absolutely nothing is making it's way through the cotton wool that is currently masquerading as my brain and presenting itself as worthy of blogging. Absolutely damn all. Not a thing. Zip, zilch, nowt.

But here I am anyways, with one sole purpose......if I don't post something today it will be the first day of 2005 that I have missed and I just can't have that. My new years resolution (if you can call it that) was to post every day this year. I wasn't going to divulge that for fear of setting myself up for a fall but there it is, I have admitted it as poor excuse for this 'nothing' post that says sod all but at least carries the appropriate date!

Is that cheating I wonder?

Ellen MacArthur has done it!

CONGRATULATIONS

to Ellen MacArthur who has just broken the world record for sailing solo around the world with over a day to spare!

What a woman.

It's a tall world

This is not something new in my life, the world is most definitely not made to cater for those of us that are somewhat 'challenged' in the height department.

At 'optimistically' five foot I have long suffered clothes with sleeves half way to my knees, trousers with enough spare at the bottom of the leg to make a second pair and dresses that have the bust at my waist, the waist at my hips and reveal not just an attractive decolletage (should I have one) but the whole damn lot to a point somewhere midway between my shoulders and my navel!

I have had a lifetime of having to ask for assistance when trying to reach a product on a supermarket shelf, of being referred to as 'sweet' or 'cute' (neither of which accurately describes my nature!) because I am small, people have even been known to pat me on the head in a condescending manner and of course it has been the source of many jokes.

I am used to it, it has it's funny side and there are worse things that could have afflicted me but now something new.

I mentioned recently that the store in which I work is currently undergoing a re-fit, or rather a substantial re-build, well said work is progressing nicely, with one or two exceptions that I will go into on another occasion. This week saw the completion of the new desk that myself and those of us unlucky lucky enough to spend our days dealing with customer complaints inhabit for the eight hour stint.

And so we 'moved in' last Tuesday, tills, computers, and all the masses of sundry items required for us to do our job and serve the public in the manner to which they have become accustomed,where moved to our new 'abode' overnight. The morning bought chaos. I was alone running this area for the morning, I could find nothing, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and scattered randomly around, my tannoy and 'customer requires help' buzzers where defunct, only one pc and one till worked and the power sockets where non existent.

All of this was somewhat challenging but do-able, I muddled through, gradually cleaned and organised between customers, if not to perfection at least to a point where I could operate reasonably......... but woe is me, the height issue/small person problem raised it's head once more and in a far more difficult manner than the norm.

The whole damn desk has been built for someone of at least 5' 10'', I can't see my customers and they can't see me over the pc and till screens! Oh joy. Add to that the tills have been set so high that I cannot manoeuvre myself any which way to be able to view the screen through the appropriate bit of my varifocal lenses, resulting in a week of sore eyes and headaches.

Yes, I know there is a duty of care, that my employer should alleviate this problem. I offered to use a small box or stool or some such 'high tech' piece of equipment to stand on but apparently health and safety doesn't allow that.

Please forgive my scepticism but I have a feeling this will turn into a bone of contention. My initial mention of the problem seemed to be treated as moaning or grumbling and I got the distinct feeling among the laughter, that it was taken less than seriously. Things are hectic right now, management are stressed and there are myriad deadlines to meet and things to get done, so for now I will wait and see.....but who will give me good odds on anyone coming back to me on this one without my having to make an issue of it?!

Lol, just give me a box someone!