Little things

Fallow Doe © Laurie Campbell

As ever I have worked all weekend with nothing outstandingly good or bad involved, no customers of note in either a negative or positive respect, just day to day weekend retail madness.

It will never cease to amaze me that so many people want to shop on a weekend and and it confounds me further that they are forming a queue at the door by 9.30 on a Sunday morning, if not sooner. There are many places I might like to be at that hour on a Sunday, if I had not to work, but on the doorstep of a superstore in the cold would most certainly not be one of them!!

The mundanity and routine of the working weekend was tempered by one or two small but very pleasant surprises.

The first was an invitation from someone who has become a good friend of late, an invitation to do something I have never done before and that I am looking forward to like a small child.....more on that soon.

The second was the beautiful sight, as PG and I left home this morning for work, of two beautiful adult deer not 20 yards away. They had no cover other than a light mist, both turned in unison at the sound of the door closing shut, looked at us for a few moments and then meandered slowly on their way, stopping to graze intermittently as they went. We stood and watched in silence as they pottered around the field, seemingly unperturbed by our presence until they had gone from our sight.

We have lived her now for three years but until this morning had seen no evidence that there were deer 'in the back yard'.

So that was my weekend, no fireworks here, there are too many animals in close proximity had we even wanted them but instead a few little events that made it quite a special two days.

It's the small things in life as they say .........

Coronation Street anyone?

In control.

The case of the missing parcel

The birthday present to my Mother finally turned up but not I might add hastily, in quite the manner one would expect.

I left the situation with the company I purchased from somewhat in mid air, they had no idea where it was and couldn't contact the courier charged with responsibility for delivery because they were by then closed for business.

My father rang me at around 11.30 last night. He and my Mother had been out for the evening celebrating her birthday and upon their return my Mother commented that it appeared there was a parcel left on the doorstep of the house next door to them, she was concerned for it's safety. My father, aware of the lost gift, walked down the drive to investigate and sure enough it was the missing parcel. It was duly rescued and taken indoors.

None of this may sound that peculiar, I was relieved it was at last with it's recipient BUT it may sound a little less acceptable when I draw to your attention one or two small points!

Both my parents house and that next door have house numbers on the front door three inches high, both houses are set back from the road necessitating a walk toward them making it nigh on impossible that anyone could miss the numbers, the packege was clearly and correctly addressed and required a signature upon delivery and last but by no means least...........the property at which this gift was unceremoniously dumped is quite patently uninhabited and not yet entirely constructed!!!!

God preserve me from idiots; just let me loose with the courier at the start of business this morning.

Sorry Risky, but at this stage I am at a loss to know who else to blame if not the driver! :o(

The best laid plans

What is it they say about the 'best laid plans'?

It being my Mothers birthday today and my being 400 miles away I duly very carefully arranged to have a gift delivered to her today. Well that at least was the theory!You know exactly what's coming here don't you?

Yup, the carefully arranged delivery is nowhere in evidence....the ineptitude of some companies never ceases to amaze me. I always buy from large, national and apparently reputable companies and doubtless pay through the nose but that's just fine....assuming they keep their side of the bargain, which on far to frequent occasions it seems they don't!!

So, the phone calls and courier chasing has begun. Granted the company concerned are most apologetic and apparently helpful but that doesn't change the fact that they now can't resolve this situation until Monday and that her birthday is today.

One thing is for sure, if said gift is not delivered sharpish on Monday and with profuse apologies, the very nice operator at the Next Directory call centre will be receiving a somewhat less than very nice call from yours truly.

How do companies of this size get away with it? I certainly couldn't!

Arghhhh.....

5th November

Well it is Guy Fawkes night!!! What more can I say other than they won't be here long doing something very odd to your eyes :o)


It is also my Mothers birthday so:

~HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM~

fireworks especially for you!
xxxxx

Blasphemy and Blogger

Jeez....what in Gods name are Blogger up to now? It is perhaps not courteous to bite the hand that feeds you and feeds you for free into the bargain but hells bells and little fishes, never in all this time have I know our beloved server to be quite such a pain!

Last night, again it took a nose dive, it did allow me to post a picture but then refused point blank to let me into the dshboard or beyond to add any text. An hour and five minutes (yes I timed it) it took to load the page, not even an internal server error message, nothing, just a progress bar interminably making no progress. Success at last, I made it to 'edit posts' only to discover, yes you guessed it, again another unending wait. Not one to leave half a post hanging in mid cyberspace I persisted.......another half an hour to make it to 'delete post'! Arghhhhhh. Having made it that far I hit delete....more waiting and then, joy..... it froze my pc!

I re-booted a thousand times, I reconnected more, I blamed my appalling dialup connection but no, webpages the world over were fine, it was of course another Blogger gremlin!

This morning a little improvement, it kindly allowed me to post a comment the blogs of two others before fading like a dying swan yet again. It has struggled now, at a snails pace, as far as 'new post' but will this ever make it into the blogosphere I wonder.

Much more of this and I'm off elsewhere and be damned to the web spiders, life is too short to get stressed about something I do for fun!

Here's hoping this post makes it..........

P.S. I am amused to note that even with the weight of Google behind them, the Blogger dashboard this morning has a somewhat 'broken' sidebar! :o)

Sleepless in Scotland

It is a bad habit of mine that I rarely hit the sack before the small hours and one that I am sure can't be good for me but none the less I seem to persist in it!

My excuse is that I am a 'night person', that would be just fine if unfortunately I wasn't also a 'morning person' and up with the birds on most occasions. Certainly the idea of sleeping is an appealing one at times but from morning until morning I just always seem to have far too much I want to do and sleeping then, in my peculiar mind, appears to be a waste of my lifetime!

Twas thus that yesterday evening I made an avowed promise to myself that I would entertain a state of narcosis by midnight..... Yeah right!

We had dinner at a reasonable hour or at least Ditto did. It was a lazy meal of pizza and a green salad, eaten off trays on our lap, infront of the moving wallpaper. I made a wrong move. Madam, is not generally given to the act of begging for human food off plates, unlike Poppy who has made a lifetimes study of the effect of pleading eyes and the 'silent meow' on humans, when requiring an unallowed titbit.

So, with this in mind you will understand, I took no notice as Ditto casually wandered along the arm of the sofa, still I was not completely aware as she advanced on me further, of her intent, that is until as I lifted a large portion of pizza toward my mouth only for her, in an instant, to extend a claw clad paw, pizza-ward and snatch it from out of my grip. Having attained her goal she just a rapidly ensnared it in her jaw and fled the scene of the crime, pizza dragging on the floor!!! Stern words were spoken in her direction, believe me, but she was unrepentant as she began the 'killing' process and somehow I couldn't quite keep a straight face.

And so, pizza thieving incident over I settled here to fiddle and still promising myself a reasonably early night logged off at midnight, it was not to be. I logged back on to sort 'just one more thing' and subsequently got involved (how did that happen?) in an IM conversation. At 1am I tried again and off I logged. ok, so 1am may not be an early night but it's pretty good for me. Suffice to say, I decided a few pages of my current book would settle me. I duly put my book down half an hour later to find I had become victim of that God-awful situation where one finds that to get up and crawl to bed is more effort than to stay put, at which point I became engrossed in something less than pleasant on the TV!

Ok...........I failed, my head finally hit the pillow at 4am! Ugh. Please don't ask me how I feel this morning....... I must find myself a little more self discipline!

Queen of the Sky ~ update #2

The BBC reports today that Q of S has now been fired from her position with Delta Airlines. It seems a little late in the day, those of us following this one knew at the weekend but it is at least confirmation.

Well done Delta....for shooting yourselves in the foot! You deserve your impending bankruptcy.

Good luck Q of S in your litigation.

Just a little fun

In the absence of anything even remotely worthwhile in my mind to blog today I thought I would post one or two of those infernal emails we all get that still amuse me despite having been loitering on my hard drive for years!

I know, I'm easliy amused :o)

Mouse

Stealth refuel

Cat Shower

Blog-less

I am completely blog-less and I appear not to be alone in this state today. This morning, on checking out my blogroll I discovered for the first time in my blogging life not one single updated blog!

Hours have passed since then and still nothing is milling around in my mind to blog and still no one has updated save for one. Blackrat has as ever, managed to post something well worth the read and on an item of news I feel strongly about, go look HERE.

Unhappy cat!

My apologies for the quality of this picture and the 'halloween eyes', it just so amused me I decided to post it anyways. :o)


Put me down!

Chilled

Ok guys, I have calmed down now..... I'm chilled and I'm calm and collected!

Sorry to disappoint but it was nothing earth shattering just personal stuff the details of which I can't blog about without aggravating the situation. Suffice to say it's not blog or internet related, I have discussed it with a friend (thank you, you know who you are)and I have a better perspective now.

Thanks for tolerating my rant, I will endeavor to keep a lid on it next time but the weird thing is....It actually helped to shout here for a few minutes, thanks. :o)

Sometimes.....

.....I just wish others would get out of my little world! Not, I hasten to add, everybody just one or two individuals who see fit, when I am as happy as a pig in muck, to come crashing in, uninvited shouting and screaming via technology and upset the apple cart with their unpleasantness and unnecessary nastiness!!

Why, I wonder, can't people just be nice to each other, life is too short. I love people, I love interaction but I most certainly don't love 'attitude'!

Talk to me, argue with me, discuss with me, laugh with me....... but those who just want to be plain difficult.....please, get the f**k out of my space!

I rarely get angry but right now is one of those occasions.

Rant over, sorry and thank you for listening.

It's winter now

So the clocks have gone back and it was dark, it seemed by mid afternoon, yesterday, halloween is over and for me it is now winter. My favorite season.

Those loyal few that visit here regularly will have by now realised two of my passions, natural history and photography and whilst my personal endeavors to bring the two together fall somewhat short, those of others do not!

As a consequence, over the years I have gathered together a large number of such winter photographs that I adore and that are just begging to be used here. My blog is not known for being left be, I have a small obsession with 'template tampering' and so from now on you can expect more changes than usual whilst I share some of my most favorite images! It will at least be some respite from cats! :o)

I am currently awaiting permission from the copyright owner to use a photograph that has to be 'number one' on my list. Until such time as he is kind enough (or not!) to allow it, I will hope for the best where copyright is concerned with others that I just can't track down the owners of!