Well....

...I've had a slightly odd week this week and I had a long post all typed up here ready to go....and then I read it back to myself and it sounded something akin to the ramblings of a mad woman (shushh at the back), so I deleted it and this is what I came up with in it's place.....damn all!

Like I say, an odd week, I'm blaming it on a distinct lack of sleep, so I'll just wish you all a happy weekend and see if I can't come back here marginally more compis mentis next time! ;o)

Have a good one guys.

White van surfing!

Call me am addict but this I like! Courtesy of Opera mini and an unlimited data package (very reasonably priced I might add) here I am sitting in a picturesque lane in the white van from hell blogging and surfing to my little hearts content! :-) Yes it's a tad on the fiddly side and hardly high speed but it does help relieve the boredom of the average white van day. Ok... I suspect my employer wouldn't approve but my employer does nothing to earn my loyalty sufficiently that my concience has any difficulty with this new found passtime! ;-)

Custody hearing of a Shih Tzu!

Would the money not be better spent on psychiatric care for the mayor than dragging such stupidity through the courts at doubtless signifigant cost?!

Give me strength!

Some days...

... you just can't but help having have a big fat stupid grin plastered all over your face! :-)))

'Blood Diamond'

We watched 'Blood Diamond' on Saturday night....for light entertainment, not!

Don't be fooled by the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio takes the lead, this is most definately not of the romantic, lightweight, chick flick genre of films, it was amazinng and if you have a couple of hours to spare well worth a watch.

It's not fun, it was one of the most harrowing films I have ever watched, in parts I thought I was going to have to stop watching such was it's power, but it was an education and from one who always believed in the saying 'Diamonds are a girls best friend'....believe me if I ever get lucky enough to buy another one I will do with much more 'attention to detail' than just the cut or the clarity!

Defining the moment

There are moments in our lives that bring us to a point from which we cannot recoil, from which, regardless of the seemingly insurmountable ahead of us, we cannot ignore, moments that in an instant but also in a lifetime of traveling to that time and place, move our lives, our minds and our physical being from everything we were to everything we are about to be.

A moment, a fraction of a second when with unexplained clarity we know our path, it is not asked for, it is not bidden, it is inherrently all that we are, the end of a journey, the single option, an understanding of the unexplained, the touch of a lifetime's experience amalgamating with powerful frission.

There is no option, in the quiet sunlight, in apparent peace, turmoil fear and hope collide within, in utter silence, in deafening simplicity, one defining moment in a swirling darkness of timeless search , from which we know that which we sought in confusion, in denial, in fear.

There is no gentle return, there is no place to hide, there is no longer ignorance, comfort or masking veils of reason. Bereft of choice, courage and hope sustaining against an unknown void, the path is set, immovable, unquestionable.

With pounding heart and mind and blood, with only love and life in which to place our trust, alone we face our clarity, our life and mind's dictated course. In cold bright light, with new perception we take a breath, we close a soundless door and tread a road of hope and faith and fear, of clarity and profundity, the only place we know, the only route left for us to go......


*For two very important people in my life the title of this post should be 'Jump', if you understand why then you are one of those people.

About Charley

Charley is a beautiful tabby cat with a difference, Blogger seems not to like the code to display the video clip but if you hit THIS LINK it will take you there. :o)

I don't have a good record...

....with technological hardware! Phones, computers, you name it and I can break it...or to be more specific I expect it to work like it says it will on the box! That seemingly is too much to ask, and furthermore, over the years I have learned that if I want technical help on one of these subjects the place to go is most definitely not the manufacturers or providers technical helpline, for it is there that one is most likely to get nothing in the way of technical help!

Mobile phones, my current case in point. My last one lived for three months before the email client died. I updated the software, I reinstalled the software, I called the helpline for further assistance and I was told I knew 'more than he did' (jeez) and so finally (and this is not the first time believe me)I 'persuaded' the provider to exchange it. Quite a feat of persistence in itself.

The replacement arrived. I charged it, I turned it on, I saw the email client for a moment.....and then the software died again and it fell off the phone completely!! FFS.

More phone calls, two and a half hours worth to be precise and a replacement of a different model was agreed. This was promised for two days later, in actual fact it took another two hours of phone calls and six days to get it to me in reality!

And they call this service????

Among all of this the most ironic and amusing aspect was that the guy I was dealing with gave me his email address and asked that I mail him instead of call because it would reach him more easily. Here is the ironic, frustrating, amusing f*ucking ridiculous bit.....

This was o2, I have an o2 contract, my phone emails through an o2 server.....but 'Sonny Jim's' o2 work email server classifies this server as spam and wouldn't let my emails through!!!!!

Give me strength. Is it just me that finds all this unbelievably aggravating and stupid??

But finally my new phone arrived, a Nokia 6500c, intact and apparently working (touch wood), I can email, I have the joy of Opera Mini (they have this sussed, it's so easy to use and surfing the web is such a good distraction from the daily white van grind that I have felt it 'appropriate' that I add to my monthly contract unlimited downloads! See they know how take our money, no problem there), the email works....and works well, I can even blog and comment from this little marvel, in fact all would be hunky dory, save for the fact that the 3g connection seems defunct and despite copious amounts of setting changes and calls to the un-help guys at o2 it remains defunct!

Maybe I just expect way too much in my assumption that technology does what it says it will on the box!

Ever ready!!

A battery, nothing unusual about that I hear you say. Well it might seem slightly more unusual when I tell you where it came from.

This battery came from the doorbell at my parents house, it was removed only last week. The doorbell was replaced because said battery had expired, died, was no more.

Still nothing odd, other than maybe it seems a little extreme to replace the whole thing for the sake of the battery?

Ok...what is odd and pretty impressive by today's standards is that the bell was replaced because this kind of battery is no longer available.....the one pictured had been in the doorbell and working up until a few days ago, since 1968!!! That's 40 years...never replaced, it just carried on all that time!!!!!

And yes, we have had visitors over the years, it was used! ;o)

Hmmmm....and today's batteries last about a week if you get a good one!

Is nothing ever straightforward?

I need to find a way to write this post a little 'delicately' and to that end I will try carefully to choose my words but forgive me if I fail a little.....diplomacy has never been one of my strongest points!

So....where to start with this delicate subject?

Here goes. I was off work yesterday, sick, yes really and honestly, no sickie, no ruse, I was poorly, my cold got the better of me and at five in the morning when I got up for work I just knew I wasn't up to it....so I went back to bed.

Unfortunately I also had an appointment for one of the 'women tests' at the quacks, you know the one, 'the routine, once every three years, lie back and relax please while I put the fear of God into you with an enormous speculum test'. I know, we none of us look forward to it but it's necessary and it's a simple procedure, right?

Wrong!

It's a simple procedure if one's anatomy is where it all should be, which in my case, isn't the damn case (wouldn't you know it). Apparently I have a very tilted womb, it wasn't always and they don't know why it is now, it's usually caused by a trauma i.e being involved in a car accident....I haven't been involved in anything that could cause that kind of injury but nonetheless it ain't quite where it ought to be!

This is problematical for the poor doctor attempting to carry out aforementioned procedure, despite my always fore warning them. Believe me I have suffered some amusing debacles in the past and what usually takes 5 minutes seems always to run into half an hour or more in my case. Ugh.

This time was no different, out came the 'alternative' and more scary apparatus of torture, suitable for my apparent deformity, and after the usual kind words telling me to relax (who the hell is gonna relax half naked in a cold room when someone is coming at your most delicate of regions with something that looks like it's stolen from a meccano kit, I ask you?) she got on with the job....only she didn't, and that's the problem.

I'm not a nurse or a doctor, I don't know too much of the specifics and I don't know that I want to but I do know that historically for me, and this experience was no different, it takes way too much faffing and fiddling around in there to try and locate the 'apparatus' where it needs to be located and get the job done. To be precise 25 minutes on this occasion....not my idea of fun, particularly when I already felt like crap.

Eventually it was done and by her own admission the doctor declared she was 'quite glad that was over'......she was glad??? Hello??? and that I had been a star given the difficulty and that was that, off I went to my car.

....and I drove home fine, if feeling a little yukky, walked through the back door happily........and promptly fainted!

Global confusion?

On a day when snow (yayyy) is forecast for later in the week I find this in the garden:


So, has spring sprung and the forecasters are just wrong again or is it that the global warming malarkey has everything a little confused?!

The perfect marriage!!! (for 30 days)

If you only read one blog post this week read THIS ONE

I'm not sure if I should laugh, cry or scream but whatever, it's the ultimate proof that the world really has gone mad!

Man flu!

Ok, there are two of us here, Fletch and myself, it's not been the best of weekends from a health point of view, there has been much sniffling, coughing, sneezing and other associated unpleasantries going on. We are not well.

One significant difference is apparent tho, I'll give you one guess who is making the unending cups of coffee, who has been asked in that oh so familiar to we women 'poorly man voice', "please will you get me my laptop from the car babe" (three floors down and back up again in the cold) and who is fighting with the broken washing machine....yup the difference is that I have a cold and himself has the dreaded and much more severe and debilitating of infections, MAN FLU! ;o)

It's my turn...

.....to have the dreaded lurgy it would seem. For a fortnight I have felt 'under the weather' like some unpleasentness was about to
invade my physiology....and finally yesterday it did.....with bells on.

Bleugh :o/

Nothing startling, the usual, snottiness, hacking cough, sore bits and a general feeling of overall nastiness but I'm not the worlds greatest patient, I'm feeling sorry for myself, somewhat pathetic and.....would someone please pass me the Benylin!