Al I want for Christmas is.....

Ultra lazy post today, sorry! ;o)

Tis the season to be.....

..... dressed up like a dogs bloody dinner and have to play the corporate game!

Yes, tonight sees Fletch's Christmas 'works bash' take place and you can probably tell I'm not looking forward to it with too much glee! It sounds ok I will grant you, dinner at the Hilton, free bar all night and gratis taxi's in each direction but the likely reality is that the dinner will be a portion control, mass produced, luke-warm affair and a free bar always has a habit of resulting in problems of the sick bucket kind! If I remember correctly, the sick bucket facility was required only half way through the evening last year and then was hotly pursued by a need for the paramedics to be called. This was not for myself or Fletch I hasten to add!

The whole issue does nothing for me, call me boring but I don't like getting dressed up and having to contend with heels and the like and I particularly dislike the whole corporate forelock tugging malarkey, it's just not my bag and nor is it Fletch's but it has to be done. I just don't understand the whole principle of having to pay homage to the boss(s), they are people like you and me, ok, unlike me they are successful from a professional point of view but they are still just people, not demi-gods, and I would hope I show respect to everyone, the fact that these particular individuals are rich and successful doesn't make them better or worse.

But hey ho (or should that be Ho Ho Ho) it can't be avoided and this year we are at least grateful in the current financial climate that the business is sound and that Fletch has a job at all.... so we will dutifully tug our forelocks, make polite and boring conversation and hope that at least the free bar takes the edge off it all!

Tis the season to be grumpy merry tra la la la la la laaaaaaa....... ;o)

Back in the saddle soon

It's been over a year since we were out on the road on Eloisa, (for those of you new here Eloisa is our much loved bike, tech. spec. etc. here, an XRV with the full on and off road touring kit) this is not a good situation but time and money meant that she has sat, along with the VFR, outside the flat, falling into a state of disrepair for all that time. This is not good either!

As anyone who has ever tried leaving a bike out in the elements long term will know, they don't much like it and as a result, the bill to get them back in working order is going to be pretty horrendous and likely to make it into four figures. Yet more which is not good.

However, we have finally managed to gather together the necessary cash and this morning 'Mr Nicebikefixingguy' should arrive with his truck to take both bikes away and restore them to their former glory so that this coming year we can 'go out to play' again and not have to suffer the indignity of holidaying on four wheels instead of two! Yipeeeee.

In actual fact we have no intention of keeping the VFR, once that is fixed it's up for sale (anyone wanting to buy a nippy sports tourer please apply here), it rarely got used and became just another expense we can well do without. Eloise however, she is a whole different story, she is part of the family and has been very sorely missed. Hopefully all the work will be done and she will be back home again by soon into the new year and then, with a little luck and a prevailing wind, we can start to plan our next trip and rejoin the ranks of those who prefer not to be stuck in traffic in a tin box!

All we have to do now is try and stop Fletch working 24/7 so we actually have the time to get out there and then see if I can still manage to squish myself into my leathers!

Lost Kitten

A kitten, only hours old and already utilising one of it's nine lives.

Do not try THIS at home!

A new bad experience

I'm completely pathetic.....the worlds biggest lightweight!

Fletch and I went to the pub last night, I had two drinks, I repeat, only two, the second of which I didn't even manage to finish but regardless of all of that, this morning I have woken with the hangover from somewhere close to hell! How ridiculous! I even have to admit to suffering significantly 'retarded function' after only the first one, for it was at that point Fletch became subjected to slightly confusing and giggly conversation and that at which time, when I attempted to go outside for a cigarette, I fell over someones feet and stumbled stupidly through the door....tres graceful!

In my defence I was tee total from age twenty until a couple of years ago (yes, Fletch corrupted me), I am small so there's not much room for the alcohol to spread about my body and I had eaten nothing all day, but still, just two drinks rendering me in today's suffering condition, I consider to be particularly pathetic!

This hangover business is not a new experience I am enjoying, I feel 'orrible, how do people do this week after week?? No thank you, this I can live without, bleugh!

Now where's the paracetamol.....


*Oh....and off topic, but THIS is almost as pathetic, if you are using I.E you might like to consider changing for the time being!!!

Rebecca Adlington on stating the obvious!

Watching Sports Personality of the Year on the BBC last night I was much amused by one line.

The gold medal Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington, while making a thank you speech, was heard to utter the words.....

"I wouldn't be here without my parents"

No sh*t Sherlock!!!

Yes, I know what she meant but it still tickled me!

Deck the halls....

....with not very much!

If I'm honest we had decided that this year anything in the Christmas tree line was a waste of money that could be better spent, we won't be here for the festivities in any case, but then last minute we considered something small might be less 'bah humbug' than nothing at all! As a result, yesterday we braved the pre-Christmas crowds in an attempt at securing for ourselves a small tree. Our efforts were thwarted though, the small Christmas tree cupboards were bare.....so not to be off put, I tied the one bauble we own (and that's only because my mother bought it for me last week) to a lamp and......voila, decorations done!

Are you impressed? ;o)

Hey, minimalist is good!

Saturday silliness!

'The broccoli kitten' Enjoy.

Mammography for the size challenged!

I was reading an article somewhere a day or two back about one woman's difficulties in having her routine mammogram performed and it reminded me of a painful but hilarious experience of my own some years ago!

I have to begin here by explaining that I am somewhat 'challenged' in the breast department. I have run the gamut of 'fried egg' and 'pimple' jokes ever since the days in my adolescence when I kept waiting hopefully for my chest to expand to the impressive proportions of my contemporaries, but as the result of my being a gymnast it became patently obvious I would be waiting forever!

So, at age about thirty and being in a high risk group for a particular type of breast cancer - which seems somewhat unfair considering their lack of proportion - when I developed a lump the NHS swung into diagnostic action and off I was sent for a mammogram poste haste.

Now for those of you who are not familiar with this carry on, one is required to stand in front of a rather large (well it was in those days, they might have changed by now) machine, naked from the waist up, with the arm on the affected side raised above the head and the offending breast placed on a kind of 'plate', above which is the working part that takes the pictures. This I promise you is not an easy position to adopt in my case for the following reasons.

Firstly I was too bloody short - no surprise there then - and having adopted the prescribed position of torture it transpired that the distance between the ground and my breast was insufficient for me to actually get my breast where they needed it! I was shuffled and moved and poked by a very kind radiographer but to no avail, I was just not tall enough and in the end, with much apology, she asked me if I would be offended if she asked me to stand on a box! Hell no, I have been standing on boxes all my life, so off she went to find a box and came back with something plastic and officey looking and on it I got. Success, I was tall enough! Or so we thought.

But it was not to end there. The 'plate' on which I then had to 'display' my breast had markers on it, they are to assist the radiographer in lining up the camera so that suitable images can be obtained but my breast didn't even make it to the first marker and no amount of her maneuvering me would persuade it up to the starting line.

At this point the radiographer became a little embarrassed, she now had the probably usually unenviable task of telling her patient that her breast was effectively so small it was presenting a real logistical problem, but despite my stressed situation of facing the possibility that I had cancer, I couldn't help but find the whole issue hilarious.... and to her relief I began to fall about with laughter at what was rapidly turning into something akin to a slap-stick scene from a carry on film!

The ice was broken, I explained that I had no issue with being small chested and she had no need to spare my feelings or pussy-foot around me so off she went again and returned with a colleague who was apparently more practiced in this malarkey and who without compunction stood me on a book (it was a medical book so that was acceptable I assumed) ontop of the box, jammed the back of the plate to somewhere that felt it had entered my chest cavity and then manhandled my by now somewhat sore breast, with a severe degree of someone who knows that the job has to be done at any cost, into a position that she thought might do the trick. She warned me that this was going to be 'a little more painful than usual' ( I didn't know what usual was but hey)and then squished my offending body part, rapidly and without mercy between the plates and hit the 'go' button!

She wasn't wrong, it hurt like the very devil! I don't think it is ever comfortable but by her own admission she had to 'squish harder' than the norm to keep my bits in place and obtain her images. I have never had it done since and I don't relish having it done in the future, it was truly horrible but it was as funny as hell and the three of us finally finished up giggling like girls and with the required pictures successfully obtained.

I promise you, if you are breast tissue challenged this is something of an experience and not one for the faint-hearted, or at least it was in those days. Hopefully by now the procedures and equipment have evolved to include those of us who don't make it to page three status but as I near the age where this stuff becomes routine for me because of my risk levels I can't say I relish the thought, despite the amusement factor!

The Clampett effect!

I really begin to feel like The Clampetts in my damn car these days, I seem rarely to use it at the moment, but whenever I do it doesn't fail in it's ability to disappoint one way or another!

In the knowledge that yesterday I was visiting my parents, which involves a 180 mile drive, I decided on the previous day that I should take the crap car out 'just to check' it was in working order....and what I had intended to be a half hour outing turned into a whole day's debacle of hassle, stress and aggravation. Was the crap car in working order??....was it hell!

I had driven only five miles when suddenly a loud 'crack' sounded from the rear and in my mirror I witnessed the rear wiper flying through the air, gone forever. Bugger I thought, oh well, that's easily fixed, I'll sort it on my way home. I made it to my destination, Tesco's, did the shopping thing and set off in search of a new part. I had hardly hit the motorway again when I discovered that my nearside indicator had gone the way of the wiper and was making no effort whatsoever to indicate. Kaput! Bugger again! Mental note, 'Add to list of parts to buy, a new bulb'....and within seconds of that thought another loud clattering noise began emitting scarily from somewhere about me!

Moments later, with even more clattering, and before I had time to pull over anywhere to investigate the noise, a rather large 'bit of something' flew at high velocity off the side of the car and was to be seen, again in my rear view mirror, hurtling down the carriage-way and into a hedge! FFS!!!

I pulled over at the first opportunity and scrambled out into the rain, planted myself upside down in the mud and muck - oh joy - to investigate and discovered that the departing part had been a section of wheel arch and the remaining piece was dangling unhelpfully against the tyre, it's fixing grommets very absent! Exasperated I gave it a hard kick, temporarily securing it behind the body work...and carried on on my search for now more parts.

En-route I decided to check my tyre pressures, even that wasn't simple. The first place I tried the machine was defunct and the second had such a long queue that people were becoming fraught with one another and small arguments began to erupt. I opted to use the car wash first and go back to the air after that....next small disaster...the car wash broke with me in it! Arghhhh! Thankfully it didn't trap me inside and there was another, but I had to fight the attendant to issue me with another ticket! It was beginning to feel very much like it was one of those days I just shouldn't have got out of bed at all!

Eventually, by now very rankled, I emerged clean from the wash and pumped up my tyres, things were looking up....until when emptying the car ashtray I dropped it into the bottom of the cavernous bin and had to hang upside down on the edge with my whole body poking through the little hole in the side to retrieve it! Don't laugh!

The rest is a blur, I got lost trying to find Halfords so abandoned that plan and instead found a local car parts emporium, where I was provided with the wiper...only to find I didn't have enough money to pay for it and had to rush off to the bank and go all the way back. The indicator light wasn't the bulb but a corroded connection requiring more than a quick fix and the wheel arch was history, new parts not available and duct tape seemed to be the only short term solution on offer!

By the time I got home it was dark and I was completely fraught and frazzled, my half hour trip had taken most of the day and my car was hung together with tape, I was feeling less than 'chipper' to say the least. There is always an upside though. I did manage to make it to my parents yesterday, which had I not 'tested' the car the previous day I wouldn't have, a good time was had, we bought a Christmas tree and got it decorated and I only had to stop three times on my travels to boot the dangling arch back behind the metal work!!!

The Clampetts have nothing on me man!

A question of 'cooties'

Until yesterday I hadn't even heard of 'cooties', I think maybe it's an American thing, or maybe I'm just dumb but whatever, the question is this, are they real? There seems to be some difference of opinion, Wikipedia tell me they are an imaginary thing, kinda like we would say we have the 'lurgy', but others say they exist!

So do they or don't they? What's the Cootie thing all about? Would anyone like to enlighten a dumb Brit please?

Oh.....and whilst I was 'researching' cooties I found this amusing little item;

Orange - New heights of stupidity

I find this hard to believe, well actually I don't and that's the sad thing, we are so used to the idiocy of large corporations and their inefficiencies that we now accept almost any degree of stupidity as no great surprise!

When I lived in Scotland my ISP was Orange, yes that's ORANGE if you are in any doubt who I am talking about here! They were 'Wanadoo' at that time but it's all the same.

When I left Scotland I closed the account, cleared it and that was that. That was almost three years ago. Simple? You would have thought so...or maybe you know better!

In all that time I have heard nothing, I repeat nothing, from them, the account was closed, I couldn't access the email address etc. all seemed well, history.....that was until yesterday.

Yesterday I received a little missive via snail mail from their debt collecting factors telling me I owe them money, £31 to be precise. Not much I grant you and maybe I should have just paid it, but I dispute that I owe it in the first place and I was so incensed by the whole issue I decided this time I would dig my heels in. To that end I called the debt collectors, explained the situation and that I had subsequently been declared bankrupt in any case, so they could no longer make a claim against me.

As these companies do (I know from bitter experience during my bankruptcy proceedings that even the big boys, those high street names we are supposed to trust, are more than capable of lying to Jane Doe in their efforts to secure payment) they assumed I didn't know the laws surrounding bankruptcy (like one would go through all that and not know!) and lied to me about the powers they had. As a result they threatened to carry on chasing me until my dying day, yada, yada, yada. and said only Orange could call them off.

So, when I could eventually found a number for them, I called Orange..... and at expensive rates was left hanging on for almost an hour while they 'couldn't find any trace of me'. You don't say!. I tolerated two individuals with a joint I.Q. of a small peanut as long as my patience would allow but eventually I lost it and asked to speak to a supervisor....she turned out to be only marginally brighter but with the customer service skills of a rhinoceros.

To cut what became a very protracted story slightly shorter, I got nowhere, absolutely nowhere and so incensed further I really dug my heels in, probably immaturely but hell, I'm sick of it all, it's my turn to play stupid I figure!

She just didn't seem to grasp the principle of personal bankruptcy and that no matter what she did or threatened me with it would only cost her company money, and it would be her company contravening the law, not me. Neither could she understand why I might be ever so slightly miffed that the first and only thing I had heard in almost three years was from a debt collecting company, or that I maintain that I don't owe them the money in the first place!

So, I explained that I wouldn't be paying on principle and nor would I be jumping through their administrative hoops proving my case when I don't believe I have a case to prove in the first place and nor would I be intimidated by their threats, let's face it, I have dealt with my fair share of that these last few years and they can hardly destroy my financial status any more than it already has been. I won't ever realistically be in a position to obtain a mortgage or credit again whatever I do, so if they wish to keep spending their shareholders money chasing thirty quid, they can be my guest!!!

I know, I know, I probably should just play the game and had any one of them been remotely reasonable or behaved with common courtesy or common sense I would have, but I'm fed up to the back teeth with this kind of stupidity and this time they can go to hell, I can be stupid too!

Did I mention this is ORANGE?

So sue me, I repeat, I am bankrupt, I have nothing!

*And as a general footnote for anyone who considers bankruptcy the 'easy way out', something we bankrupts are accused of from time to time, I promise you, it is not!

Bite me!

Saturday's Christmas shopping expedition resulted in among all the other purchases, the acquisition of a Natural History Museum stuffed toy dinosaur! I will add quickly here that it was intended as a gift for a three year old relative......but on the drive home, Fletch decided it was pretty funky and it was his!....and in true demented comedic Fletch style it also acquired a name en-route, 'Doyouthinkhesaurus' (what do you call a blind dinosaur, yada, yada).

Yesterday morning I found it abandoned on the bedroom floor so when I made the bed I plonked it randomly, and without further thought, on the pillows with the only other squishy toy (I don't really do the whole soft toy thing) we posses and that was that.

Sometime later I went into the bedroom to get something and was met with this sight;


Perhaps I shouldn't have plonked it so randomly!

Well it amused me anyways, but ok, maybe I'm easily amused! :o)

Christmas is done - ish!

What a relief! We decided yesterday that there was no point stressing about the lack of Christmas organisation in gemmak's-ville and then doing precisely sod all about it, so yesterday we bit the bullet and headed off early (well early for us on a Saturday morning) to face the demon Christmas crowds in Milton Keynes!

And demon they were, nothing less than the expected nightmare greeted us but we focused on the task at hand, though Fletch might not agree I was as focused as I should have been given my proclivity to wander off the straight and narrow to check out 'me stuff' now and again!!

But persevere we did and by 5pm we exited into the cold, dark evening, complete with ninety percent of everything we need for the Christmas tussle in a few weeks time. Ok, we were jiggered and somewhat 'fraught', there had been the usual 'man out shopping domestic exchanges of opinion' (what is it with guys and shopping??) here and there but we had it almost all done, in one hit! Result!

Add to that, we managed to hook up with Punctuation for a quick coffee and a natter early on in the proceedings and then decided on our homeward journey that we deserved to go via a bar for dinner and a beer as our reward! ;o)

It's all good, ....save now for a lingering headache and the fact that Fletch, having had to spend his Saturday in retail hell, has now had to go into work for the rest of his weekend! Ooopsss.