Relaxez vous

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Dean Martin.

I assembled the recliner in the attic and tried it out yesterday, very nice.

Picked up the Galaxy this morning from Vospers......£263.08 Lawks! The labour was £216.00 so that tells you how much was actually parts. I cancelled the service, no way we can afford that at the moment. We went out this morning because Tom Daly will be parading around the city in an open top bus for most of the midday period and travel will not be easy.

I had a long chat with Sal about Discworld yesterday and, for the first time, we waffled about characters as though they were real people. This shows just how much Discworld can get under your skin. It also shows how impressionable we both are. Nice one Pratchet!

I bought the curtain hooks and finished fitting them to the curtains, then I hung number six up. That is as far as I can go now until VWPaul has fitted the furniture.

A story.

I was sitting in the loo, minding my own business. Titch, smallest cat, had insisted on joining me but was now getting bored. After a couple of plaintive squeaks, she jumped up to the window and hung from the small top opening part by her claws. Now she began to scrabble at the large side opening window handle with her back feet. She kicked and pushed for about thirty seconds and then the window opened. She calmly dropped on to the sill and then down on to the roof below. If I can get a video of this, she could pay the next two years vets bills for her and her sister. Amazingly, once she was out, she came back in almost immediately.

I am playing with Zemanta at the moment, hence the added image and link. It looks good as long as it's not overdone.

Mission acomplished

Well, the latest one anyway.

Sal and I got rid of the latest batch of rubbish from the house cleaning and then on to the local sorting office to pick up a parcel that was too big to go through the letter box. It was, of course, the curtains. I realised as soon as I saw the card left by the postman what had happened. When I buy through EBay, the delivery address is set for the office. On this occasion, however, I had been invoiced through Paypal alone and Paypal only has my billing address. Hence the curtains being sent to my home address.

I had bought a hundred curtain hooks in anticipation so I hung what I could immediately. Unfortunately, 100 curtain hooks was not enough and I must now buy another 100 in order to complete my task.

The curtains themselves are magic, Hazel and I are very pleased with our choice of material and the quality is very good.

Breathing again!

We thought, yesterday, that Sal had swine flu. She had quite a few of the symptoms and was feeling very sorry for herself. By the evening, however, she was much better and ate a hearty meal....... I am beginning to suspect a hangover.........

I worked my doodahs off last night fitting the rails to the angle pieces and then mounting them all in janis. I was thwarted by the cab / habitation divider rail as I realised at the last minute that I can't fit it until VW Paul has worked his magic on the tall cupboard we are having fitted there.

Ian, Lulu, Steph and Dave all came in last evening for their long planned night out, Ian and Dave helped me get the recliner chair from Paul up to the attic.

A quiet night in.......

Porridge episode title. (TV Sitcom about prison starring Ronnie Barker)

I spent some time yesterday evening mounting the triple multi mains socket on the new Maplin box and then I mounted the DC outlet on it as well. It looks good and has left a very large amount of room free inside for any other needs in the rear of janis.

The rest of the evening I spent reading and watching TV and napping, mainly napping.

More Pooh!

It looks to me as though the fuel cut out switch is damaged. I tried to re set it this morning in a dryer car and it won't budge and seems pushed in too far to my reckoning. Anyway, the Galaxy is booked in to Vospers for a service and new switch on the fifth and they offered to have it in right away. If they get a cancellation, they have offered to do the work early......... nice thought.

The final bits and pieces have arrived from Hong Kong, very nice and thanks to the CE mark, legal in the UK. I had also ordered a 10 way multi type extension box for the attic and that has arrived as well so things are moving along again.

Oh Pooh!

Whilst not a very serious or expensive repair is involved, breaking down last night whilst taking Sal to work was not the most fantastic experience of my life. We only got as far as Cattedown roundabout and everything died. I immediately thought, "Cam belt" and started to worry. When the Green Flag man arrived, he immediately thought, "Cam belt" and checked it. We were both wrong, it was the fuel cut out switch. Someone up there still likes me.

Because I still can't trust the fuel cut out switch at present and Hazel is day off today, I caught a bus to work. As I wandered past the St Lukes Hospice shop, I saw a face I recognised. Ivy Ainsworth has written a book. Ivy is Bobs mother and I haven't seen her since my own illness in 1999 so I had no idea she was even still alive. I might just go and see her and get a copy.

I don't believe it! I just saw someone else from 1999 in Buffet City. Sarah from Ratio was there. She was the secretary and, by the time I returned to work after my health problems, she had left to start a family.

Let there be bandwidth.............

And lo, there was bandwidth and the added extra of more TV channels. I have to hand it to him, the chap from Virgin Media pulled out his thumb and handed me the plumb. As long as the price reduction comes through, I shall be well pleased.

All kinds of everything.........

Dana.

Hazel and I measured the windows for the new curtains last evening, we do need quite a lot of material. Also, the FON wifi arrived yesterday and I installed it and registered it. My private system works well but when I tried to use the public side, I got rejected on about eight occasions. Indeed, it still hasn't worked for me yet. I wonder if it will simply not work with the computer that normally uses the private side?

I'm not a big sports fan but it was good to see Tom Daly get his gold yesterday and even better to see his dad being so emotional this morning.

Samuel was at home when we got there and we had yet another happy family Wednesday evening.

What goes up......

............Comes down hard.

Oh I hurt myself yesterday. We went to The Water Dragon for Wendy's birthday and we were in the back room. I came out to eat and didn't see the step down. I came down on my right foot with a very severe bang and jarred my back badly. I also had pins and needles in my right foot for a while. I slept badly and still feel under the weather this morning. Worst of all, I woke at ten past three to the sound of dripping..... Yes, we still have the leak. Not so bad but still there.

Todd and Cole won't be coming to the wedding as Cole has to be back at school before then. However, they would still like to come at a later time so we must organise it while the idea is still there.

Around 1300, I realised that I had a very bad bruise on my hip and I was in a lot of pain. By 1400, I had walked into the office door and hit my bruised hip with the handle. Life is really biting me on the bum today.

Up and down and around again.

Despite all the work I did, I still feel that I wasted the weekend. Over the past few weeks I seem to have achieved a fairly high output of work on both the attic and janis but, this weekend, was something of a let down. My sciatica was probably the major cause and I did have to rest more than usual. I also tried and failed to find a screwdriver to help me insert a new blade in my jigsaw. This, of course, meant no clever cutting to fit the small pieces of skirting into the attic. Using the Nokia N800 to good effect was fun and it means that I should be able to make use of it to blog whilst on holiday. On the same note, my FON unit has been sent from Spain and should be with me soon. Once installed, I will be able to set up my own handheld to use the system and, by default, also be able to use any other system I come across whilst away.

I have cut, painted and stuck in the two longest pieces of skirting board in the attic.

This complete post has been created and posted via the Nokia N800.

Grumpy old man

I had problems yesterday. I appear to have had a senior moment when sending some paperwork to the planning officer as I sent the email but not the data. I tried every which way to ask Virgin Media about when I was due to be upgraded and struck out. In the end, I sent a complaint with a list of all my travails and hope I get some sort of reply.

We went out last evening to the Union Rooms, a sort of up market pub. To be honest, it's not my sort of place, too noisy even when there is no noise (if you see what I mean). Food was cheap and edible but not great. I don't want to go there again.

Denise was over the moon with her new laptop, at least I got that correct.

What a diference..........

.......... a day makes.

I spent most of yesterday under the impression that it was Tuesday. I have no idea what happened to Tuesday, I appear to have done a days work and some work on Denise's laptop and even done some posting here with my Nokia N800 but it's just a blur. I am still sleeping very deeply and finding it difficult to wake most mornings. Fred came around yesterday and we spent a pleasant evening watching a bit of TV. Davina McCall on 'Who do you think you are' being the main item watched. Interesting but fairly bland I thought. She must have been overjoyed to find such important and worthy ancestors but there was very little hard work involved and, as a hardened researcher, those are the bits I like the best.

Small, but beautifuly marked.

This is somewhat of a test to check the capabilities of my Nokia N800.

The camera isn't terribly hi res but it works fine and the WiFi link is not fully in place yet so it's a bit slow.

The original posting was sent from the Nokia but I have since tarted it up on my PC.

Pussy time

Came down this morning to find our sisters both cuddled up on the same chair. This is very rare so I committed it to electronics for posterity.

Huzza! I think I have learnt enough about Mediawiki to close the loophole and open it up to genuine users again. It's not that straightforward as the whole thing is essentially run from a batch file that is run on each access to the site. I mean each and every access, every page you visit. This makes it very responsive but means you have to know the syntax and commands to do anything. Because it is a GNU general public licence, the help files are very technical and can be a bit scarce as well. Anyway, I have taken a chance and freed it up again with access restricted to members only as far as all write capabilities are concerned.

Mauve Monday

Not bad enough to be blue.

Hazel still not fit and stayed home today. I had a busy day but felt workish when I got home so.............. I went out and spent a couple of hours working on janis and have managed to run in the mains cable for the fridge. The DC will follow asap.

"Suits you sir!"

Hazel not well enough to travel down into deepest Cornwall so we made our hat trick and spent the morning with Samuel at home and see below.

Arm twisted and taken to Tesco today to buy a new black suit for the wedding. I saw several not black suits I quite fancied but no, it had to be a black one. I managed to successfully push for a wesket as well so that was a small victory. Biggest complaint was the pink tie I have had foisted upon me, I hate pink!

Samuel was on top form today, had a lot of fun in the shop and was able to be cheeky without being offensive, a good portent for the future one hopes.

I spent the late afternoon and early evening working on janis and I managed to install the fridge mountings and the new number plates. I also got somewhat wet, but that's another story.

oooh that smarts!

Being hit on the head by an inflatable plastic hammer, that is. Samuel has been given one and is currently having a lot of fun hitting his favorite adults. I managed to unroll and lay the new carpet today with a little help from Keane, Lulus six year old nephew. He was closer to the floor than me and he placed the underlay pads much easier than I could. Hazel is still not well, she couldn't see Trish yesterday and we didn't go to Exeter this evening either. We only need to miss St Meryn tomorrow for the hat trick.

Sleepy time down South West

I cannot stay awake at the moment. Hazel and I are both sleeping through the alarm and feeling like death warmed up when we eventually surface. We had time with Samuel yesterday, he is becoming more and more comfortable with us. He came and sat on my lap to watch Lazy Town yesterday of his own volition, nice. He is also becoming more vocal. His speech was bound to improve as he got older but now he is chattering away and making sense, most of the time, about everything. We are still noticing his reluctance to eat some foods though. He is fine with junk but not very keen on more mainstream foods like chicken and potatoes. This may simply be a current fad as he always used to like his food.

I brought the network back up last night, just the NAS boxes not booted in the correct sequence I think. Denise's laptop finally arrived yesterday and I have set it up for her ready to hand it over on Sunday. Hazel and I are off to a party in Exeter on Saturday so I won't be able to use it to chat to Russ as I had hoped.

The party is in honour of the 25th wedding anniversary of Paul and Rachel Bull. He is now known as Prawn Balls rather than Pobble as he was 30 years ago. It seems amazing to me that they are celebrating their 25th so soon. They married young though so it's probably just me.

I spent my lunch break checking on ferry costs for the break in September. The best Deal I can get is through Camping Cheques. They will do the return crossing for £100.00 less than anyone else and throw in five cheques as well. It's always expensive to travel from Plymouth but this is the best I've seen this year by a considerable amount. I might buy a few more than five as they will last until next year and they may well go up in price by then.

What a wonderful week.....

Not!!!When I collected the Sprinter yesterday, they had removed four nuts but left the jubilee clips on the hoses "because we didn't want to go too far". I was so mad, I was silent. Those who know me will realise that this is not a usual occurrence. What a bunch of smegheads! Fortunately, Paul has offered to do the job for me when we visit him in two weeks time. Just in time for the other work to be done. Thank goodness for families.

Once I had eaten, I had intended to watch a documentary about British Holidays of the past. All I could get was a tribute to Michael Jackson............. I am fed up with this!

This is the Diana thing all over again. I can't be the only person who feels that no one, I really mean NO ONE! merits this sort of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. He was a talented man and he died young. So have many entertainers over the years. That he was also barking cannot be denied, for whatever reason, he was a fifty year old child and run by his minders. I felt and feel sorry for the man but he did have a fairly decent life style to go with it so it wasn't all a bummer. Putting that performance on two terrestrial channels was a bad judgment. Later, I tried to get the network to function for Hazel and it simply refused. bums.

Just a taxi for my kids, that's me!

I spent another two hours yesterday moving furniture from Dougs flat over to Sals new place. She has a smashing room, very big and airy as it's the whole attic space of the house.

I watched a couple of documentaries about the moon program afterward and, whilst I remember all of the exciting stuff, I realised that I hadn't known much about the political background to it. I was just twenty years old in 1969 and thought I was grown up!

Woke this morning to the sound of water dripping. It seems we have a leak in our terrace. It's actually not that big a leak but with the rain we had overnight, it's still made a bit of a mess all the way down to the kitchen.

I brought some old slides from the sixties in to the office with me today in order to try out my new scanner. Oh dear, the slides are all, it seems, over exposed and the scanner can't be adjusted to account for it. Everything has to be done by software, not very useful.

ooos bin a busy boy den?

We all worked really hard on Saturday, went to Homebase for the plaster paint, Carpet Warehouse for the carpet and to Wickes for the flexi trunking for janis's electrical system. I managed to finish the fuse box off and have a very close look at the under side of the Eberspacher unit as well.

I had finished off the paintwork in the attic on Friday evening so we spent most of the day scraping and sweeping and vacuuming there and also did a lot of filling in the rest of the house. I also made up the first angle bracket to curtain rail set up and it looks good. Had a good chat with Russ in the evening but, as I was using the Skype phone, I lay on the bed for comfort. Wrong! When we finished chatting, I was locked for ten minutes until I was able to bend myself enough to get off the bed without falling.

On Sunday we went and picked up the carpet, brought it home and carried it up to the attic. Sounds simple but not so. This is a very large piece of very heavy duty carpet. We did, however, manage it eventually.

After several emails, Denise asked me to buy her a new laptop today as she and Peter will be in the UK next week and it would be very much to her advantage to carry it back to Malta as hand luggage rather than DFS it. I had already sourced the item, Samsung R505, so I fired off an order. The credit card was refused! I checked my credit and I am heavily under the limit so I rang Ebuyer and we changed the payment to a debit card. Denise will give me the money at the weekend so I will simply put it back into the account. Then I rang Lloyds. "Sorry sir, it was an unusual amount for you so we blocked your card." Half of me is pleased, the other half is fuming due to embarrassment. I had to get it unblocked in order to pay for the exhaust tomorrow grrrrrr. The cost of the exhaust, by the way, is a very reasonable £399.00.

Martin popped int to apologise for not bringing me the plans, he has done them but he emailed them to his desk and over the weekend, all the power breakers in Babbage and also at his home had tripped and the plans got lost somewhere. He will send them again tonight.

The neg and slide scanner Fred and I have bought arrived today. Looks good but I will bring in some slides and negs tomorrow to try it out.

Some you win..............

In the end, we didn't go to see Sarah and Scott yesterday. I was very tired but could have managed it, Hazel was in some pain but would have managed it but Sal was in a lot of pain and not well at all so we made our apologies and all had an early night. I sat in my chair and made up the second loom for janis' electrics and played around with a drive full of old TV, trying to copy it on to the NAS drive. Utter failure to be recognised by drive and gave up after an hour. Did set up part of a media system though, used it to watch on line trailers from Apple.
This is the non Samuel weekend so work has been planned. I must do the various drilling jobs on janis and clear up the loose ends there before I help Hazel with the painting. We have the top landing to do and various gaps on the middle floors as well as our bedroom. Most of it needs to have at least one layer of plaster paint to fill the cracks and rough areas. As we have run out of the first batch, I will have to go to Homebase and try to buy another couple of tubs. It was expensive but has made the enormous job of painting the whole staircase and attic so much easier. Once finished, we are simply putting on a good coat of whatever the chosen colour is for that area.

Water,.........water...........

It's just so hot. We have had rain today, it lasted about ten minutes and evaporated within fifteen.

The new fuse box arrived this morning and it's very nice, built like a brick outhouse.
Peter Bye put me on to http://retrovision.tv/ and I have over dosed on old fifties American sitcoms. I also found the Star Trek Phase Two programs and they are very good for amateur productions. Hazel and I are due to visit Sarah tonight as she is having a party, only she doesn't know it yet.
Bloods this morning and the clever girl had commandeered the office with air conditioning! She told them she needed it for worried patients. This was very true, I was worried I might melt until I got in her room.
Sal eventually went to see her dentist today, he was as horrified as me and has given her pain killers and anti-biotic to keep her going. He reckons she should be in hospital within the month. I'll believe it when I see it but it's a good thought for all that.

I took a look at a few other diary blogs today. My god, am I as obscure as they are? Most of what I saw was produced by 'wimmin!' (professional feminists) by the look of them. Very obscure and arty. I had intended to offer some suggestions, but, I feel that might be a mistake with what I have just written. Also, I may be just as guilty as they are of being pretentious.

Oh what a night..............

Late September 1962.

Or not really.

I went home at five, spent one and a half hours moving stuff around to make more room in the back room downstairs and then went out to pick up Sal and all her worldly goods from her old flat and bring her home. This took another two hours.

In the meantime, Ian and Lou had words because he had promised to be home by ten and he wasn't. Sal got involved, sent a very nasty text (as only a sister can) and she and Lou went to collect him. They all got back home again and Ian and Lou went to bed to argue some more / make up. Sal sat in the kitchen talking to Hazel. No one told me, I and the cats had been locked in the lounge to stop the cats (and me, presumably) from running out when the front door was opened. I watched about two hours of TV I didn't need to and finally gave up, went to the kitchen to be told not to worry, they were alright now. Went to bed and slept like the dead until six thirty.
The goodies from CAK arrived yesterday so I opened the parcel and checked them. I also built the first loom for the final fused system, very nice. Took Sal to Sarah's place and went to bed fairly early, I wonder why?