Round and round and round she goes..........

Where she stops.......................

An 'interesting' weekend. Samuel stayed with us for two nights. Friday was normal and very pleasant, Saturday was not normal or pleasant. Our lad has had bouts of this sort of behaviour before but never with us. He arrived and I noticed he was, for him, a bit flaky. By bedtime on Saturday he had a belly ache. He was in so much pain, he had to bounce up and down on his bed and scream hysterically! When spoken to, he became very calm and spoke to us quite normally. As soon as he was left alone, he began the hysterics again. Hazel eventually, after much discussion with his dad and Lulu, let him sleep in our bed where he fell asleep immediately. He also talked about feeling lonely and missing his other nan. Between us, we have tried to sort out his life a bit and he should be spending some time with his other grandparents very soon. He remains, however, a very fragile little boy.

Tonight, joy of joys, we are playing host to Corey. He will rule us with a rod of iron and do whatever he wants until he drops from exhaustion just after we do. Ain't life grand?

And so it goes...................

It's beginning to look like yet another week of quickly sorted logs. I'm not racing through them deliberately but I have had a large number of lab jobs that are simple but time consuming and an equal amount of SharePoint logs that simply needed a phone call to explain how it should have been done. So I'm spending most of my time in and out of the labs and the rest of it sitting on my best feature, or so my wife calls it, on the phone. What other jobs have come my way have, so far at least, very simple to diagnose and fix. Either I'm getting better at this lark or the users are getting worse. With snow forecast for tomorrow, I was sent an email flyer from an on line company I have dealt with in the past with a special price on snow and ice grippers to put on over your shoes. "Buy them now, in time for the snow". So I did, sent the order off within five minutes of receiving the email. They sent them today......................second class. I might just get them by next week. sigh!

Oh the humanity!!!!

On Friday / Saturday our bed began to sink in the middle. Early Saturday morning there was a loud 'CRACK!' and the centre collapsed completely. I spent most of the day building a stronger and better central support and now we are horizontal again. On Sunday, most of the family came to us for a roast dinner and all but one stuffed themselves rotten. Corey is not fond of most food and is so picky it hurts. He decided that he wanted the Yorkshire puddings and nothing else. Samuel made up for him and the adults also ate their fill. Ian was at work so he had a meal plated up and Lulu took it home for him to eat later. I watched the first episode of 'Blandings' in the evening and, at first, thought it was going to be let down by the direction and music. The cast are very good, particularly Timothy Spall as Lord Emsworth who seems to have hit exactly the right characterisation but I was less enthused by the general feel of the piece. However, by the end of the 30 minutes, I had got the plot and felt at home with all the characters and the pace of the production. The music still niggles but that may get better or I may grow to like it.

A small addition

to the blog.

Keen eyed readers will have seen the subtle extra above. The figure is accurate but, of necessity  doesn't include weekend, days off for sickness or bank holidays so it should be viewed with a certain amount of caution. Also, due to ongoing medical problems, there is no absolute guarantee that I will even get that far anyway. I may just take early retirement and go quietly. Whatever, the current number of days should be treated as the absolute maximum I will remain at my desk.

Another year over and deeper in something!

Not debt so far but certainly something I suspect.

Christmas went well yet again, I think we are really beginning to get the hang of it now.

Four hours of charades over a two day period can make people very smug when they are good at it, I feel smug. All you have to do is suspend your embarrassment and be a child for a while. This is something my family are really good at, aren't you Paul? The food was even better this year than in previous years and nothing is ever wasted in our house, we all love bubble and squeak too much for that. In fact, some delicacies disappeared before  I had a chance to try them.....................Boooooooh! The smaller family members enjoyed the presents and the fun and the big boys and girls made the most of not having to work all the time. Some of us even got to lie in on more than one day..............................Oooooooooh!

A little break.................

We went to visit Sally in London for a few days last week and had a great time. I am still having problems with my feet but I have now developed a style of walking that minimizes the pain. We stayed at a hotel very close to Covent Garden and visited all the closer places of interest including the new and improved British Museum. Some of the small local shops in the area are also very interesting, I bought a DVD I have been after for years for just £5.00 and we had an amazing meal at a Korean owned multi-cultural takeaway. Visiting Hamleys after all these years was an interesting experience, especially with Hazel. She managed to spend over £100.00 on presents for the grandchildren, nephews and nieces. A trip on the Docklands Light Railway took us to see the Cutty Sark and we also managed a trip to Hammersmith to see one of Sally's favorite shops.

English as she is written?

I love these.

I bought something on Ebay and it is being sent from Hong Kong. The supplier is concerned that I should be aware of possible delays due to Christmas being so close. So he sends me a reassuring email, as follows.

Thank you for you patience and kindness, the logistic company has informed us that your order is being on the road, and we shipped it to your ebay address, but it maybe a little delay because of the boom season. Anyway, pls freely touch us if you still fail to get your order in one or two weeks, we will follow up it further for you.

It reminds me so much of the bricklayers letter to his boss that Gerard Hoffnung made so famous.