29 May 2010

Saturday Satire : The Races

A group of primary school infants, accompanied by two female teachers, went on a field trip to Cheltenham races to see and learn about thoroughbred horses.

When it was time to take the children to the toilet, it was decided that the girls would go with one teacher and the boys would go with the other. The teacher assigned to the boys was waiting outside the men's toilet when one of the boys came out and told her that none of them could reach the urinal.

Having no choice, she went inside, helped the boys with their underpants, and began hoisting the boys up, one by one, holding their willies to direct the flow away from their clothes. As she lifted one, she couldn't help but notice that he was unusually well endowed. Trying not to show that she was staring, the teacher said, 'You must be in year four.'

'No, love,' he replied, "I'm riding Silver Arrow in the 2.15"

 

 

27 May 2010

BT - an update

I got an amazing response from Ian Livingston...

"I am sorry about this. I will ask one of our high level service team to contact you.


Ian Livingston"

and not only that but his assistant Claire Heaton is liaising with me over fixing the problem. BT cannot apologise enough for the problem which apparently is caused by a fault in the service and partly due to the inconsistency of the postcode for the house. Royal Mail give one postcode, and the Deeds mention another which doesn't always appear on a lookup for the house address (as I found out when trying to arrange house insurance).

Still, they are keeping me informed, without me having to ring them all the time and I think I took the right step in contacting Ian as I don't believe that it would have been resolved without taking that step. To be fair I did give BT four opportunities to handle it at the 'normal' Joe Public level but after a lack of resolution I re-started at the top and it has started to yield some returns. I am having to hold onto the address until I get a working phone line, but really need to send it to family and friends soon.

Anyone who needs to get in touch with Ian over their (BT) services please drop me a line and I will let you have his email address.

Oh.. and by the way.. .when it is finished I plan on contacting him again to thank him for his kind assistance in resolving the order.. see not always the complaining type lol.

26 May 2010

How Difficult can it be?

When we picked the keys up for Tre Agan, our first thought was phone line/broadband. I know how shallow can I be but I need the internet, socially as well as for my addiciton to just internet browsing lol.

My first call to BT to arrange for the phone line was on 15th May and it was then that I first encounted the problems that were in the way. I spoke to a nice young man who, after taking all my details, tested the line and said there is a 'problem' I can't deal with the order right now until we have established what is wrong with the line. He said he would call back within 48 hours; like the gullible idiot I was I trusted him (hmmm wisdom comes with knowing).

My second call was on Monday, this time I spoke to someone completely different, but there was no record in the system of the previous call, nor of what the problem was, so we started again but to no avail. I even got put through to someone who was on the technical side who asked me if I had a master socket, apparently this is BTtalk for do you have a bt socket in the property. It didn't help much and this time, they were going to call me back in 10-15 mins or 48 hours; so we waited, and waited.

My third phone call to BT took place on Friday, I spoke to yet another person, very nice lady by the name of Claire who also failed to find any record of my previous calls, again couldn't process the order due to this 'fault' that was showing and was going to raise it with the engineers and someone would call me back within 48 hours but as Sunday wasn't included in that they would probably call by Monday. I despaired at the thought of waiting, but like a good little customer I held my tongue; god do you know how hard that was?

My fourth phone call was on Monday, by this time I was an old hand and could almost read Graham's mind as he fumbled for the right answers, and even his line manager was struggling to make sense of the record or lack of it as it transpired. I had explained from the start that this was the fourth attempt to get a phone line, and that I was getting increasingly annoyed but we still ended up with him saying someone would ring me back within 48 hours. Although he did give me a VOL number which apparently is trackable.

Lewis rang me back yesterday, with no idea of what the problem was, in fact I don't even think he rang about that but about the fact that I said I would provide feedback to BT on their customer service. Boy did his ears burn. He also ended his call by saying he would ring back later in the afternoon. Hmmm.. he never did.

This morning, I flipped. No more talking to customer care reps, no I contacted the CEO of BT by the name of Ian Livingston, and to give him credit he emailed a response almost immediately saying "one of the high level service team members will contact me."

Well said Ian, but god help you if someone doesn't contact me to discuss the problem. BT have a monopoly of the installation of Landlines, but they don't over telephone services and broadband and I will simply go somewhere else at the end of the day.

25 May 2010

Hot, Hot, Hot

I was lucky, I had an extra day off work to try and get some tidying up done. Moving a few boxes here and there gave us a bit more space in the living room. The washing was hung out on the line, and the sun shone brightly.

I phoned BT again, the fourth attempt to get a working phone line and it is costing a small fortune having to use the mobile and once more we have been told to wait 48 hours and someone will call... I beg to differ and if I have to ring them again there will be trouble!

Then a trip over to the storage container, to pick up the last few things, and hand back the key. If we had waited any longer we would have had to pay more rent, so it was crucial to get things done this weekend just gone, even though it would have been nicer to have had a bit more time to sort things out before taking them to the house; still beggars cannot be choosers.

Into town, and the great address change, now we can do all the licences, insurances, bank accounts etc... a raft of paperwork is about to move so apologies to Royal Mail who are doing well finding us in amongst the building site which is opposite.

Tomorrow is back to work, a more normal day well for me at least. SOH has the heat to contend with as he negotiates his lorry in amongst the holiday makers and traffic works delivering cream and milk to shops and the like.

23 May 2010

Whewwwww

SOH and I sweated buckets, literally. The storage container with all our stuff in was in full sun, and we baked like potatoes trying to get the stuff into the lorry. Part 1 on saturday was to get the heavy stuff, the washing machine, fridge etc into the lorry and over to the house... part 2 was on Saturday afternoon which was to load the remainder of the stuff from the container onto the lorry, leaving just a few things for Sunday morning. By the time the second load was on board we were ready for a meal, having a chinese from the Hong Sing in Redruth, such a lovely place and surprisingly empty so we were quickly served.

A bottle of Black Tower Rose went down well and by 8.30pm we were bushed so had a quick shower and slept like logs until 6am. We had breakfast before starting again, to set ourselves up for the day and also for good dietary reasons. The fridge had been settled in and switched on and the novelty of having a freezer again after 5 months meant I could shop later to fill it up.

The contents of the lorry was unloaded into the garage in less than an hour and while we stopped to sort out the washing machine with help from SOH's Dad, we enjoyed a moment in the sunshine before taking the old sofa to the skip and returning the lorry and picking up the car before I could indulge in a little retail frozen food shopping.

I got home to find a team of people, well actually SOH's Dad, starting to mow the back garden and once I had unpacked the shopping it was nice to sit and enjoy the sunshine with a little trimming.

We enjoyed a meal of Roast Pork, with potatoes and vegetables followed by Treacle Tart with clotted cream and a little bit of TV before we crashed into bed for the evening.

22 May 2010

Saturday Satire : The New Sailor

The Navy Captain noticed a new seaman and barked at him, "Get over here! What's your name sailor?"

"John," the new seaman replied.

"LISTEN TO ME!" the Captain shouted, "I don't know what kind of bleeding-heart, poofy, do - good, politically correct crap they're teaching sailors during training nowadays, but I don't call anyone by his first name," the Captain scowled. "It breeds familiarity, and that leads to a breakdown in authority. I refer to my sailors by their last names only - Smith, or Jones, or Baker, or whatever. And you are to refer to me as 'Captain'. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?", he bawled at the poor sailor.

"Aye, Aye Captain!"

"Now that we've got that straight, what is your last name?"

The seaman replied. "It's Darling, my name is John Darling, Captain."

"Okay, John, now here's what I want you to do ......"

21 May 2010

Brain Drain

With all the heavy lifting duty of the move on-going, we are moving what we can in the car to limit what we have to do on Saturday. The house is therefore full of boxes, probably all in the wrong spot but we don't care. They will get unpacked in time, over time and if not at least are tidy lol

We have a lorry hired for Saturday, and will now move all the heavy stuff like the washing machine, fridge freezer and garage stuff then finally we will be in formally and fully. No more caravan nights for a while, the luxury of a shower or even bath when we want and running water.. it all seems a little dream like at the moment.

With the limited facilities we have in the kitchen at the moment, it is still possible to cook up a decent meal, last night we had jersey royal potatoes, carrots, peas and lamb shanks in mint gravy (the latter being on special from Asda) and it was absolutely gorgeous - who needs a cooker - well actually I do, just waiting on the monies being returned from the solicitors and then I can go and order the one I want... Tesco's here I come, well I might as well bag a swathe of club points which we might be able to use against the hire car for September.

I move stuff in the mornings from the caravan to the house, while SOH moves stuff in the afternoons from the container to the house... still we are both tired, sore and drained by the end of the day and with the warmer weather coming I am finding it a bit stuffy at night so last night I got the window open by me and slept in a nice cool draft of air. Better than the night before when I woke up feeling all stuffy and then developed a migraine which while it didn't stop me teaching, it did stop me driving :-( not too good for work really.

Roll on the weekend, bring the work on... for it is good.

19 May 2010

So funny, what makes Drunks such a target?

I was soooo drunk the other night. Absolutely and utterly plastered. What a state I was in! I don't normally get like that.

I got to the bottom of the stairs and I quietly took my shoes off, followed by my socks.

Then I took my jacket off, and my shirt too.

Then I removed my trousers and my underpants.

I then crept upstairs, trying to stay on my tiptoes, and trying so hard not to make a sound. Very difficult, bearing in mind the state I was in!

It was only when I got to the top of the stairs that I realised I was on the bus......

18 May 2010

A Flow Chart of Responsibility

I couldn't resist this, perfectly describes most of the companies and businesses, the poor grunts at the bottom gather the most crap and usually from above.

My workplace is no different, I don't suppose, indications are strong that the Admin staff are in a high turnover. Not necessarily due to financial reasons, nor the change in government and their policies, but it could simply be that it is not fulfilling enough (and they get too much work landed on their desk).

Still something to think about if you are at the top of the ladder hmmmm

17 May 2010

What fun it is

We had a busy weekend, we are luckier than most in that we can unpack slowly due to the bulk of the goods being in a storage container. I think those people that have to move out of one house and into another the same day or the following day are brave souls, and probably have a removals company to help.

Costs were limiting, we couldn't afford the house and a removals company so have had to do the bulk of the work ourselves and by that I mean SOH has as he provides the muscle; apparently I have a wonderful knack of doing the wrong thing at completely the wrong time even though I think I am helping. So I get to move things that I can move like boxes, and he directs operations.

We have got some stuff in, and we have had our first meals cooked at the house albeit with a combi microwave and a steamer but even so it was more than edible and we enjoyed it very much. The cooker has yet to be brought, and reluctantly even I have come to realise that the lustful item is not going to happen instead I am looking at a double oven by Indesit that is a fairly unique colour of stainless steel (it almost appears to be a pale gold colour). This gives me extra money to spend out on a dishwasher and tumble dryer; I prefer where possible to dry clothes naturally, and I hate spending money on drying clothes but I have a lack of drying space in this house unlike the other house which had a car port I could use to put a clothes line up so hopefully I won't be using it very often.

The curtain poles are going up, they are satin steel extendable ones and apart from a lack of curtains hooks we have at least got one pair of curtains up. and have a working television for those moments when we sit down and have a cup of tea surveying all that we have done and all that we have yet to do.

It is nice to be able to shut the door and know that we are in our own home, all brought and paid for, every single brick and tile :-) we are very lucky people.

15 May 2010

Saturday Satire : What Granny Doesn't Know

A teenage girl started working as a prostitute, but she kept it a secret from her family.

One day she was working at the brothel when it was raided by the Police.

All the prostitutes were lined up on the pavement outside to be taken away, when the young girl's grandmother came along.

She immediately spotted her grandaughter and asked her why she was lining up?

The girl thought fast and told her granny that they were giving out free oranges and they were lining up for them.

The granny accepted this and started walking away, but as she reached the end of the queue she decided to join the end of the line as she liked oranges.

A policeman was surprised to see her lined up with all the girls and said to her, "Surely you are too old to be doing this, how do you manage it at your age?"

The granny replied,"Its easy sonny, I just take out my teeth and suck them dry."

14 May 2010

Tre Agan (Our Home)

It's officially ours, the money has been wired and I will be collecting the keys to Tre Agan this afternoon.

So long to the old homestead at the back of beyond which now belongs to someone else who I hope is very happy with her choice.






Say hello to Tre Agan, the official residence of Sage and SOH

With views from the front door over to the North Coast and Portreath (only 3 miles away), and views of Carn Brae from the rear it is a good location.

PS. anyone noted that the downsizing didn't really happen as this is also a 3 bedroom house with a garage lol...

Still it has plenty of storage, and isn't too near to town, but not to far away to be within walking distance. Just need to ring the utility companies and sky to arrange for a satellite dish.


13 May 2010

A tribute to a friend

Today, a year ago saw the loss of Elaine, of Old Age is a Bitch. She hadn't been well for some time and yet it was still a shock to read her sisters post telling of her fight for life and finally her loss to us all.

I can remember thinking how sad it was, of all the friendships that she brought together just by virtue of her blog, and how much she meant to her family but particularly to her sister who Elaine referred to just as TBSITW (The best sister in the world) but who I now know as Enid.

Today I will be remembering her, and spending some time reading her blog, which is still up although of course not updated and hopefully soon can make some of her recipes to share with SOH along with a glass of wine (though not noilly prat, which was Elaine's favourite tipple).

God Bless Elaine, your memory will live on.

12 May 2010

Mundaness and Money

How easy it is to spend lots of money and see very little for it.

SOH and I went off to B&Q last night to get some curtain poles, one of the very few things that is needed at the new abode. Neither one of us wanted anything dark, or bright and brassy. So we have settled for satin steel extendable poles as three of the windows are almost 7ft wide (2.1m)  and the other two are nearly 5ft (1.5m) in length. Please note that I had to use a calculator (well actually a spreadsheet) to help me with the translation from feet and inches which I understand to metric which fails me completely lol)

Now this is where it got interesting, B&Q had three long poles but only 1 shorter one so we ordered two more... in the wee hours of this morning my brain was cogitating why I had ordered three shorter poles when we only had two more windows and I am no wiser. Hopefully B&Q will give me a refund on the one which is not required or we may put it to use between the living and dining rooms.

£152.00 later, we have taken them to the storage container where my lack of packing skills meant some of the boxes had collapsed and needed to be restacked. Hopefully the contents will be ok, and have survived my ineptness.

The solicitors are trying to get everything done and ready by Friday this week, subject to the paperwork being returned from the Land Registry so keep your fingers crossed for us. Then we can finally begin to move in, luckily we are in a happy position of being able to take our time but neither one of us wants to hang around either.

11 May 2010

Paperwork

I have been buried in paperwork relating to the new abode, and hopefully in the next few days I will be able to announce a more permanent location for Sage exists and I might even provide some pictures of the view from outside.

The wodge, term meaning more than a little amount, of paperwork duly signed and witnessed is winging its way back to my solicitors to process and as they are holding the money left over from the sale at the back of beyond they should be able to speedily move towards completion. Right, well I mean move with all the speed that solictiors can do without risking any untoward mistakes in the contractual terms and obligations which probably means it would take longer than I would like for it all to happen.

My time at the smallholding is nearly over, and I will miss all of the animals, even the chickens and ducks who are tamer and will even fly into where you are prepping the other animals feed and start pecking at the pig nuts in anticipation they will get some goodness out of it. Merlin and Dillon are young shetland stallions, Merlin is far more laid back than Dillon (who needs to learn some manners before he becomes a biter), they need more time spent with them giving them people skills and working full time means I don't have as much time as I would want to except for weekends; both of them like having their winter coats scratched out and will stand quivering in pleasure.

But the one I will miss most is the big sow, answers to big girl and yet is so tame and gentle (well for 18+ stone of pure pork) that she will take weetabix out of your hand. Her biggest problem is that she loves company and will often kick over her water to get some attention and it is a bit of a trek to carry more out to her, hopefully she won't miss us too much once we have gone.

08 May 2010

Saturday Satire : The Local Pub

A woman went up to the bar in a quiet rural pub...

She gestured alluringly to the bartender who approached her immediately.

She seductively signalled that he should bring his face closer to hers.

As he did, she gently caressed his full beard.

"Are you the manager?" she asked, softly stroking his face with both hands.

"Actually, no," he replied.

"Can you get him for me? I need to speak to him," she said, running her hands beyond his beard and into his hair.

"I'm afraid I can't," breathed the bartender. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes. I need for you to give him a message," she continued, running her forefinger across the bartender's lip and slyly popping a couple of her fingers into his mouth and allowing him to suck them gently.

"What should I tell him?" the bartender managed to say.

"Tell him," she whispered,

"There's no toilet paper, hand soap, or paper towels in the ladies room.

 

07 May 2010

How much do I care about the elections?

The answer is not a lot, we will exchange one bunch of procrastinating idiots for another, and nothing major will change in my life except for the instability of the pound against other currencies that will affect a holiday we have planned for later in the year, and may affect the price of petrol and other necessary foodstuffs that in turn are affected.

No doubt whoever takes over, will simply blame the current problems on the previous incumbents of the job. Like the Labour government did when it took over from the Conservatives 11 years ago, but someone should point out to them that if they worked together as a team instead of fighting amongst themselves on party policies that don't really mean anything to anybody else they might not have such a situation to resolve.

It would be nice if instead of blamed being attributed to the past, they could all work together to achieve something good for this country; increasingly I am becoming disillusioned by it all and wonder if the grass is infact greener on the other side of the fence.

06 May 2010

Bar the Shouting...(Humour)

One sunny day in May, 2010 an old man approached the 10 Downing Street from the Embankment, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the Policeman standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with PM Brown."

The copper looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Brown is no longer PM and no longer resides here."

The old man said, "Okay", and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached No 10 and said to the same copper, "I would like to go in and meet with Mr Brown"

The copper again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Brown is no longer PM and no longer resides here."

The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the No 10 and spoke to the very same plod, saying "I would like to go in and meet with Mr Brown."

The copper, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Brown. I've told you already that Mr. Brown is no longer the Prime Minister and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the copper and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."

The Policeman snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir."

05 May 2010

Millstone changes into Stepping Stone

I always viewed the house at Cranfield as a Millstone, as I have mentioned before, well as of about 30 mins ago the finances were all sorted out and the new owner has taken possession of the keys.

Ergo, it has now converted into a Stepping Stone, to a new life, a new house and a something that I have long wanted to be : mortgage free.

It is a relief to have had the phone call to say it was all done and dusted. Now we can concentrate on the paperwork for the new house, which is hopefully arriving this week, once signed we will be on our way to obtaining the keys for Tre Agan.

So still a gypsy, but now a free gypsy as I no longer need to make any mortgage payments, insurance payments and miscellaneous other tied payments related to the mortgage. Free from any other bills other than the ones for necessary living like food etc. Tonight we celebrate our non-house owning status and boy are we two happy people living at the Edge of the World.

Wishing the new owner, joy and happiness for her and her family, I hope she enjoys the peace, tranquility that was the Back of Beyond.

04 May 2010

I don't Believe It!!!

I heard last week that Chris Evans was going to be on holiday for the next two weeks. Great I thought, freedom from his inane rantings and ravings and sanity will be granted in the form of Richard Allinson who did such a great job on Chris's last break.

Not so, this morning, even worse to my ears than Chris's drivel was none other than the stupidity of Graham Norton, the same one who does the late shows for the BBC which routinely humiliates not only the audience but also the guests.

Who does the BBC think we are? They could at least have given us the opportunity to vote for who we wanted to have cover the breakfast show, but no they decide for us and badly as well.

Don't know who is in charge of the BBC schedules and planning but Sir/Madam, you need your head examined!

OK rant over, back to more normal programming schedule of inane randomness and listening to Pirate FM in the mornings lol

03 May 2010

Did I?

Feel anything at leaving the old family home, well a little its only fair after it being my main base since 1974 (on and off) but to be honest I never felt I could cope with the house, the size of the garden was daunting, and as for cutting the hedging which was over 12 ft high.. I had to leave that to a kind neighbour to help with.

The last time, was just of relief, finally to leave it behind. We had spent 5 solid days packing, cleaning and tidying up.... yes I know everyone says it is stressful, a little but no it was the sheer amount of work we had to pack in giving us 12 hours of work most days ending with a meal and then bed before we began again.

To pull away from it that last day was easy, no backward glances, no regrets just lots of happy memories. I will miss the magnolia tree that was planted in Mum's name in the back garden but it was still in flower when we left and that was good. I can always get another one, I like the dwarf variety, this one grew no more than about 4ft high and I think I would like something similar as Dad liked it too.

I took two shrubs out of the garden, a dwarf lilac which is about 18 inches high and a fuschia that survived my neglectful idea of gardening after Dad died everything else is left behind for the new owner to enjoy including a couple of lovely clematis that grow year after year and provide wonderful colours from early in the year to the late part into Autumn and even Winter.

The new garden isn't that big, but that is good. What it makes up for in size is it's location. Within walking distance of Redruth with far views to the North Coast and the sea at Portreath, while at the back we can see Carn Brae and the wildness. It also doesn't require any work inside, nor any carpets as it is newly decorated and carpeted in beige throughout.

It isn't ours yet, we couldn't quite tie in the purchase with the sale, but we hope it will be soon the solicitors are working on it and in the meantime we are no worse off than before but we can at least plan what we need, and my lustful object isn't too far off, just need to check the pennies first.

We have brought some paint too, for the garage floor. We are painting it red, with the walls cream to make it bright and less slippy for the bikes to get in and out; pictures will follow when we can. We want to do this first so that we can move all the heavy objects over and out of storage and then finally we can call it home.

01 May 2010

Saturday Satire : The New Assistant

A chemist walked into his shop to find a man leaning against the wall.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked his assistant, who replied, "He came in for cough medicine, but I couldn't find any. I gave him an entire bottle of laxatives."

"You stupid idiot," said the chemist. "You cannot treat a cough with any sort of laxatives."

"Of course you can," the assistant replied. "Look at him, he daren't cough now."