After a cold start and a frost overnight, today turned into a gorgeous day! Maybe a little cold, but what a beautiful blue sky! So, after a quick visit to Asda with Lee for a top-up shop, by way of Central Garage (to get Ann’s alloy replaced), we hit the garden for a massive tidy-up. …
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The Beginning of the End for ‘Mondeo Man’
The replacement car will be here in around four-weeks, so some activities are required to get the Mondeo ready for its return to the leasing company. The first major activity was to drive over to Paintshield in Peterborough to have the protective film removed from the front portion of the car. It was good to …
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Return to The Shuckburgh Arms
Image by Steve Palmer (UK) via Flickr As part of our monthly meal-out with David and Val, we decided to take a second look at The Shuckburgh Arms. At our first visit back in October, we were amazed at the high quality of the food and the low …
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Nice Surprise!
Vauxhall rang today to tell me that my new car will be delivered EARLIER than planned – two weeks early to be precise! Even the sales-guy couldn’t believe it…so I’ve only pencilled it in. Roll on April 7tth!!!! …or not!
The Cats are 6 today
Last year, at this time, we mentioned that Biscuit had finally ventured into territories unknown – my lap! Since then, although it’s not been a regular thing, she does snuggle-down every so often. Not so Bon-Bon – or so we thought! Back in September, for no reason at all, she suddenly decided to try my …
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My Body is a *
*Please choose the most appropriate description. In my efforts to move the description from ‘wheely-bin’ to ‘temple’, I am, again this year, taking Lent** very seriously. In 2010 I managed to resist most of the food-stuffs I love, without too much trouble – I’m not sure where the strength came from to do it!, but …
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Wet, Wet, Wet
Ralph’s here this week, for phase 2, weaving his plumbing and project management skills on our ex-shower-room that will ultimately become a ‘wet-room’. There’s not much to see currently except: floor-boards, exposed cabling, plaster-board and lots of empty space!, but he has the vision and we have the cash!
A Good Day with Technology
Well, that was rewarding! I managed to retrieve most of JT’s emails from her knackered hard disk and sort out one or two other techy-challenges on her PC too! I feel a beer coming on!
Steve vs The Cottage Pie
We drove up to Denis’ today, placing some flowers on Mae’s grave along the way. Bev had created a legendary-sized Cottage Pie – not for the faint-hearted nor the short-of-stomach, it was a veritable feast and I won’t need to eat until August!!!!! She followed it up (for Denis and me, at least) with a …
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Friday means…
…chilling out with friends, and to complete the picture – Fish and Chips! Jo an Janet popped-up with their holiday pics, Lee supplied the chips and mushys, whilst Ann picked up some swimming things from the local shop. What a great way to start the weekend!!!!
Lunch with Eric M
I drove up to my favourite town – Stamford – and The George, to catch-up with my old pal from my Sainsbury days, Eric Mival. He’s a film producer and we had a good time nattering about the state of the industry and the parallels with my profession. We haven’t seen each other since last …
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Persian: Lap Record
Image by Steve Palmer (UK) via Flickr Even if you’re not a cat-lover, you probably know that there are two types of cat. There’s the type that sit on your lap… and there’s the type that don’t. Bon-Bon has been firmly in the second category (except for the time last September, where she managed 15 …
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Lee’s Housewarming
Lee laid on afternoon tea for Jo, Janet, David, Val, Ann and me this err, afternoon. She did a great job – it was a scrummy spread – sausage rolls, quiche, sandwiches, cake, cake, cake, Bakewell tarts, caramel thingies and the largest Victoria Sponge I’ve ever seen. It was also the perfect opportunity to try …
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Cats in/Phone down/Humans out!
CATS IN – Time for the cats, Biscuit and Bon-Bon, to have their six-weekly ‘service’, courtesy of Patsy, What made it different on this occasion, was that Ann had to wrestle the two fluff-bundles into the cat carriers on her own, as I was already out. Cue lots of scratching, fighting and aggressive behaviour? Well, …
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Lunch with Phil H/Julie’s PC/The Weekend starts here
Phil H cancelled lunch at the last moment – I’m getting a bit concerned for him as ever since he went back to full-time work, he’s cancelled every get-together we’ve planned – he’s obviously under a lot of pressure! Julie popped round, she now has a shiny new, old, PC with the majority of her …
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Busy, Busy…and it’s only 10am!
I rose early (no, really!) to get on with restoring Julie T’s PC to its former glory. It all went very well, and four hours later everything is now running as it should. I just need to locate her Outlook ‘pst’ email file and the job is done. It’s now better, faster and stronger than …
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Red Rose…Yellow Rose…Blue Rose?
It’s Valentine’s Day – and rather than a simple red rose, I got Ann a multi-coloured one from those very nice people at Inter-Rose How do they do that???
CD on TV
After a bit of faffing around, I can now listen my CD* collection by choosing them from the TV screen. All thanks to the Seagate GoFlex TV gizmo. *For younger readers, this was the format of choice for music in the late 20th century
Non-PC
I popped over to Julie T’s this afternoon after receiving a call from her yesterday. Her PC just wouldn’t complete the boot process. After taking it all apart and swapping out various hardware components, it looks like it’s a dead (or dying) hard disk, so there’s a bit of work to do before I can …
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Punt and Dennis – Wellingborough
David, Val, Ann and I drove over to The Castle in Wellingborough tonight to catch the comedy duo on their They Should Get Out More tour. Onstage at 7.30, they kept us giggling until 10pm. The place was packed – I reckon around 500 were there. I’m not sure what was funnier – the headless …
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Little Black Number
The Seagate GoFlex TV Check this out! A little black box that allows you to play all your music, video and photos from your PC through your TV! Brilliant!!!! Heck, it even connects to YouTube! (as well as many other online services). Ralph and I spent some time setting this up today after an aborted …
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Wet, wet, wet (week 1)
Ralph’s done a great job in starting to transform our en-suite into a wet room. All the furniture is out, and all the tiles that need to be removed have been. The separating wall between the shower and the sink/loo is also no-more. The only thing that slowed him down was the save-the-planet-by-recycling-everything-mentality at the …
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Guide Her (with Rosi)
I popped round to Rosi’s to sort out a few niggles she had with her HTC HD2 phone and to guide her through some other phone related bits-and-pieces. As it turned out, it was a very productive session – her email is now working and I’ve introduced her to some useful apps too!
Never Knowingly Unresolved…
I popped over to Lee’s to setup her PC so she can more easily shop online at John Lewis and other stores. It was just a question of sorting out an online account and adding a few shortcut buttons to her browser.
…and the transformation begins…
We cleared out the tip shower-room this afternoon in preparation for its transformation into a wet-room. It was amazing how many toiletries had piled up in there over the years – no wonder we think the room’s too small! Five types of shampoo, four types of conditioners…and don’t even mention my after-shaves! By 5pm, it …
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Lashing it down in Lincoln!
We drove up to Lincoln with Lee today to meet up with Denis, Bev, Roger, Jane and Oliver. – a sort of family get-together, mainly to give Oliver his birthday pressys and to sort out some residual finances as a result of Mae’s Will. We left around 9am and had a fast run north, even …
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R.I.P. John Barry
I learned today that John Barry, the famous composer of all the memorable James Bond themes, died on Sunday. We saw him performing in Birmingham many years ago and the whole event was just fantastic! He’ll be sadly missed as the man who made beautiful and memorable music! Click on the link below and listen …
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Car Update
So, the dealership has confirmed that the car should be here by the first (or second) week in April. I’m still slightly unsure about whether it will actually happen on that date, as so many Insignia owners are saying the wait is much, much longer. Anyway, we’ll see! Now that the retention document has arrived …
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Manic Saturday!
8.00am: It was over to Peterborough for a haircut. Then back home for a quick change of clothes before we head off to Lamport for the treat-of-the-week – our full tasting session for our proposed Wedding Breakfast. 10.45am: The sampling session was a really enjoyable event, and the chef and Emma had worked very hard …
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Portrait Professional
This is a really good bit of kit if you take a lot of portrait photographs Portrait Professional – Easy Photo Editing Software Related articles Portrait Professional 10: Retouching Made Easier (pixiq.com)