Well, I do live a very varied life! Today, I accompanied Lee to Kettering County Court. We’ve been in Kettering over 15 years and I never knew of its existence (I guess not-knowing is a good thing in this case!) It’s tucked away in a side street just off the main shopping area in the …
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Ouch…my head!
After last night’s celebrations, my head feels a little heavy this morning! Denis slept over, and when he left after breakfast, Ian and Sharon dropped in for coffee on their way home from the B&B they’d stayed at overnight in Wellingborough. Then, just after they’d gone, Lee arrived to join us for lunch. It’s …
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Ann’s Surprise 50th Birthday Party
Thanks for being there everyone! We had a great time. Ann’s face on arrival, was a picture!!! After what seems like years of planning, Ann’s ‘day’ has finally arrived. The surprise… My thanks to a lot of people for helping me to make it happen… Eddie and Michelle at Club Diana for helping me plan …
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Insignia: Sneak Peek!
Having learned that the car had been delivered to the dealership, we took a chance that it would at least be visible, if we took a drive down there – even though the place was closed. As luck would have it, Dan, the Sales Executive who’s looking after the deal, was just locking-up, and offered …
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Ann’s 50th Birthday
It’s Ann’s 50th today – and much to her dis-pleasure, she had to work (having previously booked it as a day off). On the plus side, it gave me the opportunity to fine-tune my scheming for tomorrow night when I think for the first time in her life, she’ll be speechless!!!! Well, we’ll see!
A Pleasant Surprise
I just phoned the dealership to see whether they are still on target for my car being delivered to them on the 28th. To my utter surprise, they said it had been delivered a few days ago. Sod’s Law is such that I’m just so crammed with work and other stuff, I can’t get down …
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Wet, Wet, Wet: Phase 3
Ralph joined us today for the rest of the week to resume his great work on the conversion of our shower-room into a wet-room.
What a Gorgeous Day!
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!