Is Anyone Out There?

My youngest is back at university so a late trip to Liverpool last night saw him deposited back at flat. He took with him enough provisions for an army and we have been teaching him to cook over the Christmas holidays so there was an additional trip to ASDA in Liverpool before our return. His Nan also baked him a chocolate cake to take with him - lucky lad - that won't last long!

The day has been a busy one domestically, while my wife has been doing the ironing, I've tidied the downstairs of the house, washed the car (inside and out), been shopping, cleaned the kitchen, swept the drive of leaves and I'm cooking the tea shortly. I'm knackered - how do women do this all the time, run the family and hold down a job - can I go on a course?

Good customer service is a fundamental part of a successful business. You don't need to be in business to realise that. My mobile phone, you may remember was given a swimming lesson a couple of weeks ago. My fault - completely. The phone went back to the shop and they sent it away through the insurance cover and gave me a courtesy phone. When I got a new phone back last Saturday (my old one was irreparable) the SIM card kept coming back as 'inactive.' A friendly helpful man on the end of the helpline sent me a new SIM card. That didn't work either. I tried the SIM in an old phone and it worked. Therefore the new replacement phone must be faulty.

This morning we took my phone back to the shop where a young male assistant who had clearly seen his arse that morning dealt with us begrudgingly and with no interpersonal communications ability at all. As an aside after he took my phone off me asked as an afterthought if we required a courtesy phone. We said we did. He gave me an all singing all dancing touch phone which is miles ahead of my fairly simplistic phone (it makes calls and texts using a keypad - old fashioned I know). He made no attempt to show us how it worked, 'look it up on the Internet' he said. When asked if he could transfer my contacts, he said he couldn't - did he mean it wasn't possible or didn't he have the skills?

The shop was Vodafone in King Edward Street in Hull. I've never had a problem with Vodafone before. Never in all the many years I've had a Vodafone provided mobile, either connectivity or service. This miserable rude little twat does nothing to inspire confidence.

I am running a paranormal investigation tonight at a building in Hull which stands upon a site which goes back to an original building in 1694. I'll let you know how it goes.

Despite that lateness of the hour when we returned last night, my middle lad was in garden looking at the moon through our new telescope. What an extraordinary site when you can see the craters clearly and the shadows they create, it gives me a shiver. I did try to take a photograph through the lens but without success. I need to practise.

Here's a handful of aliens jokes:

Did you hear about the man who was captured by alien teddy-bears?
He had a close encounter of the furred kind.

What do you get if you cross a Martian with a golf score?
A little green bogey (yuk!)

What do you call a spaceship with a fault air-conditioning unit?
A frying saucer.

(I like this one) What do you call an overweight ET?
An Extra Cholesterol.

Chat soon

Ta-ra

Trim all round sir?

Domesticity rules today, no walk round Hull as planned and therefore no money spent (other than on tonight's Euro Millions and at a local shop too).

Instead, I cut the hedge (with the assistance of she who must be obeyed), trimmed a tree, cut the grass, had a nice welcoming hot bath and this evening bought my son a computer as a reward for getting his degree.

The hedge was trimmed nice and neatly, not perfect because its full of holes, not level due to it growing at different rates because of the trees, but it turned out very acceptable and will be okay for the next two months or so. As a bonus, although it's not a very good picture (top), there was a bullfinch on the seed dispenser in the back garden which I managed to get before it flew off. I had to do something very old fashioned which was to manually focus on the bird because all the foliage was confusing the auto focus. What you can't see behind the foliage was it's female partner, who has a grey belly. They come once a day, as if passing through from who knows where to somewhere much more exciting.

Have a great weekend.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.

Ten things to do on a Weekend

It's the weekend and with only two days, what can you get up to to make it a satisfying use of your own time - I've made some suggestions below. I looked for some suggestions on the net and the results were not promising. One site suggested in it's top ten: Visit a planetarium; Take a Barista Coffee course; Take a defensive driving course; Test drive your dream car; Visit a day spa; Visit a theatre or opera; Take a coach tour; Book a last minute hotel room; Have a posh picnic; Visit an old friend.

Wow. There's an emerging theme there: you have to have oodles of spare cash or live in a larger city and have servants at home to do all your work. So I thought of the top ten things I might think about doing myself (wife in bed because of her shift work):

Visit The Deep in Hull - cheap and you don't have to use your brain and jostle with the occasional little bad tempered brat - cost - negligible;
Visit a book shop - browse at leisure in a quiet atmosphere and watch men sneaking peaks at erotic novels pretending to have a serious literary interest - don't have to buy anything;
Have a nice coffee in a book shop cafe - couple of quid for a coffee and earwig the nearby conversations to see how the other half live;
Put the clothes in the washer - don't mixed coloureds and whites on a hot wash - cost - already bought the tablets which have turned into powder and spill on the floor the minute you tear the strip seal;
Tumble the clothes you earlier put in the washer - no immediate cost just a huge electricity bill at the quarter end - don't forget to clean the fluff filter and place it in the carrier bag which already has three months worth of pubic hair and fluff;
Clean son's bedroom - Don personal protective equipment, recover 6 side plates, fourteen corners of mouldy bread crust from sandwiches, eight glasses of pink coloured liquid with floating furry mouldy things and 37 assorted single socks from around the room, all different - cost? Five years off your life through worry in fear of what you'll find;
Wash the car - Good exercise and plenty of fresh air on a spring like day - find dents in door where some uncaring bastard has opened their door onto your pride and joy - cost? Previous good temper;
Buy a lottery ticket - learn from last time: attempted to buy a lottery ticket only to find I'd forgotten my wallet and only had 93p in change;
Read the paper - 50p to read depressing investigative journalism, find out what who is doing to who in soap operas, take a sneaky peek at the agony aunt's page for a bit of spice and complete all the crossword clues except one - there's always one;
Cup of tea - the Yorkshireman's best drink of the day - relax and enjoy!

Chat soon

Ta-ra