Journal

Keep on runnin’

The car sailed through its first annual service without any major defects coming to light. When I say “sailed through” I mean “cost ?208 for no apparent reason.”

Still, at least it has fresh oil and whatever else for another journey to Scotland at the weekend.

Also, in an amazing turn of events, the previously Wicked Witch of Kings Chrysler, Sue the Service Manager was actually very pleasant. Heck, she even smiled and joked with me when I went to pick up the car after the event. And this was on one of the hottest days of the year so far, I might add – she could have been excused for being a little testy when the temperature in the shade was a stifling 34°C. I’ll fill in the service questionnaire and give her a glowing report – all is forgiven. :o)

On the way home, Fliss and I witnessed what appeared to be a man in a silver Audi speeding away from a hit and run incident. He had a head shaped, spiders web of a crack in his car windscreen and was overtaking the long queue of traffic on the wrong side of the road with wreckless abandon.

I took his number plate down and when we got home we called the police to tell them the when, where and what, although according to Fliss they didn’t seem particularly interested. Ah well, you do your bit. The dude was clearly up to no good, though – I hope they hunt him down like a dawg.

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Journal

Birthday Weekend

After the sombre events of Friday were out of the way, the weekend turned out to be quite pleasant. Very low key compared to a year ago, though, when we moved house and had my birthday party the day after.

On Saturday night my mum treated me, Fliss, and family to a quality meal at the Dumbuck Hotel. Top food, although the service was lacking and we ended up waiting 20 minutes for a round of drinks.

Then on Sunday I spent some time in the scorching sun trying to get Andrew to catch a football. This is not an easy task, believe me – Andrew has hand-eye co-ordination that only Stevie Wonder would envy. Still, he managed to catch a few… with the emphisis on few… and was definately improving by the time we saught shelter from the heat. (No doubt he’ll be back to square one by the next time I visit – which is this weekend for Hazel & Ian’s engagement party!)

Sunday evening was taken up by the fairly smooth drive back home – I’m actually getting quite efficient at it now, although we did have to stop for fuel this time.

For Monday I had taken the day off work, which we filled with shopping and a visit to Argos to buy my birthday treats – a skateboard ramp and a weight bench. True to form, the ramp wasn’t in stock, but I got my weight bench for ?60.

The construction process took ages, though – and it’s not as if it was too complicated. Two hours of toil ended on a sour note when I found that the very final frickin’ pieces were missing! Two spacer/washer things required for the butterfly attachments were absent from the bag, so I have to call the manufacturer to get them sent to me.

Fliss had fired up a barbeque while I was building the weight bench, so we had some charred & uncooked food for dinner before retiring to play EyeToy for the rest of the evening. Not a bad way to end my birthday weekend, even if the rest didn’t go to plan :o)

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Journal

Troubled times

I haven’t been updating as much recently due to a bit of a persistant migraine I’ve had for over a week. Too much screen time as usual, I’m afraid, so I decided not to use the PC at home to help me get rid of the headache.

Add to this the sad news that Fliss‘ mother had passed away and there just isn’t really much to talk about with any enthusiasm at the moment.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

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