4 posts tagged “car”

Made it through the 21st

Jan 23, 2008
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Apparently the 21st of January is the day most people (presumably they mean people who celebrate Christmas) feel most depressed after the Christmas break. Something to do with the dark evenings and mornings (in the Northern Hemisphere, of course) and getting your bank and credit card statements and realising how much debt you ran up over the holiday. I think I may still be in the black at the bank, but only just, thanks to an unexpected case of knackered rear suspension bushes on the jalopy. They do say that the honeymoon period for a new car is a year, but I've always treated my cars with the same distain, even the one that I bought brand new.

Anyroadup, all this makes little difference to me, my usual mood is 'pissed off at everything' anyway, although the shocking weather really hasn't helped this year. Floods all over the place, lots of people with three feet of dirty water flowing through their living rooms and in some cases it was the fourth time in six months they were deluged. Now that must be soul destroying.

Luckily, Castle Warhead seems to be far enough away from the River Mersey to avoid anything more than a soggy lawn, and having had some roof repairs last year we haven't had to put buckets in any rooms to catch drips.

Reeeeesult!

Crazy dream

Oct 15, 2007
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I had another crazy dream last night. I think it was triggered by watching Michale Palin's 'New Europe' last night.

When it started (the dream, not the programme) I was walking through a country village that I'd apparently just moved in to. I was wandering around trying to get a feel for the place. It was a sunny day and there were people sunbathing on the verges at the side of the road.

I noticed a couple of completely naked guys, naturists, but they had their genitals tucked between their legs so as not to be seen.

The next thing, I'm in the village hall, about to take part in some kind of sponsored event for charity, but before I can begin I get a call on my phone to say there's an emergency and I'm needed elsewhere.

I go to the ticket office (don't ask why there's a ticket office in the village hall, dreams don't have to make sense) and ask for my car keys, which I'd left there for some reason. The woman in the ticket office is not pleased, because I'm leaving without taking part in the event, and is not hurrying to give me my keys. I tell her, 'Just hurry up, I have to save someone from drowning.'

I get my keys and set off to get my car, which is parked behind a building which is the police station, the post office and the swimming baths. There's a secure car park with two sets of gates set a few yards apart, and I notice that both are opening to let someone else out.

I run in and around the back of the building, looking for my car. There are lots of walls, with compartmentalised areas for parking, and I can't see my car. I climb on the roof to see over the walls, but I can't see my car. Then two other guys, criminal looking types, are also on the roof, looking for their car that's been impounded by the police. They tell me to go with them when they steal their car back, since I can't find my own car, but I tell them my car hasn't been impounded and I'm going to keep looking for it.

I decide to go inside and ask the police where my car is parked. When I get inside there's a counter with a glass security barrier and the officer is also the post master. There's a little old lady in front of me, handing the officer bags of frozen food to weigh, and tell her how much it'll cost to post them. I am getting imatient, but she's taking longer and longer, telling the guy that she's been getting her frozen stuff weighed by him for years (as though he doesn't know this). I think she's finished and try to move forwards, but another lady pushes in front of me, saying she was waiting before me.

I am still waiting in the queue when the dream fades.

I Can't Sneeze ...... and other stuff

Apr 16, 2007
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I not keen on people going on about their aches and pains but sometimes that's the main thing that's on your mind, so please excuse me having a little gripe.

The pains around my shoulder blades are becoming annoying, but then I suppose I should have arranged for physio when the doc advised me to earlier in the year. It might not have helped, but then again it might. I really must book an appointment.

Interestingly I started getting a dull abdominal pain last Thursday. I thought I might have pulled a muscle when lugging big bags of compost around over the weekend, and tried to ignore it. But five days later it’s still there when I breathe in deeply or when I move in certain ways, but oddly it’s not tender when I press around the offending area. Reading my BP meds info sheet again, mention is made of rare occasions when abdominal pain is a side effect of one of them. I’ll be annoyed and relieved if that’s the cause. Relieved because it means I haven’t done some serious damage to myself, and annoyed that it’s only just started to cause a problem a few days after the doc saying my BP was finally in the right area.

Oh, the sneezing problem. I needed to sneeze a couple of hours ago, but as I breathed in, in preparation, the sudden pain in my abdomen stopped me from taking a full breath, and I couldn’t sneeze. It happened twice. Odd.

Car

Well, the honeymoon is over. A couple of weeks ago my car alarm went of randomly a couple of times. Then it went off three times in during the night and I had to have the remote by my bedside so I could turn it off without having to get up.

I took it in to my local Ford service centre last week, to see if they could work out what was causing it. Of course, in the week after I booked it in the alarm didn't go off once. Ford say the bonnet (that's the hood for our colonial readers) latch is the cause of the problem, so it's going to cost me a few bob (some money) to get it replaced.

Can I just add that all car service centre staff are rip-off/con artists and that I don't believe for one monent anything they tell me or that the prices they charge don't include a percentage that they just cream off for themselves?

Grrr ... back on the switchboard for two days (and other stuff)

Dec 29, 2006
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Our office is open Thursday and Friday this week, but most staff have taken these days as leave. There's only me and one of my managers in, so I'm manning the switch again, while she does the post and other bits and bobs.

It's an education, being on the switch. People see our name in the phone book and assume we know everything about anything related to any government department. Although it's very quiet, about half of the calls I've taken have absolutely nothing to do with what we do at this office. Being a helpful soul, I try to find out who they should be calling and get a contact number for them. In years gone by all this info was in directories and docs our staff had compiled over eons. Now I Google for other department's numbers, just like anyone else can. The trick is knowing to which department I should refer them and even with Google, it's not always easy to work out which of tens of different helpline numbers is the one they need.

Meanwhile, the weather has got a bit wintery again, and there's a howling gale at this altitude (I'm on the 11th floor in the City centre). Our ill-filling window frames make it whistle like an arctic storm.

Listen!

See?

In other news, three scallywags tried to break into my neighbour's house at 3:10am yesterday by attacking his front door with a brick. The fuzz think they were after his car keys, as he has a souped-up Audi on his drive. Luckily they (the scallywags, not the fuzz) were unable to get through the door and after he remonstrated with them, and threw a blunt/heavy object at them, they fled in their silver Vauxhall.

Mrs WH and I didn't hear a thing until the emergency glazier arrived at about 5:30 to board up the damaged door. I think my snoring must have drowned out any other noise.