Nuts to it....

So, here I am, perched on the edge of the sofa with the baby laptop (which runs as fast as the average slug), on my knee. Why you may ask when I have a perfectly good desk with a nice shiny new(ish) desktop just waiting to be switched on and used. Wrong! Those of you with good memories will know just how new the desktop is so may be surprised to know that it isn't working quite the way it should.

Now I know I shouldn't name and shame, but I am seriously p'd off with Packard Bell (ooops, did I just mention their name?). A few days ago hubby turned on the PC to be met with the ominous message "config.sys is missing"! Now why this should make a hap'orth of difference I have no idea since that file isn't even used by XP, but it did and the damn machine refused to start.

I came up with the brilliant idea of using the recovery disc that came with the machine and in a foolish, fey and reckless moment stuck it in the drive and headed for the repair console. Within moments, my hard drive was being reformatted and then came a soothing message which was something like:

"Don't worry about a thing - you are just the moron who operates the machine. You know nothing but we do so we will put everything back to normal for you by transferring a few files" - actually it may have just said "copying files now", but you get the idea...

After an hour of reading this message and no lights flashing on the machine I turned it off, gave up and went to bed. In the morning in a much better mood (not) I loaded up my own version of XP but discovered it didn't have all the drivers I needed so it was back to the recovery disc to load them.. Guess what? It reformatted my hard drive again for me (so helpful...). At least this time after the soothing message ("Don't worry - we know best") it did actually copy some files. I then got anther message (hurrah!) saying "restoring operating system...this may take some time...... I was really good, I waited patiently, I resisted the temptation to throw the machine across the room, I didn't strangle anyone with the cables, I didn't even kick the cat with frustration probably 'cos I would've fallen over) - and eventually the message went, the screen went blank and then I got a dos prompt. I rebooted (thinking that XP would then start) and got...a dos prompt. I checked the contents of the hard drive....wow...an operating system...a dos one that is....

I am going back to the shop......I may be some time.....so if I don't blog for a while, you know why........

I’m hooo-ome…..!

Well, here I am, back in Blighty and wondering when my jet lag is going to creep up and smack me in the face. I feel remarkably chirpy for someone who has just been travelling for 26 hours straight up. OK OK so I have some aches and pains and stuff but I’m in a good mood all the same.

The trip went, ummm well, it went, shall we just say that? I have to say that I have had better ones, but it wasn’t an unmitigated disaster so there you go. I did at least get a suntan even if it wasn’t the best way to do it.

You see, on the first day I looked at my suntan cream and thought I ought to have something stronger (having gone from a British almost winter) to the desert state sun. Now I don’t use a huge factor sunscreen, its not that I’m exactly olive, but I just don’t burn that easy so I though that rather than opting for my normal 8, I’d push the boat out and go for some 20 that I found lurking in the bottom of my case. I lathered it on and sat out all day (I have no choice in this given the nature of my sport) and by the end of the day was looking exceedingly pink on the arms. This is like the first time I have burned since well, I can’t remember when and everyone was there trying to tell me how hot it was and how I shouldn’t be surprised.

Well, I was surprised and the next day decided to try the factor 8 just in case there was a problem with the ole lurking bottle. What happened? Well, I was fine, no more burning for me. So then I fished out the bottle of factor 20 and turned it upside down. Expiry 08/02. Oh dear…..I think that explains that then…..

Moi?

I feel stressed….. I am trying to prepare for a major trip away and before I go we are trying to get the bathroom finished. On top of that I have promised to get a coat sewn for someone before I go; the ironing pile is as tall as me; I have several family commitments that cannot be broken (unless of course I can get my brother to shift his 50th birthday); my mother is due home from Australia (and I am supposed to be picking her up from the station at silly o’clock on Thursday night^*1) and I am trying to do all this with my wrist in a splint. Do you get the idea that I am trying to do too much? Moi? Would I? Surely not?

…Of course, there will be those of you who say I should be getting on with all those things rather than writing my blog, but I need a break from it all godmammit (Janet…^*2)

Anyway, just in case I can’t slope away and update y’all^*3 again then I shall be back in 10 days time. After a full 36 hours sleep (which I anticipate needing as a very minimum) I shall come back and tell you all about my adventures and you never know, if the bathroom has come on a bit, I may even be able to do it clean too!

^*1 I guess that’s actually Friday morning in fact.
^*2Just gotta love that show….
^*3 This could be a clue to where I am going…

Oh no…it’s tiny!

So the bathroom is coming on gradually. The new wall is up, plastered and tiled. We are ready to get the plumber in to fit the new radiator – yippee! At this point I should mention that we picked the radiator out of a catalogue as we had a particular style in mind (well, I did anyway and hubby went along with it) and they didn’t have one in stock in the shop. So, it was ordered and delivered with the rest of the bathroom (which is sitting in the study behind me as I type) – this is where it has been for the last month! Anyway, the radiator came in a great big box which we opened at one end, checked the fixing pack was inside (i.e. make sure contents were complete) and then promptly taped shut again as the cats had decided that it was nothing more than a large cardboard play tunnel and were desperate to get inside.

Actually, on a bit of an aside, what is it about cats that they feel compelled to sit in cardboard boxes? Bugalugs is, at this moment, sat inside a box (which incidentally has no bottom) looking very smug and blinking up at me^*1. Why? He was in it within 20 seconds of me dropping it on the floor and will only leave it if I manage to find another box for him to try out.

Anyway, back to the radiator – we were ready for the plumber to fit it so unpacked it from its enormous box, removed all the polystyrene packing which was needed to fill such a big box and took it upstairs to the bathroom. It was at this point that we noticed that we have 9ft ceilings - well in fact we did know this before, but there’s nothing like a too-small radiator to show these things up! It looked tiny in the room – weedy I think was the expression hubby used. Worse than that – one of the legs was bent! So, that was it, I had to get on the phone and sit in an automated system listening to canned music for 20 minutes^*2. Finally I got through to someone who told me that the earliest they could get a replacement to me would be at least a month as they had none in stock but if I wanted I could take it back to the shop and see if I could swap it for another model. Result!

So, that was what we did – took it back and found something else. The something else which was what hubby had fancied in the very beginning so it's alls well that ends well!

^*1 All cat owners will know exactly what I mean by this blinking business…
^*2 This is my personal hate, hate, hate! If they are busy, why don’t we get an engaged signal. If they are not there why don’t they just not answer? I hate having to pay to listen to their choice of, muzak and press buttons which never get me anywhere. I have taken to doing nothing when they say “if you have a touch tone phone press the star key now”. Normally it at least gets you through to a person …who will then put you on hold and make you listen to their choice of muzak….grrrrr!!! Do you sense how much I hate these things yet?

More on major splatter.

Writing my last blog entry reminded me of a couple of major splatter incidents that have happened to us over the years and somehow the memory of them is much funnier than they seemed at the time….

Firstly, many years ago, I dropped a pyrex bowl full of spaghetti sauce in the kitchen and the base of the bowl hit the floor and bounced back up (amazingly the bowl stayed intact). The contents of that bowl flew out so far that they hit the ceiling and the walls either side of the room and we ended up having to redecorate just to cover up what looked horribly like dried blood splattered all over the place.

What made matters worse, was that having redecorated (in a colour that actually looked much, much nicer on the paint chart than it ever did on the walls), we had another little mishap. We had friends down for the weekend (the BUF and her VNSO in fact) and hubby went out to the kitchen to open (another) bottle of red wine. Just as the cork came out, the bottle slipped, hit the floor and (unlike the glass bowl), exploded. Red wine went absolutely everywhere, including halfway up the nearest (newly painted) wall. That did make a mess and we wiped off the worst of it before opening (another) bottle of red wine and getting back to wherever we were in the conversation.

The next day we noticed that the wall wasn’t really very clean and tried to wash off the rest of the wine. Well, it seems that Cabernet Merlot is quite a good dye and it wouldn’t scrub off. Never mind we thought, newish paint - we’ve still got paint in the tin – we’ll just give it another coat – job done! Well, the paint went on, the wine stain bled though. Another coat of paint – it bled though again. Stain proof paint? – Nope – bled though….and in the end we half panelled the walls just to hide it.

I just hate to think what the new owners thought when they bought the house and (probably) stripped off the panelling. They’re probably looking for bodies buried in the garden as I write this….