Times Online going bust

For the last week my online Times newspaper has been playing up. It won't load the front page and seems to stop working for no reason leaving me stuck on the same page. As regulars know I rely on the Times in slow weeks for the occasional post and would be lost without it!

Yesterday morning I set out to right this wrong and in an idle five minutes logged on to the Times website. In truth I was looking for a refund of about half the £26 monthly cost. In no time I was "chatting" with the online chat help person.

"Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling?"

"Nope, let me try that."

Pause.

"Yes that has done it, all working fine now."

"Anything else I can help you with?" asked the chat agent.

"Yes I would like a refund please, my app has not worked properly. I don't think I should be charged full price for an app that needs to be uninstalled and reinstalled in order to work."

"I can't give you a refund."

"Well, perhaps I will think about cancelling my subscription then." I hasten to point out this was not in the spirit of a rant but a spirit of tired resignation.

"I can give you 50% off for three months though."

Kerching £39 up and I was only looking for £13.

Valentines Day

Wonderful story in the news today about Mr and Mrs Outram. It appears they had a two day row which culminated in Mr Outram grabbing Mrs Outram by the neck and pushing her out of the door of their house in Balquhidder Glen. Mrs Outram had been drinking (two whiskies) and had thrown a plate Mr Outram hitting him in the neck. She then tried to crawl back into the house through the catflap. Mr Outram was not impressed and hit her on the head and pushed her back out again.

The couple are hopeful of a full reconciliation.

Who says romance is dead?

Food in strange places 3

Having cleared up the egg from the previous post as best as I could, I noticed that there was a bit of shell that had fallen into Mrs Blog's handbag. Her handbag had been sitting on a stool right under the egg-line-of-fire. Not wanting Mrs Blog to be distressed by the shell I picked it up and thought she would be none the wiser.

Later that morning I received a lengthy and irate text from Mrs Blog. It seems that while I spotted the shell in her handbag, I had completely missed the big dollop of egg yolk. Mrs Blog found it when she went to the Post Office. It turns out that the bank paying-in book for the shop where she works bore the brunt of the eggy goo.

Apologies to Mrs Blog, the two ladies in the post office who had to wipe up the sticky mess on the counter, the owner of Time and Tide (Peebles branch) and anyone else who knows me.

Food in strange places 2

I went to grab a couple of eggs yesterday morning to make an omelette. One of them caused no real problems and came quietly, the other put up a struggle. It was a struggle which the egg both won and lost. It won in so far as I did not get to put it in my omelette; it lost because it smashed itself to pieces on the highest shelf in the door of the fridge.

Food in strange places 1

This has been an odd week in the Blog household, with food appearing where it should not be. Mrs Blog was emptying out the washing machine this morning and along with the washing was a well washed radish.

Chicken Run

As regulars will know, the Blogs have been keeping chickens for a few months. If you have seen the film "Chicken Run" and wondered if it was in fact a documentary, I am happy to confirm that it is.

In the last six months the chickens have escaped dozens of times. They have burrowed, squeezed through the netting, nipped out of the gate when we weren't looking and even eaten holes in the mesh that is meant to keep them in.

Today Mustard failed, she flapped, flew up and wedged herself halfway up the fence - I nearly left her there!

Attachments

Today started with a portent of things to come when I sliced my face apart with my Sainsbury's own brand razor.

It got worse when I ventured to make cauliflower soup. Quite what possessed me to want to make it in the first place, I have no idea. I chopped and fried an onion and garlic, boiled the cauliflower and simmered it all with potato and bay leaves.

Then I had to put it in the blender/processor to puree it all. I was faced with the choice of three attachments, the dough hook was a no-no, so I was left with the slicey-thing or the mixer-thing. Under the false assumption that the ingredients would be soft by now I went for the mixer-thing. Big mistake, the lid flew off, the soup flew out and I had a cauliflower shower.