Wednesday 25 March 2015

Grumpy on a guitar

I have been teaching myself the acoustic guitar for a while now. Thinking to myself that it would be useful to get some expert help I went on to YouTube.

The search for guitar exercises threw up "A !5 minute Guitar Exercise" video...it lasted 8 mins 37 seconds!!!

Monday 23 March 2015

Bad start to the week!

Some weeks begin well. The world seems a good place to be, the sun shines and the sky is blue. Today was not a good start to the week.

Physio at 8.30 a.m. meant an early start to get to Edinburgh. The traffic was bad thanks to a selfish lorry driver who ignored the twenty car tailback behind him for eight solid miles. When I got to Edinburgh I parked up and managed to burst a tyre on the kerb. Bad enough?

No! Modern cars don't come with spare tyres. Knowing I had to make my physio appointment I fed the meter and resolved to sort it out an hour later.

The physiotherapist is a sadist so the session did not go well.

Back in the car I tried the "repair kit". It involved removing the tyre valve, squirting milk into the tyre and trying to reflate the thing with an air compressor that looked like a 1960's transistor radio. All that happend is that I pumped the milk through the tyre and out of the hole in it onto the road.

I rang the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) to arrange for them to pick me up. After ten loyal years of being a customer and not bothering them I figured it was time to collect. I didn't. The RAC it seems are pretty picky about which car you are in when you burst a tyre and they explained that they wanted to fleece me for money. I refused.

A traffic warden turned up at this point and explained, to my relief, that she couldn't book me while I was trying to get my car recovered.

Finally I arranged for a local firm to pick me up and take me to see my chums at Kwikfit. With an hour before pick up I wandered off for a coffee. I should add that I took the precaution of putting a note in my windscreen explaining to any passing traffic warden what had happened.

I got my coffee and ... a parking ticket!!!

Surely it could get no worse???

Having been safely taken to Kwikfit two hours later, having moaned to everyone I met about my parking ticket, I was told it would be a good hour to repair the damage.

"is there a cafe nearby?" I asked.

"Round the corner, Cafe Nine." said Jim, the Kwikfit fitter.

I went to Cafe Nine. Bought another coffee and a bacon roll and sat down at the back. All was well for ten minutes and then the really big guy who had sold his arse to Satan went to the loo behind me. I didn't know there was a loo behind me until he came out again shame-faced. making no apology!!!!

Off to bed!

Wednesday 18 March 2015

Scottish Weather

Today (actually yesterday now) I was driving back to Scotland up the M74. Today was St Patrick's Day which means we are four days from spring. One of the overhead gantry signs carried the following warning...

"Is your car ready for winter?"

I cannot fault the accuracy of the forecast!

Tuesday 17 March 2015

Cowardice

For some reason, I have never been curious as to why cowards are often referred to as chickens.

A few days ago I discovered the answer quite by accident. Our two bantams were making a racket in the garden, clearly alarmed at something. Fearing a cat on the prowl, I ran to the window to see Custard and Mustard being terrorised by nothing more than a rabbit and a squirrel!

Time for a name change to Henny and Penny!


Wednesday 11 March 2015

Jobs at Sky Scanner

For some reason I went searching in the jobs section of the internet.... I found this job at Sky Scanner...

"Backend Engineer"