Wonders of the wine bar

It has been too long since my last blog. Thankfully Yates' Wine Bar in Leeds came to my rescue last week.

In search of a glass of wine (or two) myself and a colleague popped in to their establishment, and after checking the prices, decided to order a bottle of red. The young barman (pictured below) was wearing what could only be described as fashion-statement oversized glasses.

He wandered off and then wandered back before wandering off again. He repeated this process several times and appeared to be patrolling the length of the bar. No-one else was waiting to be served so we knew we had his undivided attention. After several minutes he came back and said,

"Do you know where they keep corkscrews in wine bars?"

It seems it was his first day. We suggested that behind the bar was probably his best bet and off he went again. Several minutes later we called him back and asked if we could have a glass of wine while we were waiting for the corkscrew to be found.

"Have it on the house," he said. We warmed to him at this point.

He turned around grabbed an open bottle and a measure and... found three corkscrews at the same time. We got our free glass while he opened our bottle. As he pulled the cork from the bottle I said,

"You should have gone to Specsavers!"

He replied,  "I did"

Parking problems

Over the years I have, I freely admit, transgressed parking bye-laws. I have been done for parking on single yellow lines, out-staying my welcome, parking across the white lines of a parking bay and even for having a flat tyre which seemed to upset  Edinburgh Council's finest traffic brains. My accumulated knowledge of parking misdemeanours means I am pretty clued up on the subject ... or so I thought.

I parked in Leeds a couple of weeks ago. Having booked online and paid for the full day I was confident that my car was violation-free. It came as a surprise, when at 5.15, I returned to find a ticket stuck on the window. Eager to see what I had done wrong I ripped open the envelope. The wording was...

"The driver was seen walking away from the car park, leaving his car on the premises."

Call me old-fashioned but I thought that was the whole bloody point of a car park!!

Seemingly, having paid for the day's parking I should have sat in the car from 8.00 till 5.00!!

Important information update

I work from home. Sometimes this can beneficial, I choose my hours, fit work around other things in my life and so on. At other times it can be quite challenging. If a courier turns up and knocks on the door and rings the bell in the middle of a conference call, it can be awkward. Occasionally Mrs Blog bursts in to my office to tell me the latest bit of news, as she did this morning.

"I can't speak, I am on the phone!" I hissed muting the microphone with my chest.

"Oops. sorry!" said Mrs Blog.

Ten minutes later I finished the call and went looking for Mrs Blog to find out what was so important and so urgent that she needed to interrupt my work.

"I wanted to tell you that I've moved the potatoes," she said.

Lobstergate

For many years now Mrs Blog has wanted to try lobster to see what all the fuss is about. As neither one of us knows the first thing about preparing, cooking or smashing apart a lobster, her wish has remained unfulfilled ... until now.

Last weekend she discovered a pre-prepared lobster that you simply pop into a pot of boiling water for five minutes and bob's your uncle!

We decided that Valentine's day was the day to enjoy this little treat. As dinner-time approached, the anticipation reached fever pitch. Mrs Blog took off the wrapping and things went downhill, it smelled really fishy. Fearing a bout of shellfish-induced, food poisoning we proceeded cautiously.

Having boiled it thoroughly we set about trying to get at it. I attacked the claws with a nutcracker and soon there was nothing left of them that looked remotely edible.

Mrs Blog tried to pull off the inedible bits and then delegated the job to me. I went for it with all a bloke can muster and pulled all sorts of bits with gusto. Soon we were left with a bit of shell and a suspicious looking lump of lobster meat. After a health and safety meeting we decided it too was inedible.

After all the anticipation, preparation and effort, all that was left to eat was the wedge of lemon we were going to squeeze over it!

I'm a fire-starter

Night before last I was busy in the kitchen making a sweet chilli dipping sauce. Somehow I spilled a big load of sugar on the hotplate of the Aga. No problem - I simply mopped it up with a piece of kitchen towel.

This led to a series of important discoveries,

1. Spilling sugar on an Aga creates a nasty smell
2. My curry did not mask the smell of the burning sugar
3. You cannot concentrate on cooking when there is smoke billowing in the kitchen
4. Despite there being no naked flames on the Aga hotplate it can still cause a kitchen towel to spontaneously combust
5. A plastic recycling bag isn't best place to put a piece of paper that is going to burst into flames

Hunger games and hairstyles

A week or so ago Daughter-blog was staying with us. One morning she wandered into the dining room with her hair tied up in massive curlers. A little like this...

Having recently seen the last film in the Hunger Games series I mentioned that she looked a bit like Effie Trinket. (For non-Hunger Games fans see below)

She was not totally bowled over by the comment. A short while later she said she was going back up stairs to finish her hair.

Son-blog offered the following support, "May the odds be ever in your favour!"

Blog Christmas

Christmas in the Blog-house was peppered with mis-speaking. Here are some samples...

"We can have Christmas rolls on sausage eve." (Mrs Blog)

"Oh, lovely! Spam hand lotion!" (Grandma-snoop-blog referring to a spa hand lotion)

"There's an Agatha Crispie on tonight." (Mrs Blog)

So we are looking forward to a nappy-new-hear....

Five a day?

Mrs Blog has been on a mission for sometime to make sure I get my five-a-day of fruit and veg. She is deaf to my pleas that bread, cheese and chocolate, (being non-meat) should count towards the five a day total.

Last week she served up broccoli,which I can just about cope with, but had a surplus of it after serving. Not the food recycling bin for us, we have chickens! Mrs Blog was convinced that chickens like to get their five-a-day and so she scattered the left over broccoli on the grass for them.

A week later and the scattered broccoli is still there. Not only do chickens not like it, nor do any other animals that roam the blog garden. Foxes, squirrels, rabbits, (to say nothing of birds that have no issues eating the less pleasant parts of roadkill), all turning their noses up.

I'd like to think this evidence would be enough to let me off this element of my "five a day" plan but I suspect Mrs Blog will have other ideas.

When tea and bread taste funny

This morning I had two slices of bread (a homemade loaf of which I was particularly proud) liberally spread with butter. Instead of the yummy flavour of bread and butter, all I could taste was flavours that hinted of the dishwasher.

My first thought was that I had mixed the flour etc in a bowl which had not been washed properly.

Then I sipped my tea and it too tasted of the same foulness.

Perhaps the dishwasher is faulty I thought. Or perhaps I was coming down with a cold and it was affecting my sense of taste?

Readers will be pleased to know that Mr Bog doesn't have to fork out for a new dishwasher or prepare for a bout of man-flu. Mrs Blog had bought a new type of butter which had found its way into the butter dish (I couldn't read the label properly without my glasses) - garlic butter!

If I had warned her in time we would not have had garlic omelette, garlic mushrooms and garlic bacon for breakfast.

Nearly lost the wife...

Mrs Blog works at a local emporium from which she likes to be collected after work by yours truly.

Yesterday evening I duly set off to pick her up outside the shop and waited patiently for her to appear.

After a few minutes I saw her cross the road and head towards our car.

She grabbed the door handle and pulled open the door saying,

"Hello Darling. How was your day?"

I didn't hear her say these words though. Is Mr Blog going deaf in his dotage? I hear you ask. No, I am not. Mrs Blog was trying to get in the wrong car and make off with a complete stranger!

Cheese humour

Met daughter-blog earlier this week and picked up some cheese jokes that are crying out for a wider audience.

I was in sainsburys and went past the cheese counter. The guy there threw a lump of cheddar at me. I thought "That's not very mature!"

Just after that a ball of cheese exploded. There was de-brie everywhere.

A piece of cheese looked in the mirror and said "Hallo, me"!!

Communication problems

Mrs Blog was out shopping today. Not any old shopping though, this was Christmas shopping.

"Would you like to see what I have bought?" asked Mrs Blog when she returned.

"OK" said I, (I know the right answer in these situations).

"Right, but you musn't look!"

Is it me????

Scientific discoveries

You may have seen on the web(and possibly in real life) that if you take a large bottle of coke and shake it up, then take the top off, it will behave like a missile. Brown froth gushes out of the opening and the bottle goes haphazardly in the opposite direction.

Today I discovered, quite by chance, that there is an alternative method. I happened upon it when I left my cold cup of coffee in the microwave to heat up for a little too long. By adding a teaspoon of sugar to the scalding hot coffee, you get a brown gushy fluid all over the kitchen floor. It seemed not to have the strength to move the coffee cup, which is mildly disappointing.

Sadly this experiment leaves you with absolutely none of the coffee in the cup afterwards.

Heading for divorce

That's it! The line has been crossed. After nearly 27 years Mr and Mrs Blog are heading for separation. The reason is "unreasonable behaviour" by Mrs Blog.

Mrs Blog had sore teeth. I identified that this was probably curable by using a special toothpaste which I have been using for over five years.

"Why not try my sensitive toothpaste?" I suggested (foolishly as it turned out).

That night after Mrs Blog was in bed asleep I went to brush my teeth and found this...

Yes. Mrs Blog mauled my tube, going for the strangulation method of squeezing out the paste rather than the civilised "end-squeeze"!!

It's all over!

Struggling to be funny

As regulars know I like to find humour where I can. Today, Mrs Blog,texted me to say,

"Can you pick up 6 aaa batteries and 12 aa batteries?"

I saw an opportunity and replied,

"So, you want 42 a's then?"

Quick as a flash,

"No. 6 aaa and 12 aa batteries!!"

Missing Persons

Earlier this week I was at the gym, or more correctly the changing room having just been to the gym. I have provided a detailed diagram so you will know exactly where I was.

The changing room is at 3, the gym at 2 and the swimming pool is at 1. (I haven't drawn the swimming pool because I ran out of space)Wh.

While I was getting dressed one of the attendants popped his head round the door and asked me if two men had just walked in. As they hadn't I replied "no". 

It seems that two guys walked from the swimming pool (2) and never made it to the gym (1) and as they were not where I was (3) and there was no other unlocked door they could have gone through, they have been deemed missing.

I have, rather helpfully, provided a "fotofit" picture based on the descriptions I was given.

Strange things

Been a weird few days in the Blog household.

Mrs Blog wondered if Stuart Lancaster played for Australia. Then she observed that the insoles she bought were more comfortable when she put the left one in her left shoe and....

Tonight she complained that I was spoiling things after she asked me to stuff a pumpkin into a pair of fish net tights. (Don't ask!!!)

Day of failures

Today was a particularly bad day in the blog household.

Mrs Blog had a filling.

Mr Blog went to the gym and ran on the treadmill for several minutes before realising that his shorts were inside out. (The flapping pockets and waist tapes should have been a warning).

Finally on a Skype call with son-blog (currently studying at St Andrews University, a leading educational establishment), he asked if Swansea was in Yorkshire! What is he studying? Geography!!

Mistaken Identity

Today I received an email from Pinterest - the app that lets you post pictures.

It told me that I had a "twin". Apparently when someone else "pins" several pictures which you have "pinned" they match you up. The email told me to click on the button to find out whom they had unearthed. "Son-blog, daughter-blog or Mrs Blog" I thought. But no!

My twin is a leather bag shop!

Poo problems

Just been out to bring in the washing before it rains. (Living in Scotland, bringing in the washing can keep you pretty fit so I am hopeful for a gold letterbox before long).

As regulars will know I had a gannet-poo problem a week or two ago. Today it was the turn of a garden bird. I cannot say what type of bird but, based on the evidence it wasn't a crow or probably a pigeon. My money is on the sparrow which has been displaying attitude all summer (after all we know they take out Robins with archery sets).

In a moment of irony it had chosen to poo only on my pants making it essential that I tell Mrs Blog asap before she draws her own conclusions!

Gathlick

Dropped son-blog off at St Andrews yesterday and went for a coffee. On the way we met a lady who took a shine to his beard. She was in her fifties/sixties/seventies, (I think), and was wearing a vest -type top showing off her chest tattoos.

She told us, through the impediment of only having two teeth, that there had been a "Gathlick".

I apologised for not understanding. She repeated that there had been a "Gathlick". Could she have meant Catholic, I wondered?

Seemingly not, the Gathlick was at the leisure centre.

After more attempts than was decent we worked out it was a gas leak!

Life!!!

I haven't blogged for a while and I cannot work out if there has been too little going on in my life or too much (so much so that I haven't had time to write the blog).

Here is a summary of what you have missed...

Mrs Blog "We are going to have burgers with pozzarella". (No typo!)

Daughter Blog "Dad your aftershave smells nice!" (I wasn't wearing any. It was my hair wax she was smelling).

Daughter Blog "My favourite TV quiz was Masterchair".

Chickens eat pretzels

Gannet poo smells of fish

Gannet poo smells so strong you can smell it up-wind 500 metres away

Gannets poo on sea kayaks.

Misnamed vehicles

Just back from a tortuous drive along a single carriageway road in the Highlands. I am left with a question,
"Why do makers of campervans call them "Swift"????"

Vodafone go for world record

Yet again Vodafone have qualified for a blog. This time it was a different conversation but teh same Vodafone logic...

"My phone is getting no signal"

(after checking)

"The mast is being repaired and will take six days to fix." (repeated three times in a Dutch accent despite it not being a recording but a real person).

"I would like to access my messages please by dialing my mobile number from a landline But I cannot remember the PIN."

"No problem. We can send you a new PIN."

"Great! Do you want my email address?"

"No for security we can only send it to you as a text."

"A text? What to the mobile number that isn't working cos you're fixing the mast?"

"Yes"

Rude awakening

In my life many things have cause me to be woken in the night including,

• Polish workers arguing in the street on Tuesday this week at 4.00 a.m.
• Fire alarms in hotels (three times)
• Trains braking suddenly (Caledonian Sleeper)

But I had never thought to be woken as I was last night at 1.30 a.m. by a sound of a wall being slapped. Not once but again and again! Through the blear I discerned Mrs Blog was repeatedly slapping the walls with her hands. 

Mystified, I asked the obvious question, to which she replied, 

"I'm scaring the mice away"!

Lost glasses and lost chicken

Last week started badly. Mrs BLog went out at about 10.00 to ensure that Custard and Mustard (our chickens) were safely asleep in their coop. They weren't. That is, Mustard was and Custard wasn't. The Blog family were turfed out into the cold night air to look for Custard who did not want to be found. Son-blog went to search the park nearby, daughter-blog went up and down the A72 calling. I went for the prickly bushes.

After a few heart-stopping moments I found Custard hiding in a bush below the kitchen window.Clearly unaware of the trouble she had caused nor how close she wato being part of a recipe for Korma.

The following day I could not find my glasses. Regulars will know that this has happened before and they have always turned up eventually. Once in a snowdrift and once in the lawnmower blades.

They duly turned up later in the week when daughter blog found Custard back in the bush trying to hatch them.

She misspoke

Mrs Blog was commenting on the environment over dinner. She said she was keen to minimise her Carbon-Fibre. ????

Borders Life

This week is a big festival week in our home town in Scotland. That means that there is a fair bit of drinking most nights this week.

Hats off to the members of a local organisation of gentlemen who kicked the week off with their dinner on Monday night. A bunch of gents, well dressed and with perfect manners who set the bar for this year's festival. One of their number went back to the hotel where the dinner was held the next morning and asked,

"Did I leave my shoes here last night?"

Great marketing

It has been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately! To end this drought I thought I would share one of the best bits of marketing in the world of Outdoor Camping stores. An enterprising firm published a poster with the following Shakespeare-inspired legend...

"Now is the winter of our discount tents"!

Animal kindness

The other day in the Blog-shire Mustard the chicken was a bit off colour. She had hidden in the coop all day and I wondered if she was broody and needed to be yanked out of it. When I opened the rear door to the coop she made purring sounds. I deduced she was either unwell or had a career ahead as an animal impersonator.

Overcome with a fit of animal-oriented compassion I stroked the poor bird. She stopped purring and starting cooing instead. Encouraged by the thought that she was responding to the affection I stroked her some more. She reacted by dropping an egg out of her rear end!

Am Dram

Mr Blog has become a thespian.

He is appearing in "Shakespeare at Traquair" in Hamlet. One of the cast who plays the ghost had a spot of bother with his costume on the opening night. It appears the arms on his jacket were sewn on back to front!

If you know any tragedian actors with backward facing arms please let me know!!

Age related memory loss

Went to visit eschatology-sister-blog yesterday. She isn't getting any younger and faces the same memory problems we all suffer in mid-life. She had completely forgotten that I was coming so I thought I would honour the occasion with a drawing of her mind...

And now for Sony

As mentioned in the last post Mrs Blog has a phone problem.

Sony Xperia have a website and I was directed to it to log my phone for a repair service. Sadly the website would not let me book a repair. It gave the message "Service unavailable for your device". I wrote back to the person who had emailed and someone else wrote back saying to give them a call.

I did!

Here it goes....

"Have you tried to use our website?"

"Yes it didn't work so I was told to call you."

"No problem. I will get the repair booked in for you." Many minutes later and listening to music while on hold.

"I don't seem to be able to book your phone for repair on our website."

"What can I do?"

"We will send you an email in the next day or so telling what to do."

"But my phone is under warranty. Can't you just get it repaired?"

"No, our website doesn't seem to be working. If you need any more help after this call you can visit our website."

"The one that isn't working?" (Started to giggle).

"If you need any more hlep please visit our website for support."

"The website that doesn't work for you or me?" (giggling quite a bit at this point).

"For any further help pase visit our website. Would you like to complete our telephone customer satisfaction survey after this call?"

"Oh yes please!!" (laughing now)

One can only assume that Orange/EE and Sony are sharing their valuable insights into how to deal with customers

NB: On the survey you are asked how many times you have contacted Sony Xperia to resolve the problem - I discovered that you cannot answer "5" as it only allows once, twice or more than three times!

Orange challenge Vodafone

I have had a rant or two at Vodafone over the years but Orange (now EE) are trying very hard to outdo them for sheer idiocy.

Mrs Blog's phone has developed a fault. I rang Orange and they started off by asking if I wanted to buy "Back-dated" insurance to cover this. As the phone is under warranty till January 2016 that seemed unnecessary.

After ages talking to people at Orange on their "help-line" I was referred to the phone manufacturer Sony (More on them in the next post). Apparently I had to send my phone back to Sony for repair and in the 10-14 days it was gone I would have to buy Mrs Blog a new Orange handset.

Not happy, but faced with no alternative, I set off to the Orange/EE store in Galashiels. The girl there told me she needed to know the SIM card size before she could help me select a suitable handset. As the phone was with Mrs Blog I was unable to comply.

"Never mind," she said. "Try Carphone Warehouse up the street, they know loads about Orange phones and they guarantee to give you the right handset."

Looking like a wally

Last Friday I headed up to Glencoe for a weekend of hill walking. Being in Scotland and given that we are nearly into summer I knew that the weather would be near freezing with real possibilities of snow, hail and sleet.

Half way there I realised I had left my fleece-lined Berghaus jacket at home. Not wanting to miss out on the walking with my chums I needed a solution. The good old Green Welly Stop stocks most items of outdoor kit so I dived in there. On offer was a range of £140 waterproof jackets and a £2.50 plastic poncho.

I learned that the poncho tends to flap about your face in strong winds and does next to nothing to keep  you dry in the process!

And I looked like a total wally!

More Swiss News

As mentioned in the last post, Mr and Mrs Blog were visiting Swiss-Sister Blog last week.

Swiss-nephew-Ben Blog (age 5) wanted to play Thunderbirds. No problem, I am a dab hand at that game having been a similar age when the original series came out. Ben decided he was going to be Thunderbird 2 (my favourite). Here is a picture of what I got to be...

Yep, Tracy Island!

Mrs Blog takes a photo

Just returned from a few days with Swiss-Sis-Blog and family.

Mrs Blog (pictured below) was heartily impressed with the scenery.

She loved the mountains, snow, forests, ancient sights and could not stop photographing them on her "smart" phone. She complained about the glare on the screen so I was not expecting too much in terms of quality. However I was unprepared for the the first fifteen photos looking like this,

It seems she had turned the lens to "selfie" mode!

Anonymous help

Yesterday was Mr Blog's birthday. Having had a few in the past he celebrated with a beer and a couple of glasses of wine. (Alright they were blooming large glasses)

Today in the spam folder there was an email offering to help with my drink problem.! Target marketing or a message from on high??

Hello Russia/Привет Россия

Viewing figures for this blog have shot up lately, driven in part by an increase in Russian followers. In fact for the first time ever Russia tops the month's league table.

To mark this occasion Mr Blog has found a few customs which are prevalent in Russia and which should be shared with the rest of the world...

A woman with empty water buckets coming towards you is considered a bad omen.

A group of two or more people should not walk on different sides of a tree. They should all keep to one side or the other.

Bread should only be cut with a knife, not with your hands. Otherwise, it is said, that your life will be broken. The opposite is held true by some people.

Two or more people should never use one towel at the same time to dry their hands or bodies, or it is said to bring conflict.

A stranger should not look at a newborn baby before it is a certain age (between two months and one year). If one looks at the baby it is considered bad luck to compliment it. Instead, one could say, “Oh, what an ugly child!”.

It’s good luck to trip on your left foot.

More incomprehensible conversation

Having been befuddled by Mrs Blog's directions to the car park last week the same thing has happened again.

Yesterday Mrs Blog asked, "You know Karen, the one you don't know?"

What possible answer is there to that?

Directions you can't possibly follow!

A couple of days ago Mrs Blog insisted that we drive to nearby Penicuik to go shopping. On the outskirts she gave me the following instruction...

"Park in the car park that isn't the Aldi car park."

I said nothing and by some miracle seem to have ended up parking the correct car park! I was left wondering what would happen if Mrs Blog was booking our holiday...

"We'd like a holiday for two in the country that isn't Germany" perhaps?

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!!!

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!

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!

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!

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"

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.

Cheese for tea

On the phone to daughter-blog yesterday she told me that she was having cheese for tea. That was it. No explanation. No recipe. No other ingredients. I assume it looked like this...

Ageing rapidly

Some days you just know that time is catching up on you, today was such a day.

I decided to take pity on Mrs Blog's two bantams as they shivered in the snow. I gave them some corn and they gave me the run around for ten minutes, escaping and disappearing under the beech hedge. After some clever hen-psychology I had them back in the coop and was not feeling the cold myself.

At this point young man turned up with a leaflet in his hand and offered it to me. I thanked him and went back indoors. At first glance the leaflet looked to be about sheds (great timing on the part of the young man - getting me in the garden within yards of my knackered old shed!). When I got my glasses on I saw it wasn't a  leaflet about sheds, it was a leaflet about "care cottages". According to the leaflet you can now buy a shed to put your granny (or in my case grandpa) in - just hope the kids don't get one!!

Unusual Soup

My thanks to Mrs Blog for her selfless contribution to this latest post...

She was advised by dentist-blog to buy an electric toothbrush. As a seasoned shopper, Mrs Blog was on the look-out for a bargain and priced up the benchmark offerings on Amazon and Ebay. armed with the useful ammunition that the going price was about £25 she was overjoyed to find a £9.99 offering in Sainsburys. That is, until she looked closer and realised it was a hand-blender.

You hear something and misunderstand

Mrs Blog was on the phone to the Sussex-blogs this morning, after the call she said,

"Yvonne said that she was awake all night with the wind!"

I know now that I should have checked with the met office!

Bit of a prat

Two days ago I wandered into the dining room to ask Son-Blog and Daughter-Blog  if they had seen my reading glasses.

I was met with derisive laughter that led me to my missing spectacles...

Otter beard

Recent posts have featured Son-blog in a number of pictures sporting his facial fur. Until now I had thought that he had followed the movement towards "lumbersexual" and was eschewing the teenage look of One Direction. This look involves growing an excessively long beard in an attempt to look like a cross between a lumberjack and a metrosexual man.

I then discovered this link and when I followed I realised that Son-blog has in fact been working unpaid for an american animal rescue charity. More to the point his beard has a life of its own, swims and drinks milk!

http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-is-what-it-takes-to-teach-a-baby-otter-to-be-an-otter--lkEn1X7Hve

Happy New Year to both my readers!!

Work outs

Following the festive blow-out I decided to lead by example and head to the gym.

Son and daughter blog came along and daughter-blog took the lead with son-blog offering to teach him what she has learned since starting at "Cross Fit". (Not sure which sense the word Cross is used in).

So I expected to see son-blog doing this...

Or perhaps this...

So it was a surprise to turn around and see this...

The true meaning of Christmas

Just back from Church where our Polish priest gave a sermon on the message of the gospel. "Trust and Pensions". I was suddenly alert when I would normally be nodding off. Being in financial services I am aware of the seismic changes to our pension rules coming in to force next year and I wondered if there was some divine angle that I needed to be aware of. Added to that I have been promoting the advantages of trusts for over twenty five years. This could be the most personally relevant sermon of my entire life!

I listened intently, but there was not one single reference to annuities, retirement age or beneficiaries. Then I realised it was about "Trust and Patience".

Drink problems

Earlier today Daughter-blog and I were at the bottle bank doing our civic duty and disposing of a generous number of empty bottles. Just after we pulled up Gordon arrived and did the same.

"We had more bottles than he did!" said Daughter-blog proudly

"I know," said I, shame-faced, "But he runs a thirty-six room hotel!!"

(PS George-blog is off the hook!)

Geographical Challenges

Nephew-George-Blog (of the Sussex-Blogs) has been touring South America and keeping us all up to date with his own blog. Entitled "The other idiot abroad" - there is a link on the right hand side of the page, scroll down till you get there - it is more amusing than this load of drivel.

So - he has had a free plug from me, you might think he is at the very least reading my posts, but no!

By the miracles of blogger I can see where in the world my readers are, this month includes China, Russia, US, UK, Japan and Ukraine. Argentina? Uruguay? Not a sniff! 

Kids Home

The festive season has seen the blog-kids return home which means ample opportunities for blog material between now and the New Year.

Son-blog did not disappoint - on his first evening home he brushed his hair forward over his bearded face...

Knife hazards

Many times I have warned Mrs Blog about eh dangers of handling sharp knives. At the forefront of my mind was the risk of injury, especially the sudden loss of body parts.

So when Mrs Blog called out that she had done something with the sharpest knife we own and needed my help, I was ready to leap up with a bandage and bucket of ice, whilst simultaneously dialling 999 on the phone. No need for panic, it was embedded in a butternut squash...

Non-festive handwash

Mrs Blog has been shopping and, as his her wont, she purchased a natty looking handwash. Decorated in silver it looks pretty expensive, visitors are sure to be impressed!

Sadly, if the visitors are to stay impressed, they will need to make sure they don't actually use it!! I did and my hands smelled like Heinz Baked Beans for an hour!

Custard is a bullied bully

Custard, the eldest of our chickens, has been suffering from a bit of bullying for the last couple of months . The culprits are a pair of crows who fly in to the coop area and eat any bread they find. Custard has been pretending not to notice, almost certainly because she is scared of a fight, despite the fact that the crows are half her size and none too fast.

This week I saw her fighting back, not against the crows but a...blue tit! Custard has a way of running that makes her look like a toddler with a dirty nappy and the sight of her running back and forth across the garden, trying to out pace a flighted bird has made my week!

Geography Degree

Son-blog was just on the phone asking for thoughts on a topic for a geography assignment. After five minutes chatting with an 'O' level grade D geography student (me) he talked himself in to "going down the glaciology route."

He might be on a slippery slope :-)

Text Problems

Lately Mrs Blog has discovered new tech skills which she is applying to her smart phone. The manifestation of these skills is a daily text to my mobile with my horoscope for the day ahead. Since the text has a lot of content it arrives in bits and pieces on my old Nokia handset leading to occasional confusion.

Today I received two texts as follows,

"txt ,missing...bad is waiting for you...txt missing"

"txt missing ...is there a bogeyman hiding under you...txt missing"

I checked and there was no bogeyman hiding under me so I am waiting to see if the same level of accuracy will apply to the first part of the text. If there are no posts for a while you can draw your own conclusions!

Ukrainian fans

One of the features of this blog is that I can identify by country and by post, where and what is being read in the world of inane drivel.

In the last week I seem to have attracted a large following in Ukraine and they seem to be reading Unexplained Mysteries -

This was a post about yoghurt and a trip to London. With everything else that is going on in Ukraine it is heartening that some of its residents have devoted their time to reading the post. I hope one of the readers might put up a comment and explain... why?

(Perhaps they have the answer to the strawberry yoghurt mystery???)

Unexplained mysteries

Last night I was in Aberdeen visiting Daughter-Blog. At the start of the evening I told her of a trip I took to London about thirteen years ago. I was waiting in the queue to check in at B.A. at 5.00a.m. (in the days before online check in) and there was a guy in front of me who was asked whether or not he had any food items in his hand luggage.
"Yes," he replied, and proceeded to take out sixteen pots of strawberry yoghurt. It raises a few questions...

1. Was he going to eat all the yoghurt on a one hour flight?
2. If not why take it on the flight?
3. Was there a likelihood of a London yoghurt shortage at that time of the morning?
4. Why all strawberry?
5. What is wrong with other flavours?

Daughter-blog then added ....

"I had yoghurt in my handbag once!"

"How did that happen?" I asked.

"I sneezed!"

I can only cope with so many yoghurt mysteries so I didn't ask!!

Mustard makes a contribution

About four months ago we acquired three bantam hens named Custard, Mustard and Flustered.

Custard, being older has been laying pretty well since settling all those months ago. Yesterday, Mustard joined the party with a half-hearted effort.

Careful what you wish for...

Last night, mate-blog-David complained that I haven't been putting up many of my works of art lately...

Best pun of the year!

Last week Mrs Blog was making a salad for our tea, the usual mixed leaves with a dressing. Suddenly she had inspiration!

"Would you like Greek cheese on your salad?" she asked.

"No thanks," I replied optimistically.

"Well. it's too late, you're having it anyway!"

"Ah, a Fetaccompli!"

Stylist found

In a recent post click here to read  I explained about a style problem at the local tip. Yesterday I was at the very same tip when I heard the following...

"Hey, you've dressed up. Is that so people won't think you work here?"

It seems mate-blog read the blog!

Bad joke!

You can't trust atoms...they make up everything!

Murder and mystery

Saturday night found me and Mrs Blog out for the night in Edinburgh on a murder mystery tour.

I cannot confess to being enthusiastically expectant before the event. In the end, the evening involved a man who looked and sounded like Charlie Drake, making up parts of stories about murders in Edinburgh, whilst campaigning for a Yes vote in the referendum after the event, and claiming that the speculum owes its existence to the witchcraft trials of the 16th century.

We know how to have a night out!!

Stylist needed!

It is that time of the year when the leaves need to be dealt with. I packed the car up with five bags of the damn things and a shamefully large collection of empty wine bottles and headed to the local recycling centre.

It was one of those mornings when the sun burns off the early morning mist and promises a fine afternoon. To add to the mood enhancing qualities of the weather, I found that I had the tip to myself! As I was dispensing with the last bag when the bubble cruelly burst,

"Where do electrical good go?" asked a man who had just arrived.

"Well, it used to be over there!" I offered, being helpful.

"Oh, sorry! I thought you worked here!" said the man.

This afternoon will be spent clothes shopping.

Farewell Flustered

Two weeks ago we palmed our three chickens, (Custard, Mustard and Flustered) off to the farmer from whom we bought them. We were in need of a holiday and so were they.

When we returned and went to retrieve them we brought back only Custard and Mustard. Flustered, who had been pecked by the other two and looked like a vulture from Jungle Book...did not return.

Before you shed a tear, Flustered is alive and well. It turns out the Flustered is not a "she-chicken" but a "he-chicken" and as such would make a right royal racket every morning. If we kept him, we could expect dawn raids from the community police and neighbourhood watch.

Flustered was last seen in a coop with eight she-chickens winking at us!

.

More aging problems

As mentioned in the last post I have been suffering with signs of middle age,

Whilst on holiday in France last week my hearing was called in to question twice in a single afternoon trying to work out what Mrs Blog had just said.

"Oh look human cheese!" she exclaimed in an outdoor market. Stunned and with my mind racing at the possibility I turned to see and discovered it was in fact cumin cheese.

Later the same day she remarked, "look lovely autistic postcards!" The town we were staying in is famous as a home to Matisse so I should have worked out she meant "artistic postcards".

There is no hope :-(

Age problems

Last week I was on holiday in France where the weather was far better than I had anticipated. This unexpected good fortune led me to buy three T shirts so that I would be appropriately attired. Two days later, having worn the mid-blue and the white T shirt, found me desperately trying to find the third, white T shirt. No luck - I tried searching three times (pure coincidence) but to no avail.

In desperation I asked Mrs Blog to help and she did...

"The third T shirt wasn't white it was dark blue," she said.

Hen Holidays

Mrs Blog and I are away on holiday to France. This means we needed to find someone and somewhere to put the bloody chickens before we left.

First place to put them was in a cardboard box, so that we could transport them to the second place, a farm in the middle of nowhere. Easier said than done. "Herding cats" has become a figure of speech for describing difficult tasks which, in my opinion (IMO for all the young texters) should now be "herding Chickens"!

After wasting half an hour of perfectly good drinking time I finally resorted to threatening them with some Ozzy Osbourne treatment. Job done!

(For those struggling with the reference check out http://kosmo.hubpages.com/hub/The-26-Craziest-Things-Ozzy-Osbourne-Ever-Did Number 11)

Flustered is flustered

In my recent post "Back Again" I mentioned that there were three additions to the blog-household. These are, Custard, Mustard and Flustered, who are collectively Mrs Blog's chickens.

Custard is the oldest and a fully grown hen, Mustard is half grown and Flustered, who is broadly the same age as Mustard, is an under-sized specimen. Custard has established the pecking order and with visible results that show that Flustered is at the bottom of our "bantam food chain".

Flustered has had all the feathers around her neck pecked off, which makers her look like one of the vultures from Jungle Book only much much smaller.

Total Wally of the week!

Having enjoyed a dig at my mate Steve this week it is only fair that I should "fess up" (as the gangstas say) to my own moment of sheer stupidity.

"Hi is that AutoGlass?"

"Yes"

"I booked my car in for a replacement window to be fitted tomorrow."

"Yes we have it here.  You had a twelve inch long crack in it."

"Well... I thought I did, but when I checked, it isn't there after all! I think it might have been sap from a tree that dripped down on the windscreen!"

The emotional cringe can only be described as call-centre revenge!

Whalley of the week 2

Having realised that Steve was not the most tech savvy person in my circle of friends I took full advantage in the car driving back from Glasgow after watching Art Garfunkel do his thing.

"I'll just phone Kate," said Steve reaching for his beyond-him-techy-Iphone.

Moments later he said "Ah, been cut off!"

"Yes Steve," said I, "That's because we are doing 70 mph. If you go over forty the return signal can't find you, it looks for where you were when you speaking."

Not entirely sure if was taken as a joke!

Whalley of the week

On Monday I went to a concert (Art Garfunkel)  in Glasgow with a mate of mine - Steve Whalley.

During the interval we had the following conversation,

Steve: "I wonder what the score is in the England Switzerland match?"

"Well you have an Iphone there Steve why not use that to find out?"

"Yeah. I'll text Kate."

"?????"

Two minutes later,

"Kate doesn't know."

"But Steve it's an Iphone why not go on the internet and search for the result?"

"I haven't got a WiFi connection."

"But you've got 3G  - you showed me earlier."

"Does that let you get on the internet then?"

The score was 2-0 if you need to know!

Prodigal return

Friday past saw the return of Number-one-son-blog (in fact only son-blog) from a seven week trip to Indonesia. Mrs Blog and I had agreed to pick him up from Glasgow airport which as it turned out was an act of kindness for both Son-Blog and the population of the central belt of Scotland recently swelled by thousands of athletes for the Commonwealth Games.

For 55 hours Son-Blog had travelled on coach, ferry and four planes dressed like this...

Thank God he had grown a beard - at least that way we was not recognised by anyone who knows us!

Back Again

After trying to start a new blog with a slightly different "feel to it, I have given up and reverted to the old fashioned tried and tested Mk1 blog style.

To kick things off, and there is a lot of material floating about at the moment, I need to introduce three new additions to the Blog household...

Yes, Mrs Blog has finally bought three chickens to go in the coop I bought her last March (2013) - best not rush these things eh? So welcome to Custard, Mustard and Flustered, the last of which is aptly named and is the smallest of the three.

Apparently I upset them by showing them the ingredients for my morning omelette!