Feeling very old

Last night I was at dinner in Edinburgh with the blog family and friends. Somehow we found ourselves talking about a pew we used to own and kept as an outdoor bench. I mentioned that in the early days of the Church, (meaning over a thousand years ago), there were no seats in Christian churches except for a handful for the infirm or the elderly.

That prompted a friend of daughter-blog, called "Lara-I-am-not-a-spy-blog" to ask,

"Do you remember those days?"

Happy Easter!

Communication problems

Last week I was in Aberdeen for a meeting with a prospective client. The client, who was from Fraserburgh, wanted to invest money for his grandchildren... or so I thought.

"Ah want to put the barbies in a trust!" he told me.

I looked blankly back.

"The micks! I want to put the micks and the barbies in a trust for the wains!" he told me again.

I carried on looking blank. Nothing in my extensive career in financial planning had prepared me for the investment of "micks and barbies" into anything.

Was this some racist slur against people from Ireland I wondered? Why could he not just give the dolls to his grandchildren without a trust? Why indeed did he have a collection of dolls in the first place? Why did he think I was an expert in dolls?

After several confusing minutes it was explained to me, by a translator, that micks and barbies were in fact money in Fraserburgh.

Bird troubles

For the last fortnight the blog-house has been under attack. Our attacker is a diminutive long-tailed tit. He has taken to headbutting the kitchen window for hours at a time all through the day. Our best efforts to dissuade him have met with no success.

Mystified by this behaviour I went on the interwebtube in search of answers. I have discovered that,

1. Long-tailed tits breed about this time in Scotland
2. The males like to chase off rivals with aggressive displays during the breeding season
3. Long tailed-tits are short-sighted

Conclusion: Our bird-brained buddy is seeing his reflection in the window and is spending all day trying to scare it off.

In case you have the same problem here is what they look like.

Another can't stop myself post

If you hated the last post then don't read this one.

Last night Mrs Blog was chatting with her friend Dibdob-blog. I overheard a snippet about someone who was brought up in a remote house halfway up a mountain. Said person came home from school one day to find that their father had removed the front door.

It was too good an opportunity to miss,

"Was he unhinged?" I asked.

Sometimes I can't stop myself...

I was talking to a financial adviser yesterday about the merits or otherwise of property investment. The adviser mentioned that he was pleased with a property he had bought which was a music studio.

Before I could stop myself I asked, "Was that a sound investment?"

A trip to Orkney

Here is what I learned on a business trip to Orkney...

• The views are rubbish in the dark
• There are no taxis at the airport
• There isn't much of an airport at the airport 
• You cannot get a taxi before 6.00 am
• The ferry leaves for Scrabster at 6.30 am
• To catch the ferry, leaving from Kirkwall, you need a taxi before 6.00 am
• Taxis are terrified of the barmaid in the Bothy bar
• When you get to Scrabster there are lots of policemen
• No-one is supposed to know why there are lots of policemen in Scrabster
• Everyone in Scrabster knows why there are lots of policemen there
• Wick is a small airport
• A two hour delay in wick airport feels like a two week delay

Bloody BA!

On a jaunt to London, BA decided to cancel my return flight due to adverse weather. 

They cancelled it more than 24 hours BEFORE the weather! I rang to remonstrate with them. 

They told me that the flight an hour before my cancelled flight was not cancelled! Nor was the one an hour after!

Either they have better forecasters than anyone else on the planet, with pinpoint accuracy of a one hour snow window or...they are hiding something. 

I have complained and will update when I get a reply, assuming it isn't held up by an icy blast or sent to Toronto by mistake.

Swimming

For fear of incurring the murderous wrath of Mrs blog, I nearly didn't write this one! (See previous post)

Mrs B went for a swim last week and on arriving at the pool, was unable to find her swimsuit. She went home to look for it. No joy. 

It turns out ... she was wearing it!!

Near death experience

Last Saturday Mrs blog pulled in to the local garage under the pretext of allowing me to buy a Costa coffee at the express machine. In order to get to the shop door I had to walk in front of the car. She took her chance and drove straight at me.

If I go silent again for an extended period with no blogs, tell the Rozzers!!!

Back smiling again

After BT's attempts to ruin my Christmas I am back smiling. The cause of the change in mood is down to a tweet of a text conversation as follows,

"I am here for you."

"Thanks that means a lot. I have been going through a tough time lately."

"Sorry, who is this?"

"Your Uber driver."

BT ruining my Christmas

One thing I hate about being over 50 is that big organisations seem to start picking on you and then treat you like an idiot when you complain. Regulars will be acquainted with previous bete noirs - Vodafone, Talk Talk, and so on. This time it is the turn of BT.

About 6 weeks ago I changed my TV/Broadband/Phone from Talk Talk to BT. Since then the TV has not worked...at all. Here is the saga so far,

1. I tried the online help instructions on their website...it cut off my broadband
2. I went on to the online chat...three agents cut me off after coming up with the same checks as the online help page (all of which assumes that any fault must be with the broadband even though the TV signal comes through the aerial and NOT the broadband
3. I emailed the CEO...he doesn't know anything about broadband or aerials
4. I eventually had a conversation with Dan (not the CEO)...who thought the problem was the broadband
5. When I asked Dan if I was correct in thinking the signal for the TV came through the aerial and not the broadband he agreed...and promised to send an engineer!!

Yippee I thought, action, success...

The engineer has just left telling me that "The problem is to do with the aerial and he cannot help because....he is a broadband engineer!"

AAAAARGH!!!! 

Brain challenges

I was speaking with a female colleague last week. In the conversation she mentioned that her brother had a health scare and had strongly urged her to be seen by a doctor for possible signs of problems with the brain.

She did. And after exhaustive tests she said she was told ..."There was nothing there"!

It took several minutes before she fathomed why I was lying on the floor laughing.

Rude Awakening

Last week I decided to impose myself on Son- and Daughter-Blog and make use of a bed in their flat in Edinburgh.

I bought Son-blog a pint in his local hostelry by way of a "thank you" for him giving his bed up and sleeping on the floor.

He returned the favour by setting his alarm for 5.00 a.m. with a five minute auto-snooze. Not satisfied with the rude awakening, he had managed to use his new IPhone 8 which, it seems is so high tech, he couldn't work out how to switch the snooze off! 15 snoozes later...

Following the signs

A little over a week ago the Blogs were on their way to Sussex and due to be met by Sussex-George-Nephew-Blog at Gatwick Airport.

There are of course two terminals at Gatwick, North and South. To be certain of avoiding any confusion we had emailed to say we would be landing at the North Terminal. After landing we rang S-G-N-B and said,

"North Terminal"

After what seemed like a couple of weeks waiting we rang again.

"I'm here in the car park" he claimed.

"There are two - which one?"

"The one with the blue pillars."

We looked around and saw pillars in the distance that looked blue. Then they went purple. It seems they were lit by LEDs.

Eventually after much conversation. S-G-N-B fessed up, he was at the South Terminal.

What makes it worse? We actually landed at South Terminal.

Teeth

Son-blog has been suffering from dry, chapped and rough teeth.

I know this because...

he's been brushing them with E45 Cream!

Blog Update

You may have been wondering what has been happening in Blog-world lately. If so read on...

1. Son-blog has been guilty of false-imprisonment
2. Mr Blog has been aging badly
3. A new addition has been made to the wider Blog-clan
4. Microsoft have taken away my paint program and given me Paint 3D

Son-blog managed to be so unaware of the house-guest in his flat, (which he shares with sister-blog), that he locked Beth-blog (friend of sister-blog) inside it. Beth-blog missed her train home to Wales and will probably never come back.

Earlier in the week I was in the gym. Plagued as I am by muscle knots, I take a tennis ball with me which I lie on to release the knots. A gentleman in his early eighties was watching me. Eventually he stopped his 350 kg dead-lifts and wandered over.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

I know he was concerned but being asked by a man of advancing years if you are alright that makes you feel thirty years older than you are.

The Sussex-blogs have taken delivery of a new blog...little Oscar currently 5lbs. On checking with Google I discovered that Oscar-blog weighs exactly the same as,

• A Chihuahua
• A Small bag  
• A Table lamp
• A Cooking pot
• And I kid you not...5lbs of sugar or flour

As for Paint 3D, let me know what you think!

Just did something really good...!

Lunch was a pretty dull round of bread and cheese just now. Looked for the cookies and jaffa cakes and realised that the chicken and I ate the last ones yesterday.  Rooting around in a cupboard in found chocolate cornflake cakes which were damn close to their sell-by date of 226 July so I took one for the team and started to eat them. :-)

Customer service training need...

Yesterday, being a largely un-kept bank holiday Monday here in Scotland, found me on the phone to APC, a courier company, trying to arrange for the delivery of a package. (APC said they had tried to deliver it on Friday - if they did they must have gone to the wrong address).

The conversation I had with them went like this...

Me "Hi I'd like to arrange the redelivery of a package."

Spanish sounding man "Hood morning, aff you got dee consignment number?"

I read out what I supposed to be the correct number which was on the email they sent in the subjct line.

"No, no. Dat's not eet. Is a seven digit number."

I looked in an earlier email and found one.

"Five zeros five two."

Spanish sounding man, "No, is must be seven digits."

Me (losing the plot and regaining it), "That was seven....never mind. How about 0,0,0,0,0,5,2."

"Ah yes, dats eet. When would you like delivery?"

"This afternoon between 4 and 6 please."

Spanish chap, "I weel ask the manager."

"Thanks"

Piped music and three minutes later,

"We can't deliver it then."

"Why?"

"We're closed."

Sat Nav 2

Hot on the heels of Bossy Miss Google Maps in the last post....

I thought I had cracked how to use the Sat Nav function on my tablet. I was wrong.

Last Sunday I had to get to Anstruther, a small fishing town, for a sea-kayaking trip. Having never been there I thought I would use the tablet to help. The bossy voice began pretty well, telling me when and where to turn.

With fifteen minutes to go before I expected to be in Anstruther she told me to turn right into Kirk Brae and that I had arrived at my destination. I hadn't. I was in a small village called Ceres 15 miles from the sea.

I checked and found that the bossy voice had added an "interim destination"! Having carefully checked I tried again to get to Anstruther. This is what followed...

• I was taken to St Andrews (the wrong direction)
• I was told to turn left on to a road which was called Lamont Drive but was actually called Bridge Street
• It told me to turn right three times on to roads that were clearly in totally the wrong direction (by now I could see the sea)
• It told me that Anstruther, my destination, was a caravan park two miles south of St Andrews
• I argued with the voice
• The voice didn't listen
• I lost my temper with the voice
• I swore repeatedly at the voice which it ignored
• I made it to Anstruther 

Sat Nav 1

 A couple of weeks ago Mrs Blog and I were trying to get to Dalkeith. Knowing the name of  the street I needed to get to but not knowing the town that well I asked Mrs Blog to open up my tablet and check Google Maps. (A reasonable request in my view).

Mrs Blog decided to experiment with different colours, views and scales of the maps without actually intending to. After some unheated and blame-free exchanges between us, Mrs Blog finally got the map up and typed in the destination.

"I'll get the voice thing up as well," she said.

The voice thing turns Google Maps into a superior but tinny sounding woman who bosses you about when you drive.

"At the next roundabout take the last exit and go back the way you have come," she said.

Being in sight of a sign that said "Dalkeith" straight ahead I decided to challenge Mrs Blog on which destination she had typed in. After another calm exchange we decided that sense of smell was probably better than Google Maps.

We managed to find the place we were going to with little bother ten minutes later. Parked up, I checked Google Maps and found that Mrs Blog had tried to take us to Larkhall - a mere three hour drive in the wrong direction.