Flowers in the dust

I have been getting stuff ready for the big holiday.  The house is full of suitcases, partly because we had to empty out the loft (more on that later) and partly because I have bought myself a new Holiday Bag.  My old suitcase had more or less given up the ghost; the zip was getting unreliable, and it had a horribly squeaky wheel.  The squeaky wheel was so bad that when you dragged it through an airport, small children wept and security guards looked irritated.  I thought it best to replace it. 

Well, it was 15 years old.  I bought it when we got married, it has been to America twice, and all over Europe and the UK.  It's better-travelled than a lot of my friends.

So, to the Internet!  I ordered an Antler Size Zero case on Sunday, it turned up on Wednesday.  That's service.  It weighs something absurd - 3.3kg - and has lots of useful pockets.  I look forward to cramming it full of new clothes on the way home again.  We plan to travel light, and buy clothes while we're over there, as last time we went things were so much cheaper.  Admittedly, we were getting almost 2 dollars to the pound back then, but even so, I expect to find bargains.

I also bought, on impulse of course, a new camera.  My old camera is a Nikon Coolpix L1, and I have always enjoyed using it.  But, and it's a big but, it takes AA batteries and they only last for a few dozen pictures.  So I always have to ensure that I have spares with me, and it's a pain in the arse to keep changing them. 

The new camera is a Canon Ixus, which takes a small rechargeable camera battery, which should last me several hundred pictures. I will buy a spare one so that I can have one on charge while the other one is in use, and it will be more cost-effective in the long run, not having to buy loads of AAs. 

I had a go with it in the garden.  The weather here has been lovely for the last few days, and everything has gone beserk, growing wildly and gorgeously, so I thought I'd take some pictures.

The oriental poppy, we have a huge plant in the front garden which was here when we moved in, and it always delivers a ton of flowers.

Clematis, just starting to go over now, but still looking great.

Different colour oriental poppy.  We usually only get one of these.

Chives.  The bees adore them.

Also, remember I said I broke my glass windchime?  Yeah you do.  Mr WithaY salvaged the bits of it that weren't shattered to a million billion pieces and we have hung them on the rose arch.  We call it the rose arch even though the only thing growing on it is the clematis. That's how we roll.

Other news:  Brother in law is continuing his recovery at home, which is excellent.  Father in law WithaY is in good spirits too, although slightly grumpy about our impending holiday.  Mother in law WithaY is coming over from France next week and will be staying at the house for a few days while we're away, so we need to put stuff back in the loft.

Oh yeah.  The loft.  The cavity wall insulation boyos* arrived on Thursday, as planned, and spent a few hours drilling holes in the exterior walls, pumping silicon-coated fibreglass** into the cavity and then filling all the holes again.  They worked hard, made as little noise*** as possible, and were charming and polite. 

When they'd finished they asked me to do an inspection of their work, and sign off the paperwork.  I asked if I should do that after they insulated the loft.  They said no, the loft team were a different team, and I would have to wait for them to turn up.  In the meantime, if I could just sign here, and here, and then over the page here...ta love. 

The company had already called us to say that someone had called in sick that day and they might not be able to come and do the insulation.  I made my renowned "Middle-aged woman being mildly inconvenienced" noise, which always goes down well. 

The girl I spoke to said "Oh, have you taken the day off work to be there?"  Yes, I told her, I have.  And we've emptied the loft so the house is a tip.  She was very sympathetic, and said she'd try her hardest to get us a different team to come and do the work, so when the cavity wall chaps arrived I assumed they were it.  But no. 

Shortly after they left, job well done, the company called again.  No joy finding a loft insulating team, and the next available appointment is the end of July.  Gah. 

So, back up the rickety loft ladder today for Mr WithaY, and then we'll re-empty it after we get home from holiday. 

Other, other news:  We have bought a new phone for the house.  Our old one had an answering machine which contained a cassette tape (retro, huh?) and was being temperamental about letting us know if anyone had left a message.  The light would flash, but the tape would be blank.  No bleeding use whatsoever.  Now we have a phone with a digital answering machine, and I can wander the house whilst chatting to people.  It's a whole new world. 




*They were from South Wales, and, as it turned out, from a place about 10 miles from where my Mum comes from.  Small world, eh?

**I asked what it was.

***Apart from shitloads of drilling, I mean.

Cold

As is traditional with a holiday coming up, I have gone down with a cold. Arse*. I woke up on Tuesday with a really sore throat, but put it down to my extensive muttering about protestors making me miss my train.

Yesterday I felt tired and chilly, but assumed I was just well, tired and chilly.

Today, however, I have a proper cold. Headache, shivery, sore throat, slightly snotty in a kind of "Oh you just wait till you try to go to sleep" kind of way.

And I still only have half a mobile. I can receive text messages but for some reason am unable to make or receive phone calls. I shall have to call the helpdesk tomorrow if it doesn't resolve itself overnight.





*Not a cold arse. I have one of those too, being a girly, but a cold. Arse.

Tiger feet

Today I am mostly in between mobile phones.

I bit the bullet and got myself a new phone, because my little old Nokia was being erratic about battery charge life. Also, because I am used to the 2-hours-on-the-train-each-way madness now, I need something to amuse myself on the journey.

I have tried reading work stuff, but that can be dull, plus I don't get paid for an extra four hours work a day. I have issues about reading work stuff on trains anyway, because I know I always look at what the person next to me is reading, and I don't really want random strangers knowing what I am up to.

I have tried reading fiction, but I dislike my books getting squashed and bashed around in my rucksack.

I listen to music on my iPod, but that isn't sufficient to keep me entertained.

I have become a bit of a backgammon demon, as I found the game on my phone, and was beating the computer regularly on the Difficult level. However, the final straw came last week when the game threw up numerous javascript errors and failed to load. So. Time for a new phone.

I then ummed and ahhed about getting a little teeny laptop and a dongle to pick up internet access so I could waste yet more of my life on the internet. But I'd still need a phone. And an iPod.

What to do? What to do?

I decided to be a complete techno-geek, and I bought an iPhone. A pay as you go one, I didn't fancy being locked into a contract for two years. I will see how much it costs me per month, and whether it's worth it. The Apps store had better have a backgammon game.

Other news: I got caught up in the Tamil demonstration on Monday evening, which was interesting. I was walking to Waterloo from the office, as it was a nice sunny afternoon, and got to Parliament Square, where there were many, many police riot vans. Also horseshit, which indicated to my fine mind that police horses had recently been in the area.

I kept walking briskly, because I didn't want to miss my train. I knew that if I got stuck on the pedestrian crossings it could take me ten minutes to get round the square and onto Westminster Bridge.

I rounded the corner next to Big Ben, and there were hordes of angry flag-waving Sri Lankans sitting in the road, shouting stuff I couldn't decipher through megaphones. I kept walking, still determined not to miss my train, and ended up having to shoulder* through the crowd quite forcefully, as there were so many of them.

Finally I got to Westminster Bridge, hot, flustered and increasingly grumpy. A tape line was across the bridge, preventing people from crossing it, and many unsmiling policemen stood there.

"You can't cross here " they told me.

I looked at the people walking up and down on the other side of the tape and said "But I need to get to Waterloo station."

"Sorry madam, you must walk down to the next bridge."

So. I had to shoulder my way back through the protesters, down the steps, along the Embankment and across Hungerford Bridge. Took me bloody miles out of my way and meant I missed my train. Gah.

Too much bloody democracy, if you ask me.

Another thing. It is an illegal protest, given that there had been no notice sent to the police. Why, therefore, has it been it allowed to run for three days (and counting)?



*My shoulders, the top of most of their heads - they are quite a petite people, it seems