Technology

A few weeks ago, my kindle stopped taking a charge.  Annoying, but not a problem, since I have the kindle application on my iPad.  Or at least not a problem until the iPad also croaked yesterday.  It was well inside its warranty period, but I couldn't find a proof of purchase.  No problem for the kid in the Disgustedville iStore: he just read the serial number off the back of the iPad - a task for which I'd need a magnifying glass - and found the transaction: 8 July last year, it transpires.  He needed to clear the warranty application (and helpfully did the form filling for me, since I can't really write at the moment), and by the time I got home there was a message in my email to tell me to come back tomorrow morning.  Not clear whether this means the new machine will be there.  Meanwhile I have a working iPad in the shape of the one I replaced last year.  The screen has parted company with the case, but it still works 

Getting from the car to the shop was rather painful.  I had a telephone chat with my physio yesterday, and, cutting a long story marginally shorter, he has arranged a face-to-face (or is that knee-to-face?) session with a physio in town tomorrow.  Still, the phone tells me I have hobbled over a km today, so perhaps I'm just making too much of a fuss.

I went to see nursie yesterday to get a new dressing on my dishwasher-attacked thumb.  The wound is  not pretty, but it is starting to heal.  Repeat visit on Friday.  While I was there, she administered a flu jab, which is convenient: we missed the walk-in clinic while we were away.  (Martyn can get his at a top-up clinic this Saturday afternoon.)  So I have been a big consumer of NHS services lately, and am full of admiration for the staff thereof.  I just wish the NHS were in safer hands.

First holiday for years, and a mitigated success

They say calamities come in threes, so I ought to have been a bit more circumspect after the two tyre episodes.  On Monday I managed to cut my thumb on the door of the dishwasher (the strong spring on which reminds me of Arkwright’s till in Open All Hours).  We spent most of Tuesday morning at the minor injuries clinic in Beverley, where they took a look, wrapped it up, gave me a tetanus jab and a prescription for antibiotics, and referred me to Hull Royal next morning.  The doctor there advised me to let it heal on its own, but to have the dressing replaced at intervals.  Off to see our local practice nurse at sparrowfart on Monday.  In the process I got to meet some lovely people, but have to say there are better ways to achieve that result.

Though this has cramped our style somewhat, we’d had a pleasant evening with Annie and Chris before they set off on their holiday (leaving us to house-sit) and a most enjoyable lunch  next day in Beverley as guests of Annie’s friend Linda.  We took a few trips out as well: Hornsea and Withernsea one day, Beverley another and Scarborough, Filey and Bridlington on Friday.

The weather has been remarkably fine much of the time we were away: we sat in the garden under the parasol one day, and have both acquired a bit of colour.  Back here it seems to have been pretty dry, so I can leave the grass for a day or two. 

Our journey home took close to six hours.  We’d decided against going back the way we’d come, planning to do the M1 and then the M25 widdershins instead of getting snarled up at Dartford/Thurrock.  So we got snarled up on the M1 instead, and finished up doing the M69/A46 route down to Warwick, then the M40 - and getting snarled up on it as well.  As usual, we’ve witnessed some appalling driving - and not all of it mine.  No right answer, unless you want to lend me your helicopter.

Oh, come on!

As we joined the M62 on the way to meet Janet and John for lunch, Ping!  Loss of pressure, right front tyre.  (Back right last time.). The steering felt normal so we limped on, and after lunch found the tyre pressure only marginally down.  But since we have another long journey in prospect, I took the car across the road to the tyre place, where they found no punctures, but nevertheless got the tyre off and cleaned the rim, which must have been leaking a bit.  £24, a fraction of Saturday’s bill.  Unlike then, we have a few days to test the repair before we do highish speeds for hours.

Pleasant lunch with Linda in Beverley today: we shall be looking for the Elizabeth David recipe for leek, potato and tomato soup!  It’s getting on for fifteen years since we last saw her, so we’d a lot of catching up to do.  We’d a glass of wine in one of the ‘rooms’ of her lovely garden before lunch, lunch in her goldfish bowl dining room and a cup of tea afterwards in her little summerhouse.  

Beautiful day, good company, splendid food.  Hard to beat that?  Well, of course: what else but a trip to the Cottingham Road Lidl.  Since we’re on our hols, it wasn’t a bad idea to shop in student country: oven chips and scampi, ready-made pizza, microwave prawn linguine and a quiche Lorraine.  Good job we have the gaviscon tablets with us.

On the road once more. Or rather, twice more…

We loaded the car up and pointed ourselves Hullwards yesterday morning, kitted out with the usual travel accoutrements, plus a couple of trays of frozen home-made cannelloni, one for us and one for Annie and Chris to have the first night in their self-catering digs in Herefordshire.  Ten miles from home: ping!  Loss of pressure in offside rear tyre.  I’d had my suspicions when I pumped the tyres up in preparation for the journey, but as it held pressure for a couple of days, I thought we were OK.  Wrong.  We pumped it up again in a lay-by, then limped into Sevenoaks to a well known rubber supplier, which turned out to be fully booked for the day.  Feeling thoroughly miserable, we drove gingerly down to Tonbridge, resolving, should that branch of said supplier not be able to sort us out, we’d abandon the trip (and resign ourselves to several days of eating cannelloni).  Fortunately, they had both stock and capacity, and little over half an hour later (during which we’d sat on a wall eating our sandwiches) we were sure-footed and back on the road, albeit with an alarmingly lighter wallet.  The approach to the Dartford tunnel was as awful as usual, and a glance at the satnav suggested that the Blackwall tunnel route was every bit as bad.  About an hour after leaving Tonbridge we were in Essex and out of second gear.

Traffic on the rest of the journey was pretty busy, but we got to Annie’s in close to the predicted four and a half hours - not having broken the journey for lunch, but stopping only twice to change seats.  It seems that the route via Lincoln and the magnificent Humber Bridge is quicker and shorter than the all-motorway routing - anyway, it spared us quite a lot of the tedious A1.

It’s the longest journey we’ve done in years, and it served to remind us how little we miss the long drive to Lagrasse, much though we loved our time in the Corbières.  We neither of us enjoy driving as we used to, and are conscious of how advancing years affect both stamina and reaction times.  But neither do we fancy the idea of spending hours on public transport now that so many people have lowered their guard against infection.

We found Annie and Chris on good form, and spent an enjoyable and convivial evening together.  We shall wave them off on their holiday later this morning, and mind the house for them for a week.  We also get the chance to meet some old friends and maybe find some new places to visit.

The gas man cometh - UPDATED

Well, he sent a sub-contractor, who cameth and wenteth away again, leaving the job incomplete, because British Gas don't provide sub-contractors with the parts they need to clean the magnetic filter.  True to his word, sub-contractor Charlie ordered a further visit, and they have written offering a date that is inconvenient (incidentally requiring us to be at home on the day from 08:00 to 18:00).  I have spent close on an hour yesterday and today trying to reschedule the appointment.  I shut down the web site enquiry after a half hour of 'Loading'.  After a quarter of an hour on the phone, I got as far as an offer to visit some time in November, and hung up, resorting instead to a major snarl on Facebook, which got results last time.  We shall see.  [Later: I eventually remembered that I’d had a Messenger chat with British Gas in response to my last Facebook rant about them.  So I found the earlier thread and fired off a message.  This got results quickly.  It just emphasises the uselessness of their telephone and website booking machinery.]

On a happier note, we took a ride down to Hastings the other day, and sat having our sandwiches on the shingle beach.  Quite a few intrepid souls were in the water, and of course the herring gulls were interested in anything edible.  The fun really began when a fishmonger dropped a box of fish offal at the waterline!  We spent a week's pension on plaice, haddock and a dressed crab, but they'll make at least four meals between them.

A while ago, I ordered a couple of bedside cabinets from Dunelm, which debited the account promptly, but defaulted by a good week on the delivery date.  In the meantime, when I rattled their cage, they apologised, promising a goodwill gesture once we'd reported the delivery.  Well, yesterday morning Hermes delivered not two but four bedside cabinets.  Assembling the first one was, even for a regular IKEA expat, a sweaty experience, but once we'd got the hang of it, the production line fair whizzed along. We can accommodate all four, so have thanked Dunelm for their generous goodwill gesture, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.  [Later: after various conflicting messages from Dunelm, we get to keep the two extra cabinets.  Good, eh?]

The new mower has had its second outing.  I find that I can amble along fairly comfortably using its second gear (one up from the tortoise symbol, the fourth being a hare!)  It does the job rather better and more quickly than its predecessor, well though celui-ci served us for 11 years.  Cutting our grass demands less than half a charge.  Martyn, meanwhile, is making with the strimmer round the edges. As for other domestic preoccupations, two loaves and a batch of smoked salmon palmiers have just come out of the oven.  We may have fishy-tasting toast this week.

Indian summer

We’re enjoying fine weather here, with quite summery temperatures.  We have had lunch on the terrace today: home-made pizza using up some leftovers and a few of our tomatoes.  It’s a joy at this time of year to watch dozens of honey bees on the sedum.  I have instructed them to bring us a jar, but they’ve yet to acknowledge the order.  The bumble bees seem to prefer the antirrhinums, and it’s fun to watch them climb in, disappear and then back out!

This morning I took the ancient hoover (which suddenly stopped working a few weeks ago) along to a little local outfit, who found a broken neutral in the flex next to the plug, fixed it and sent me home a mere tenner short.  With a new bag in it, it’s working as well as it did new, 30 years ago, though with a slightly shorter flex.  (What I failed to notice was the no entry sign at the end of their street.  Exclusive: we can reveal a shocking contempt for the rule of law today in Disgustedville by a supplemental Presiding Justice.)

Getting it spent…

 …before the nephews, nieces, charities and the Revenue can get their claws on it (there should be something left for all but the last).  Today we’ve treated ourselves to a new mower (made in Austria) for roughly the amount I paid for a used Renault 16 in 1978.  This one doesn’t need petrol, nor a rope starter, and will adapt its speed, they say, to suit my faltering progress.  The battery (made in Poland) is charging (charger made in Vietnam) as I write, and I shall give myself a driving lesson later.  Jane sold us our petrol mower for a snip when she moved about ten years ago, so it doesn't owe us a lot.  The steel deck had started to rot, and it didn’t make much of a job of cutting the grass the other day.  Like me, sound in wind, but not in limb.  

We bought the new one today from a specialist shop in town, rather than on line, so for the same as we would have paid on line, it came registered for warranty, unpacked, assembled and loaded into the car following a driving lesson.  And the shop will get shot of the packaging.  And they will come and collect the old one next week for disposal.  The battery charged quickly, and the mower has done an excellent job, using less than half the charge.

Meanwhile, as for online purchases, the castor cups arrived this morning, so, thanks to Martyn’s help, the new bed is rather less mobile.  The bedside cabinets, however, promised for today, are not yet with the courier.  Celia’s birthday card, posted first class on Tuesday at the village Post Office, got there in a mere three days.  Shit: I could have walked it there faster in a hundredth of the time, even with my rotten knees.  Everyone is blaming the shortage of HGV drivers: and what is to blame for that, pray do tell?