Oh dear...
My little car is poorly, very poorly. There I was driving gently to school, and clunk! No Power, nothing.... So, it took 5 hours to travel 5 miles to school, I arrived eventually in a different car, my Blue has a broken cam belt. Nasty, very nasty and very expensive!
However, I had a new experience, being towed behind an AA vehicle. It is mesmeric and a state that renders you useless! So now the 90 thousand service, the MOT and mending it is all coming in one financial bundle - OUCH!!!

Meanwhile, life is picking up speed. The class at school is starting to work well, the garden at home is being sorted - I pick an apple a day from the tree for my lunch, the work on the degree is starting again, I am spending one week-end a month away so that I get a life.... a quick moving life.

Spent a lovely week-end in King's Lynn celegrating a friend's birthday. We booked a Youth Hostel, all 39 people.
Well, it takes time to become a rebel doesn't it? At the grand age that I have arrived at, I find I am being told off for making too much noise in the middle of the night. We were dancing away only to feel that chill factor that only a warden can manufacture, shucks!! The headache the next day was worth it!
We visited a lovely castle close by, one of the most preserved keeps in England and it was so good that imagining the lifestyle in the 14th century seemed quite easy. It also made me realise how ignorant I am. There's somehing to learn about after i have - finished the dissertation, sorted out the garage, won the premuim bonds etc etc.,

Do you have an overload of letters?
On Monday PM I went on an IRT course, yesterday was ICT release day, today I have been on an ISP PDG as well as a course AM, tomorrow I will run for the TAs an ICT audit and training session. And we accuse the younger generation of not writing properly when they use their mobiles???
And we all know that the last day of the week is TGIF!

A moving experience
The son of my very good friend has explained some of his difficulties about moving house - even though he is in his mid twenties, he can't bring himself to pack some soft toys into a box and transport them in a van, they have to go in his sports bag and travel by car. I had the same problem during my last house moving experience.

When you move, I recommend asking your best friend to pack some things that she has no sympathy with. DLG - my friend, simply did not sympathise with my interest in cricket, so when she saw boxes of ball to be packed, she had a field day. There was much gigling from her which I didn't appreciate until I unpacked them months later: she had written all sorts of messages on each box - about the quality and ownership and use etc etc. Shal we say they weren't exactly reverent comments? She also wrapped some pictures and I have the wrappings to this day with her comments written upon them and where she suggested I put them. I didn't need to unwrap them to know which was which, and there was no doubting what she thought of them.
Needless to say the packing time was short, she and I got very bored and went off to our local pub for a drink instead of finishing the serious stuff! The traumatic experience of packing and throwing things away was far more fun and I still chuckle now when I look at the pictures. They are going to be moved again soon, but only to another room, so I shall have some more fun with them. Thanks DLG!

What an extravagance!
There is a big fuss here about the cost to the taxpayers of the new Scottish Houses of Parliament. Final costs were ten times higher than estimated, the design upsets many and there are lots of complaints. Just as there were when the Palace of Westminster was built in London for our Huses of Parliament. (We are Olympic whingers here!)
However, not half as good as the Chinese...
Their Emperor Zhu Di built the Forbidden City, a fleet of treasure ships, mended the Great Wall of China and built?/dug? the Grand Canal. (How do you describe that process?)
He denuded the country of trees, people and swathes of land needed for the canal. Survivors were not amused and there were many uprisings. Now I hope I am not tempting providence here, but the City burnt down soon after it was finished when a tremendous storm hit the city.
Not much changes does it?

It is official.
I now have to be tidy - the government says so. The latest dictat from on high says that our classrooms have to be tidy, I just wish my mother was alive to enjoy this joke, she would love it!
Those who know me understand the problem I am going to have with this, I am incapable of living a tidy life. So if a person from the higher echelons comes and says anything, I am going to be tempted to tell them to sack me for untidiness and then I will go for the jugular. We paint our classrooms, buy the pens, pencils, books etc. I have to buy all my own folders for planning but I am not going to buy anything to keep the work in - like a cupboard, which is what I need. So, I think a little mischief will be enjoyed on this one. Let's see what happens.
Perhaps I shall remove everything except the one pen that I use, the one sheet of paper etc. When I want some and there is nothing in the stock cupboard, I shall be very willing to point out that is is tidy but that gives me no scope for the children to write anything.
Oh this could be fun!

DOH!!
Well I snapped him at the beginning of the race and missed most of him, I snapped again near the end of the race and TOTALLY missed him, then again at the end and missed him. Do you think there's something I need to learn?
However, this is proving to be one of the best parts of being a parent - seeing how your progeny live their lives as young adults. Very exciting!! So those of you who are still at the sick and sleepless nights stage - there's light at the end of the tunnel!!

Yoohoo, I'm back online again!!!
Well, that was an eye opener. BT have 10 engineers in this area and over 1600 faults since the rains of August and each man repairs on average 4 a day. How's your maths? It is going to be a lengthy wait for some poor souls.
I feel a letter of complaint coming upon me, so I shall sleep on the thoughts (yes, OK and on my bed!) and then compose a thoughtful letter. Come to think of it I am going to stay with my son tonight and he is good at these, we might compose something over a meal a glass of wine tonight! Tomorrow he is probably running a half marathon so I am watching this with his girlfriend. I have never watched a marathon, I hope it is only part of it that we spectate, otherwise that means we are doing something energetic too.... and that's not on!
So, Nottingham here I come, I will take the camera and see what I can snap.

Read all about it!!
I received a letter from BT - a generic one, nothing personal you understand, explaining that they had experienced problems as a direct result of the wet rain that fell in August. We were advised that we could write into them, use our mobiles or go online to report our problems..... am I the only one who uses a phone line to go online??
The good news is that the engineer is booked for tomorrow morning. I'll let you know what happens!

Physician, heal thyself!
Can a telephone line heal itself? I found a connection last night and it is still working this morning - is this thing organic? Has the connection dried out - I am assuming the heavy August rains had something to do with it. Do I wait and tell BT, or do I just let the engineer turn up and say something to the effect that I hadn't booked in a call to tell them that it wasn't working, just like they didn't book me in to have an engineer sort out the fault. The only trouble with that kind of petty self righteousness is that they will send me a bill for £50 for wasting their time. But, oh I feel like being petty about this!!
PS - back to work this morning and I am being very slothful about getting ready!!

I COULD SCREAM AND SCREAM AND SCREAM!
It is wonderful that some people have a monopoly isn't it? Bloomin' BT can't mend my phone for over three weeks, and they can't give me a time in the day when they can arrive to mend the phone. So, they agreed to do it this week-end, only no-one booked the job in and so it isn't being done till next week-end. I am cross about the facts of their ineptitude - why can't they mend the connection? No men? Was the rain in August too wet? Why can't they apologise, it would go a long way to appeasing the customers. Then the phone has little fits when it does work!!
And of course I am addicted to using the net,I think that is what is the part that is really getting to me. Damn.
(Have they found the Scream yet? If not I can do a very good imitation - with sound effects!!)

Addicted?
I returned home from my various outings this summer to find that my telephone was refusing to work. What an eye opener that is! First of all BT could not send an engineer out for 10 days because so many people are having problems, this is after grilling me about my phone and threatening me with a bill for £50 if it was my telephones tha were faulty and not the line...hmmm. How many people suddenly have telephone receivers that die on them? I don't think too many, I think we have had the wrong sort of rain, you know, that wet stuff. I was told that the connections to my telephone pole might not be good, I replied it was non-existant as the lines are underground on this little estate. Anyway, I promised to stay in for the whole of this week-end on the off chance that an engineer could come to sort out the problem then, as I am a working woman and cannot just leave my job to be there for the engineers, that was the best they could do. Now the funny thing is that the phone has mended itself! My impatience and unwillingness to accept that it doesn't work, means that I pick up the receiver every time I turn on my computer,and it has just worked. YIPPEEE!!!
And oh, haven't I missed blogging and emails. I suspect they are now a true addiction in my life, sad person that I am!
SO, if this continues in this healthy vein, I will get back to posting some pickies from the hols - I have some lovely garden photos now too. (Don't know if this will work, the connection has just been cut again - let us see!)
Do I own up to the phone working again, or do I wait for the engineer to come and sort itout? What do you think?