Muppetry of the IT order

Sheared Herdwick sheep near Wastwater - love their wooly leg warmers.

Started work at 7am today, tried to boot up my computer, it opened to the antivirus screen and would not budge. A helpful message told me to contact my administrator and relay the onscreen code to them, they would then relay a code back to me to unlock the PC.

Problem - they don't start till 9am. Bugger.

I logged on to the other PC in my office (the boss's) and started work, emailed the 'help'-desk. Tried ringing the 'help' line every 30 minutes, no answer.

At 9.15am I received an email reply from the 'help'-desk saying my call had been logged and was being treated as urgent.

At 10am a Techie arrived at my desk, "You told the helpdesk your computer was in reception, it isn't."

Me - "I know it isn't, I didn't tell the helpdesk it was."

Him - "Yes you did, it says so here on my work order."

Me - "Why would I ask for a Techie to fix my computer then give a bogus location? I didn't tell the helpdesk to send you to reception."

Anyway, he sat at the computer, phoned his colleague, recited the onscreen code, his tech buddy gave him a code, he typed it in, the computer rebooted and the proper log in screen appeared.

3 hours. Jeez.

Things never run smoothly

Last week I wrote a heartfelt and serious entry about the death of my beloved cat. I didn't tell the whole story at the time because I was too upset. As with most feelings, time rounds off the sharp edges of emotions and allows us to laugh at situations which in the past made us cry.

Once I had made the decision to take Harry to be put to sleep, I grabbed the fridge magnet with the vet's phone number on, made the call, they told me to come down straight away as the surgery was quiet and they could see me right away.
Hazel and I had our last cuddle with Harry, put him in the carrier and off we went to a village about 20 minutes away (We changed from a closer vets at the recommendation of my bunny guru Agatha, friendlier and cheaper - the vet's, not the bunny guru!).
We arrived at the vet's, by this time I was in tears and could barely speak. I gave my name to 2 very puzzled receptionists. One said, "Is the cat here to have his ears done?" I burst into tears and said, "No he's here to be put to sleep." After a few minutes I realised what I had done. I had phoned the vet's we used to use and driven to the one we currently use. I made my apologies and left, they promised to call ahead and let the other surgery know I was on my way.
The rest you know.
You really couldn't make it up.

Don't Play With Your Food

So, there I am, watching the Jewellery Maker channel; mushroom and tomato linguine on a plate in my lap. I stretch along the sofa to reach the note from school to tell me Nelly is in the final 13 for the Stage 3 spelling bee, when, SLURP.
The whole plate of paste slides off the plate, down into the gap where the seat cushion meets the sofa arm and promptly disappears.
Bugger Bugger Bugger, it's all up my arm, all over my trousers and somewhere in the depths of the leather sofa.
After some digging around and leather polish, I think I've retrieved all the linguine.
Note to self - eat at the table - oh, and well done Nelly!

I'm Not making This Up

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-18361448

Question....Guess who, accidentally crossed paths with 2 men acting furtively, hiding their faces after 2 loud bangs nearby?
Question...Guess who, on his/her return journey a couple of hours later, asked a 'scene-guarding' Police Community Service Officer (PCSO), "What happened here? I might have some information."
PCSO, "I'm not allowed to tell you."
Our Hero, "Well can you tell me roughly what time, whatever it was happened, I might know something important."
PCSO, "I'm sorry Sir, I can't tell you that."
Our Hero, "Well in that case, I'm not telling you what I know!" and promptly left the scene.
(don't worry, any relevant information was passed on to the enquiry team)

I should write a book.

Use the door next time?

Shouty Grandad noticed an advert in the paper. Free loft insulation. He invited the chap round to do a survey and a couple of days later the gang came round to fit the fibreglass insulation.
The lads commented on how lovely and roomy the loft was, how nicely Shouty Grandad had moved all the boxes into the middle of the loft on the boards. He left them to it, sat down and tried to make the Freeview work....again...after I fixed it. (sigh)
CRUNCH - one of the workmen put his foot through the living room ceiling, right over where Shouty Grandad was sitting. Dust, plaster, artex and fibreglass rained down from the hole.
"You couldn't have picked a worse place to come through." advised Shouty grandad, the largest room and the only one with an artex pattern on the ceiling.
"I'm fine." shouted the workman.
Anyway, they extricated the workman from the ceiling, assessed the damage and called the boss who duly arrived and stared at the hole.
"Doesn't look too bad," said the foreman confidently,"a bit of plaster board, paint and artex, sorted."
"I don't think we'll get the fibreglass out of the carpet or the three piece suite though, do you?" asked Shouty Grandad?
Nanny gave him an old fashioned look and wandered off to get the hoover.
After the workmen had gone, Shouty Grandad phoned me at work to ask if i would look up on the internet, the effect of breathing in fibreglass. I assured him he did not have, nor would be able to claim for asbestosis and went back to work.
You know this story will run and run.

Nose to the Grindstone

I went back to work today after having had a lovely relaxing week off.Ii was so relaxed in fact that, when I tried to leave a message for a colleague to call me back, I couldn't remember my phone extension number - I had to phone back once I had copied the number off my email signature. DOH!

A 'senior' moment?

Good Samaritan Thwarted

Picked up my laundry, bought fajitas ingredients for dinner, tried to drive out of local shops, massive queue.
2 bewildered people standing by car with doors open waving their arms saying, "No petrol, no petrol".
I get out of my car, tell the driver to get in, I will push car to side of road. young man says, "What do I do?"
I ask female bewildered person (possibly boys mother) to get in, she shakes head. .
Unconnected fat, bald man arrives, says, "You can't push it." I say, "Why not?". He says, "It's an automatic." I say, "No it's not, I can see the gear lever through the back windscreen." .
He gets in the car, I say park it over the road out of the way of the traffic. He says, "No, it'll get a ticket." (there are no yellow lines or other parking controls in place.)
He starts the engine and drives it back into the shopping centre car park.?!

I get back in my car completely nonplussed.

Why, if the car was in need of petrol, didn't he drive it to the petrol station? .

Note to self, stop being so bloody helpful.

Bargain

Went to visit Nanny and Shouty Grandad this afternoon. Recently they had a small porch and new front door added to their house. The original door is still in situ, it provides good insulation and security. However, when they are tucked up in the front room watching the telly, they can't hear the door knocker.
I knocked and knocked and knocked, no answer. In the end I had to phone them to get them to come open the door. If they don't get a door bell fitted to the external door, I have threatened to poke a stick through the letterbox and press the old doorbell at odd times in the morning.

When I finally got inside, Shouty Grandad relayed his tale of a bargain - he rode the bus twelve miles to the nearest Aldi for their cheap coffee offer. He bought a couple of packets and was very pleased with himself....until he got home and read the packet - it is ground coffee. Dad doesn't own a percolator or cafeterie.

In other news, he is trying to cure a cough he has had for ages, he has this idea that you need to have moisture in centrally heated homes and has always had Betterware water reservoirs hung on the radiators. He felt he needed more moisture while he slept so, while mum was out shopping, he filled a bowl of water with the intention of placing it out of the way on top of the wardrobe. They have 2 wardrobes  with a dressing table in between, he reached up to place the bowl centrally above the dressing table, as he pushed it to the back, near the wall, he found out the joining part of the top of the unit didn't go all the way to the back. As he pushed the bowl back, it tipped and emptied all down the back of the wardrobe. While he was drying the carpet under the wardrobe with the hairdryer, he thought he'd got away with telling anyone about his adventure but luckily for us Nanny arrived home just in time to find Shouty Grandad kneeling on the bedroom floor blow drying the carpet. Perfect.

Opened my mouth and put my foot in it.

Last night, Mr Fink, Little Fink (aka Nelly) Mrs Glum, Bambi, Marsha and I went to London to see Les Miserables. Mrs Glum works at a local school that organised a coach and the tickets. We boarded the bus and set off in the rush hour traffic down the M1.
Mr Fink took out his phone and began to play the on-line dart game he enjoys. Often when he goes to bed, he will have a few games of darts on the phone while I'm reading. I hear him muttering under his breath at his opponent, "miss, miss, miss". Sometimes he even tilts the phone to divert his opponent's shot.
Anyway, there was lots of banter on the coach, as there always is when The Finks and The Glums get together. I chided Mr Fink about his on-line dart playing ability and in a too loud voice said, "You're no good at it in bed, what makes you think it will be any easier bouncing up and down on the back of the coach."

You'd think that would have shut me up. No.
On the way home, one lady had been declaring that she couldn't eat any of the treats, sarnies, buns or chocs that were being shared as she was on a strict diet. During the journey through London's food quarter, she finally cracked and said, "I've not eaten for 6 weeks!" To which I replied, "I thought I could smell Lighter Life!" (Oops - i meant, "that sounds familiar - Lighter Life by any chance?" but it came out wrong. DOH!

Les Mis was terrific - I loved it, powerful voices, intimate venue, great story and amazing visuals. highly recommended.

Aussies and insects

What a beauty eh? It is a Sexton Beetle, about 3/4 of an inch long, it is a carrion feeder, finds dead things by smell, buries the body then eats it. More of this in a mo.

I spent a lovely evening with my bff (best friend forever) KT Wong who had come from her adopted home in Australia to visit friends and family. Along for the ride was Big Mac, the three of us used to work for the police as 'civvies', KT as the guardian of the front desk (enquiry office) and Big Mac and I as communication officers (taking phone calls to the police, sending police to 'jobs', recording and monitoring incidents etc). As you can probably guess, things got pretty intense at times and people who work under such close circumstances become firm buddies. Well, we had stew, we tried my wine, we put the world to rights. Good times!
I invited KT to come see Little Fink horse riding (KtTwas a wiz on a horse) and also say "Hi" to Nanny and Shouty Grandad who would be taking Little Fink to the riding school.
I picked KT up from her temporary abode and headed off to the riding stables. After about 10 minutes something came in the open car window, hit me on the head and landed on my shirt. I looked down to see that bug up there. I screamed, she screamed (the bug probably screamed for all I know) I didn't know what it was so didn't know if it would bite, sting or throw a punch.
I couldn't stop the car as I was on a fast road with no hard shoulder.
The bug dropped off my shirt.......down between my legs....I was wearing shorts.
I made a turn off the main road, started to slow down....as I stepped on the clutch, I felt the bug hard and spiky under my leg, I screamed, she screamed, the bug might have screamed.
I eventually managed to stop the car, jumped out and KT flicked the bug out of the car where it landed with a considerable noise considering it's a bug.
She and i began laughing slightly hysterically, I got a big dose of the heeby jeebies - you know when you kind of shake your shoulders and shake yourself down.
After that we headed of to the horses and the afternoon (glorious late summer/early autumn weather) passed without further incident.

There you go KT, never a dull moment with me bff! xxx

Handyman

Last night I said to Mr Fink, "The drainer plug hole is blocked again, can you fix it please?"
About 20 minutes later he said, "All done."


(That's not the whole tale but I never let the truth get in the way of a good story!)

Shouty Grandad and the Garden Fork

Last week at sailing I met up with one of my neighbours, her daughter was also sailing. We got chatting and it transpired that a week or so before, some horrible 'sorts' had burgled her garden shed, various items were stolen.
It suddenly occurred to me, a couple of weeks ago, I had spotted a garden fork laying on top of the garages near our house. Fearing the local oiks would use it to stab holes in the tender garage roofs, I confiscated it. That Wednesday, when Shouty Grandad came round, I told him about the fork, he took a shine to it and carried it off home.
It seems the fork was stolen from my neighbour's shed. The question is, how do I get it back off Shouty Grandad?

The Wonders of Modern Technology

Yesterday a techie guy from the IT department came to my office and kindly installed a piece of equipment i neither need or asked for. When I told him I hadn't asked for the security card reader, nor has a PIN number for one, he just shrugged and said, he had a work order to install one so here it is. He put his card in it to test it, told me it worked, cleared up and went off.
Today I received a remote software update on my computer for a new piece of software which I have no requirement for, training to use or access to open.
Tomorrow is someone going to come and give me a new job or are they preparing my computer ready for my replacement?
Worried?

What's that noise?

Last week, my workplace upgraded it's MS Office suite to 2007. (Finger on the pulse eh? that's the NHS for you. x love it really x)
Now, 75% of my job involves a huge spreadsheet which contains lots of complex calculations which basically runs our department. It was designed by a clever chap, on Excel 2007. For ages I've been using it on 2003 at work and it barely stands up. So i consider myself to be the person in the department who can make the MOST use of Office 2007.
So joy of joys when I heard we were getting the update. All week I left my PC on to receive the overnight remote update, every morning another batch of my colleagues awoke to the joys of 2007's ribbon. I however did not.
I contacted our 'help'desk (no pun intended) who advised me the operating system I was running (2000) was not  compatible with Office 2007.
Sooooooo I mooched around, found a little used computer that had been updated, swapped it with mine and hit the ground running (there was a lengthy email chain between the helpdesk and I regarding asset numbers/locations, qualifications required for plugging in network cables etc but I won't bore you with those).

Anyway, I can now do the job for which I'm paid in the manner in which it should be done. But, what's that clicking noise? It was coming from the fan at the back of the computer. I looked, an enormous spider had crawled into the fan vent - and died. The fan was hitting it's carapace and making the noise.
I unplugged everything, got out my tweezers and leg by brittle leg, picked the dead spider out of my 'new' computer. Plugged it all back together - Presto!

My boss arrives, notices mayhem and cables everywhere, "Computer problems? What was wrong with it?" he asks. Quick as a flash, I respond, "It had a bug in it."
If you are scared of spiders, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN.

New Phone blues

I have a swanky new Android phone, I've spent the last few days getting to grips with it's new features. One thing I wasn't banking on, when I enter my first name, it is not in the lexicon so it is automatically changed to 'Behind'. How embarrassing!

Cage Free from Toilet Duck

I bought one of those new 'cage less' toilet fresheners, I used it in the downstairs bathroom, Mr Fink used it in the upstairs bathroom.

Can you guess which one of us read the instructions?

Just stop it!

This morning at 6am I awoke on a beautiful sunny morning to the sound of the cat being sick on the landing and 4 young magpies taking it in turns to dismantle the safety net around Little Fink's trampoline. I cleared up the cat sick (funny how you get desensitized to things?) then checked on the magpies. They had exhausted the fun to be had in picking lumps of safety foam off the poles around the trampoline (garden looked like it had been snowing!) and were now checking out every nook and cranny for insects and grubs. I was starting to warm to their inquisitive natures when, one of them went into next door's garden, pecked at something on the floor. It was having a great time flicking and pecking this bit of wood, it picked the wood up in it's beak and flew onto my shed roof. It suddenly dawned on me, it wasn't a bit of wood, it was a turd.

The bloody magpies have been stealing dog poos from next door's garden and putting them on my shed roof. Oh good grief!

Pot...Kettle

Yesterday I skipped dinner and by 9.30pm was decidedly peckish. I went into the kitchen and started to mooch around, looking in the cupboards and the fridge for something yummy and quick to prepare to snack on.
"Make sure you have something healthy to eat." says hubby helpfully.
I finally decided to make some tziki (greek yoghurt, cucumber and mint) and have it with some crackers.
As I turned round to jab him in the ribs with the cucumber knife for being sarcastic I noticed what he had been preparing for himself....
A coke float (dollops if ice-cream in a pint of Coca Cola)!!!!!

Kirksanton Nuclear Power Station

This area of the Lake District National Park, a site of Special Area for Conservation, an Area of Special Protection, protected under European laws on nature and habitat (RAMSAR wetland site of importance), the home of the most beautiful view in all England (as voted by the country) is currently being proposed as the site for a nuclear power station. It would be built in the space bewteen the fell and the foreground in this picture.

At the initial consultation about the Kirksanton site in Cumbria a local resident made this heartfelt statement.


Chris Reed
I live in Haverigg. I have been lucky enough to live in this area all my life. When I was growing
up, I was worried about jobs, because I did not want to leave the area. I now have two girls, 16 and
14, and I would dearly love for them to stay around here as well. Someone once said, 'When they
have you by the balls, hearts and minds will follow.' Our MP is telling us that there is no Plan B to
nuclear in this area. This seems to be an approach being taken by the Government, and the
consultation seems more of a threat than a consultation at times. The area around Kirksanton is
incredibly beautiful and a very special area, and I just find it hard to believe that we are actually
standing here discussing the possibility of destroying it. When you read the Government's
consultation document, it just reads like a company balance sheet. It just concerns me that guys
like you, with your creative accounting and slick arguments, are just piece-by-piece sucking the
lifeblood out of the planet. We have laws to protect these spots, and you just seem to trample all
over them. I just feel that you people, you are to the joy of life what the thought of Anne Robinson
is to an erection!
To me, this is a very precious area, and it just would be a huge loss if it was destroyed by a nuclear
power station. I just do not feel that people like me have been represented in this consultation, so
my question is: can you explain why you have not assessed the extent and the effect of this feeling
of loss in people, like me, in order to decide whether building a nuclear power station at Kirksanton
is worth the pain and that sense of loss? Is it your aim just to gradually lobotomise humanity, over
time, and just to remove all of our feeling for life? Thank you.


How can the committee consent to building such a facility in such an area of natural beauty?

Shouty Grandad V Sainsburys, who would you put your money on?

Shouty Grandad has been at it again. Today we had a gathering of my mum (Nanny), my dad (Shouty Grandad), Astral (my mother in law) and The Silver Surfer (my father in law). We had lovely food (made by Mr Fink) and listened to yarns and tales of Shouty Grandad's adventures.

He told us a few of his classics, The Keys From the Van, Selling Paint to people from Luton and the Money in the Shoe ones to name a few. I mentioned that I wouldn't be surprised if the local shops had his picture up next to the ASBO kids with a warning note next to it saying, "trouble". Then he said with indignation, "I went in Sainsburys the other day and they wouldn't even slice my bread". Cue hilarity all round. Apparently, he went to the supermarket to buy his usual 1000g uncut loaf which he always gets them to slice for him. This time however, when he offered it up to the chap on the bread slicer, the chap declined to cut it. The reason? the bread was too big!

Well, Shouty Grandad went into his, "I've been coming here for 20 years and the bread has always fitted before" speech, the manager was called and between them they managed to get the bread sliced. The chap put the bread in a bag and handed it to Shouty Grandad. Shouty Grandad looked at the bread, "Where's the end gone?" Apparently the tiny sliver from the end crust had fallen off the loaf and into the machine, from whence it could not be retrieved.
"I can't buy this bread, it's underweight so IT'S ILLEGAL!!" was Shouty Grandad's parting shot.

I wonder if Sainsbury's have a customer hit list?