Temporary Rescue/Dept Store Hell

True to their words, Meridian, her dh and ds we're at ours for 9am, so we loaded dd1 and myself into the car and set off into Derby.

The obligatory Starbucks was consumed, before we did a dash around the shops calling at Game for the kids to spend their xmas cash on Nintendo DS games and accessories, dd1 has purchased 'Dora saves the snow princess' whilst her friend got an Indiana Jones Lego cover and stylus set. I don't think they had the game he wanted, so he left it at that for today.
We scooted past the stationers, where Meridian got a fab storage box and headed back into the Westfield Mecca.

Cunningly Meridians dh then took the kids for a bite to eat, whilst we attempted to run around the shops. Monsoon came up tops and I have another daytime work type 3/4 sleeve warm jumper type top, whilst I got the kids the same top in different sizes (cream with sparkles) and dd2 got a leotard for ballet for a mere £4.50 :-)

Debenhams were next and I was giving them a go today as they usually have some ok stuff in there and they'd kindly sent me a £5.00 voucher to use, as I'd not shopped with them for a while and they wanted to tempt me back in. So voucher in hand off I went, I found clothes 2 x jeans to try on and a lovely Jasper Conran top. I went and stood in the que with Meridian, and waited, waited some more, drummed my fingers, tapped my feet, Meridian tried her tops on in the line as she got fed up.....the people in front of us, asked if any more changing rooms? no sorry, the other one is closed and the Warehouse one is full.......now from what I could see, we were in the entrance to a room, which could have held at least another 6 more cubicles than it appeared to have......we gave it another 5 mins, then Matt started calling to see where we were, so I passed the assistant my clothes and left. Meridian paid for her stuff, which was another one person on the till, 4 people deep que, so when she got to the front, not only did she complain, but I pointed out to the assistant that if their shop does go bust in the next few weeks, its not because of people not wanting to shop there, its due to lack of staffing in the right places and lack of rooms to try the damn product on in. Like most shop assistants these days, she just shrugged, another person not at all bothered to do a job well.

This has reminded me to stay shopping local, with stores whose proprietors and staff actually care about their customers. I shall be visiting Que's sale next week to get my jeans from there, they may be more expensive, but at least I can try the damn things on and get good service.

I dived into M&S to get some lovely desserts for New Years Eve, as we have a few people popping around for a glass of their choice and some games, although one person kindly told me yesterday that they will only be playing wargame based games, to which I sniggered and waved Articulate at them, so we shall see....I'm sure we can fit a few different ones in :-)

To finish the day off dd1 and I went for a swim, or rather more of a splash in her case, as despite my protestations about her trying to not wet my hair too much, I was drenched by the end of it, despite tying it up.....still her swimming on her back is improving, just really gotta get her feet off the floor when she's on her front, and it is pure lazyness that is making her put them back down, I think some more time in the big pool with her dad is needed. (I'm trying not to be pushy here, but her mates can happily swim on their fronts now and she will do it in class when asked, just never for me! oh the teenage years are going to be fun....)

Meridian to the rescue

I'm being rescued tomorrow and taken into Derby, bless Meridian and her DH, exploits to be revealed tomorrow!

A nice paragraph from an old friend

I found this, whilst perusing the internet this evening, from an old friend/associate John Harvey, who is also an esteemed writer, if your not in the know I suggest you check out his books, http://www.mellotone.co.uk/resnick.html
Sorry I'm a bit crap at the link thing, I must get Richard to sort me out!

'For most of the seventeen years I was in Nottingham, certainly once I'd started working on the Resnick novels, I would stroll around the city most days, sit on buses, walk the walk that Resnick took down through the centre to the Italian coffee stall in the market and sit there, never making notes, but watching and listening, occasionally chatting, feeling - if never quite rightly - that I belonged'.

That's nice to read, as mainly it was the 16/17 year old me that John was chatting to. Sometimes it was Sandra or Vito, but quite often me, (humour me fokes) he even turned up with a camera crew and Tom Wilkinson in tow one day (frapples ya got nowt on me mate) and thus I have appeared briefly on the BBC courtesy of John and his Resnick series. Last time I saw John I was running into a lift lobby, as he exited another lift, funnily enough in the Victoria Centre Complex Car Park, we both yelled Hi at each other, I still feel randomly guilty for not stopping and having a conversation, but sometimes you just don't you know? Hi anyway John, if you happen by this random post! doubtful I know, but Hope your doing good.

Bloody Garage

Bloody Garage......grumble, isn't open again until 5th January.....grumble.....no car until then, minimum.....grumble, grumble, grumble.....

Yours sincerely stuck in Ripley.

Please visit if you happen to be in the vicinity, I may well go slightly bonkers otherwise.

Boxing Day and Christmas Car Tales

Merry belated Yule/Christmas to all who may happen by this post.

A good Christmas here, including my present, which is why I'm on here Boxing day eve, a new laptop for me! Lots of lovely gifts this year, including some small dice, thanks very much Richard, chocolate bread mix (which will be interesting to bake) a fabby collection of Meridians homemade goodies, which have a multitude of uses from kitchen to bathroom and beyond. Booze a plenty and my humourous 'Office Goddess Mug' off set by dh's 'I don't do Perky' one, cheers to our staff for those :-)
Thus all is good bar the car issue on the Eve of the big day, which will no doubt cost lots of money...here is our tale....

Dh finishes work and calls me asking what I have done to the car? which he is retrieving from the car park. 'Nothing' says I....'but its grinding on the drivers side?' says he.....so he limps the car home. My dad and dh examine it on Christmas day, the front suspension has popped its moorings and is embedded in the front wheel.......eeeeek.....thankfully it didn't happen at 70mph or whom ever was in the car, probably wouldn't be here to tell the tale......not something either of us are happy about, as it only passed its MOT, last Thursday! One is now pondering if the garage have put the wheel on right? after said MOT, as according to ones father, if its not on right, what's happened can happen......argh! Anyway am going in with dh on Monday am, both of us, in person to discuss them picking our car up and sorting it out, whilst questioning if they could be the cause of the problem? as surely this would have been spotted if a hazard at the MOT? non???

The car issue put paid to our Boxing day trip to dh's brothers anyway, which is a shame, as the kids were all looking forward to it, plus now they're missing their presents too......plus as it was Dh's bro's birthday yesterday too, he's missing his birthday present as well, poor love.

Thus I/we are stuck in sunny Ripley. SS's mum is sending stepdad down to get ss tomorrow am, as we have now messed their weekend up with our lack of transport too.......

As we're stuck, I attempted to go out on my bike today. Foiled by dh, who insisted that we all go out together (I thought he was safely ensconsed on the Xbox, but alas no) So rather than get an hour to myself, I ended up dragging the kids across town with dh to Meridians for a coffee and some cake. Meridian was highly accomodating, as ususal and my intended pop by for a quick coffee, ended up in a two hour stay and assorted nibbles, kids playing on ds lites and various wii games, plus a scooter around the close. Still the walk blew the cobwebs away, for me at least, it was getting bitter on the way home mind, am glad to be inside tonight.

Thus we are now living in technological heaven, him on the xbox and me on the laptop, modern living is complete :-)

Its a win for me.....

Ha, ha ha, ok sorry for the gloat but it has to be done, you see.......

Three weeks ago I thought I had over thrown the cold of wintery doom, so I booked onto pilates class. Tuesday morning I awoke and it was back with a vengance, so I called the leisure centre and cancelled, only to be told, not in time and a £3.80 charge was to be imposed....I protested, as at £28 per month that I pay for the use of their facilities, I wish to be able to cancel in good time and not pay extra, I feel the morning before a class justifies this. So I protested, they stood firm, so I cancelled my membership, (bearing in mind I haven't attended in a month at all due to said cold) que a week of wrangling, them saying, well how about this and me saying no, I want my £3.80 back, and thus it went on, I was offered 7 days membership for a friend, (I said I don't have any, like I'm gona recommend somewhere I'm trying to leave in a protest) and finally I win, they have given me back my £3.80 and have apologised for their crap policy. This does mean that I have agreed to carry on going for the time being (well it is winter, and its so cold outside for running, brrr) so its not a huge win of any great importance, but more a smaller challange to the larger silly bureaucracy I feel. Now I've got to start going again though, damn...maybe I should have thought that through more......

Goodies

I've treated our house to a few goodies over the past few days, whilst I've been on my travels, which is good, as I've been searching for one thing in particular for quite a while. Its our new telephone stand :-) a £19.99 bargin.

O.K. so you now all know I'm totally bonkers, but I'm happily bonkers. I've needed a new place to put our phone since our hallway got its door through to the garage and we finally got a plug point in which to add the answerphone plug bit, so we can actually have an answer phone, so people know we're not toally ignorant and we can call them back. The problem has existed for where to put the phone since the house was built, and BT randomly whacked a plug point in the hall way half way up the wall, with no thought to where an electric point was at all......typical jobsworth bodge job. Thus all this time the phone has had to sit on the stairs, as it never had enough wiring or tacks to reach the living room (well actually it did for a bit, as the internet with wires, remember that folkes? lived in there for a bit, but it was miles of messy cabling across doorways, walls and celings, so it had to go with the advent of dd1) Anyway I finally found a plant stand that I could afford and which by a stroke of luck matches the new light too, huzzah, cheap can look good too.

I found the plant stand whilst out with my gran (great gran to the kids) who at the fantastic age of 94 is still just managing to hobble around without a walking stick, although she gave me several frights this weekend on the ice, by trying to insist on walking by herself, oh we're stubbord old things in our family, the women that is ;-) whilst I insisted that she hold my arm, and prayed the little ones didn't trip her up. I also got two lovely tea light stands for the Christmas dinner table, cheap as chips and the girls chose two dangly twiggy things with clear hearts on them, which are residing in a vase looking pretty now too.

Gran has enabled a lovely purchase for our family too, and we're very grateful to her, as she gave me and dh some money for Christmas, so we have wisely invested it in some new plates, which we have been needing for a long time, ok so its more of a dinner service, than just a few plates. It was a bargin however, as the shop we got it from had an offer on a 5 piece service. We've never had anything that looks remotely like a proper dinner service, so it will be a joy to eat from, particularly this Christmas, when we will use it with the lovely wine glassesthat Jon, M, Phil, Emma, Ashley and Jane clubbed together to get us when we got married :-) (that was a glass per person, you got it :-) ) crikey I'm sounding all grown up, that can't be right, mind you my friend hit 35 the other day, so that means there are only 3 more people, who I'm close to before its my turn, eeeeeekkkkkkkkkk, that's half way to 70, ok now I'm scared.