Exciting weekend

My sister and friend were in the quiz Pointless at the weekend, filming for the next series.

It was great fun. 

We all met up before hand and went to the BBC together, passing the Tardis en route (pausing for the photo opportunity), after a sandwich of astonishing tastelessness.  Seriously, it tasted slightly of tomato, but not at all of chicken, spinach or pesto which were all supposed to be in there too.

We - as friends and family - there were lots of us - queue jumped which was nice, and made us feel important.  We were sitting in the raked bit at the back, so had a good view, at least until the crane camera took up position right in front of us, and blocked our view of Boo completely.  Luckily he started moving round a bit.

The did really well and were in the final 2 in the first episode filmed.  We had paid attention to our instructions and learned to clap, go whooo,  laugh and so on as required to make it exciting viewing.  The warm up guy was very good, and very funny.  After that first episode, our runner chap took all the friends and family of Boo and Jill off out (he shouldn't have and most people went back in) but it did make a BIG space in the audience, and the warm up guy was really funny about us all going.

Unfortunately we had to go then because we had to get back to Wales so we missed them nearly winning!!


It was great fun, and lovely to see so many of the family.  Kate and Erin have a rather alarming twin clothing choice thing going on though.

Still van hunting

2  of the vans we found were sold when I phoned today.  One is having a new mot and we are going to see it on Saturday.

Fingers crossed.

I got £17 for recycling an old phone from Marks and Spencers which is lovely, as the phone was useless, and I have gone and bought some clothes instead after work today.  I love getting things for free.

Van hunting

We are joining Nicky in a van hunt.  The horse box she has is on an E reg Bedford van which is almost certainly going to fail its MOT next month, so we are hunting for a cab and chassis to put the horse box on to for less than £2000.  Which is proving tricky.

Basically the phrase 'hen's teeth' is the one that comes to mind.

There was one advertised which we missed, unfortunately.  There is one that looks good which is too far away to go for.

A hunting we shall go!!!!

It has been foggy all week - I am getting bored with fog.

I would like to see the sun.

We are going to Cordoba in under 2 weeks!  There will be sun (I hope).  There will be   no work.  Hurray.

Two funerals

I have just been to my second funeral in 4 days.

February has not been a cheerful  month.

Last Friday was the funeral of the father of one of my friends at work.  Bob used to collect Pam from work every day and he chatted to us all in the car park, a friendly man who loved a chat.  He was 82 but died suddenly from a heart attack, which was a shock to the family.

The funeral was at the crematorium, and there was a good turn out, though there would have been more if the service had been in the local undertakers - the crematorium is a good half hour drive away, so not as many library staff as might have gone were able to go, but they were pleased to have so many of us make the effort.  It was short and simple.  The weather was cold, foggy, windy and grey.  All grey everywhere.  Really gloomy.

Today was the requiem mass for our parish priest.  He died very suddenly, and it has shocked the parish.  His official funeral is tomorrow in a much bigger church, so tonight was the mass for the parish.  It was standing room only, and the altar was heaving with priests. 

The difference between the simple but unstructured service and the much more formal mass was food for thought.  Having been brought up Catholic I feel much more comfortable with the formal structure of a requiem mass and find the crematorium service a bit laboured and lacking content.

It is a matter of what you are used to I suppose.

I also have two friends (not close ones, but still) who have cancers which are not responding to chemo.  That is worrying.

I shall be glad when February is over, and maybe the news will be better in March.

Busy week

I go through weeks and weeks with nothing happening but work and tv etc

This week however is busy.

I have bookclub/dinner club tonight.

I have been asked to a friend's tomorrow for a light supper.

We are going to a concert on Friday.

Cor!

Oops

I was in Pembrokeshire and got back this afternoon to discover that I have left the mains cable for my laptop down there! 

Drat and drat again/

I am now doing this on Nicky's laptop and am still having problems with the carriage return on Blogger, so it is clearly not machine specific.  Odd.

We had a nice walk along the coast yesterday, the sea was really choppy but the sun was shining and it felt almost spring like.  B bought some snowdrops to plant so they will be there in the garden next year.  The primroses are starting to come up, but one of them continued blossoming for over 2 years, so they aren't very reliable as a sign of spring.

We saw a LBJ (little Brown Job - small brown bird like lots of other small brown birds) and it sat in the hedge and sang nicely at us, which was very pleasant.  When we got back we narrowed it down to a variety of possible LBJs and then we got out the cd of birdsong which I had given B for Xmas and after we tried a few of them decided it was a dunnock.  We felt very pleased with ourselves.

February is a gloomy month

Eliot thought that April is the cruellest  month.

In my opinion February is the dreariest month.  It is usually wet.  It is still dark.  It is still winter.

The only positive thing is that it is short.

I had fun redesigning the blog yesterday, when I should have been doing other things probably, but never mind. 

There is something odd happening with Blogger because it isn't doing carriage returns.

I am off to Pembrokeshire tomorrow and I hope the weather is not as awful as it has been tonight.  it will be a dismal drive if it is.

I am not actually as gloomy as I sound, just feeling a bit Eeyorish.

Roll on Spring.

Dagger in the Library

I am on the panel of judges for the Dagger in the Library again this year.

This involves reading the  nominated novels of crime writers put forward  by people in libraries.

It is interesting in the same way that reviewing books is interesting because you are reading books which are nominated by someone else.  In the Dagger books they are put forwards by people who think that they deserve to win the prize, and sometimes the authors put forwards you think are good and other times you think 'why did they nominate this person?'

B being in Pembrokeshire in the week is giving me more reading time because I go to bed to  read at night instead of chatting so I am getting through a few books.   Some of the authors have been nominated in previous years so I have already read one or more books by them which is helpful.  The award is for a body of work, not a particular title so it helps to have read a few books by each author.

At the moment I am reading Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, which is the second book in a row which is set on Shetland.  Shetland isn't a very large island, and I'm sure has a lower than average crime rate, so it is a bit bizarre to be on  my second murder novel set on the same island.

3rd thing down

So far this year I have replaced the tv in the sitting room.

I have replaced the dog flap (well nearly)

And on Saturday thing 3 went kaput.

The main tv stopped any sort of picture/tuning/anything. As it is at least 10 years old it doesn't owe me much, but its timing is really rubbish!

So today I set off to meet Kate at Caldicot to have a walk, have lunch and for her to take the dog home.

We met.

We walked.

We didn't eat. The castle is shut and the cafe is in the castle. The pub doesn't admit dogs. It is really difficult to go anywhere with a dog these days. The area is pretty though, and we had a nice little walk before Kate set off with Saffy to go home.

I then went to John Lewis and bought a tv. They give a free 5 year warranty, which is really handy to have and their prices are as cheap as any of the other shops, so we now have a new tv in the tv room. As the old one was a huge old beast, this one is really neat by comparison and makes the room look bigger.

It wasn't on the agenda for this month though - thank the lord my car passed its mot without needing anything extra!

My brother in law is setting up as an IT consultant and the link to his website is

http://www.trevormartinconsulting.com/

Dog flap but not fitted.

Yesterday Nic bought a dog flap.

But it was the wrong size - there is a hole in the door, and the flap has to fit the existing hole.

So today I went back and bought one that fits. Pets at home are considering charging us rent. The one that fits is £34!! For a dog flap! I am appalled. It is only some bits of plastic after all.

However, once I recovered from the cost I got home and got it out of the packet. They say you need a screwdriver to do up the screws.

But ....

But they don't supply screws, they provide nuts and bolts. The previous one also has nuts and bolts. Tiny weeny nuts that I don't have a spanner small enough for. I phoned B and asked what he did last time, and he suggested using a monkey wrench, but also offered to do it next time he is here. As Saffy is going on Sunday I decided to take him up on his offer.

I am really annoyed that it is both expensive, and really difficult to fit! So irritating.

Still no dogflap

Oh dear.

Nic went to buy a new dogflap. There she was, in Pets at home, clutching our new dogflap.

Then her card was declined because her payments had gone out. Oops.

We are still dogflapless.

Cowbridge library was officially opened today, with a bunch of councillors and the chain gang there to cut or to watch the ribbon. It was quite nice because one of the local primary schools sang a couple of songs and lots of people were there looking around. Nice to have something upbeat happen.