I’m between projects at work at the moment, so it’s a good time to take some time off to get things sorted out around the house. Today I had the electrician here pretty much all day, getting the wiring on my electric shower up to the latest safety standards. He’s installed a combined RCB device […]
I’ve been home over a week now, and have been looking back on the holiday. It’s the first time I’ve been on a “singles’ holiday”, and it definitely had a different atmosphere to my more usual trips. After the flight out, my suitcase seemed to take ages to arrive at baggage reclaim at Toulouse airport, […]
One of the little pleasures of being on holiday in France, aside from the food and the wine, is playing the Michelin Green Guide game. This was made up by my parents when my sister and I were teenagers and we went on family holidays in France. I suspect their ulterior motive was so that […]
When my sister and brother-in-law came to stay a few months ago, they brought with them the card game Carcassonne which they thought I’d enjoy playing. They were right – it was fairly easy to get the hang of, but with subtleties that made it very interesting. I had some beginner’s luck too, which is […]
A few months ago, I had a run in with Orange who sent Christopher a letter saying that his price plan was changing. I spent ages on the phone to “Customer Services” who assured me that they would take the necessary action to delete his account. So I was surprised and very annoyed when I […]
The problem with calling out workmen to fix something in the house, is that they regularly seem to find something else wrong, which is usually more serious and more expensive than the original problem I had them in to fix! The electrician is a case in point. I called him out a few weeks ago […]
It’s been a busy week, with more than its fair share of workmen – and it’s only Wednesday! My regular, non-emergency, and reasonably-priced plumber is back. He came round on Monday morning to try to fix a dripping cistern in the bathroom. The toilet has been getting tricky to flush, and the cistern doesn’t seem […]
On Saturday afternoon I went to the matinée of the current play that’s on at Malvern Theatres. It was on at the Edinburgh Festival, then in the West End, and now seems to be on tour. It’s called The Play That Goes Wrong and is effectively a farce, so I really should have known better. […]
The British Museum has one of its so-called “Blockbuster” exhibitions on at the moment, about the Vikings. It’s had some pretty good write-ups in the press, all concentrating on the central exhibit, the remains of a full-sized Viking longship. My parents have both visited the exhibition, but were somewhat underwhelmed – they said that the […]
I was replanting my herb garden on Friday – the rosemary and sage had suffered over the winter, and I wanted some more thyme and chives. I filled up the watering can to give the plants a good watering-in, and realised I had a problem. The outside tap wouldn’t turn off! It felt like the […]
