Month: April 2015

And so the end of the first week…..

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Well here we are, six days in and I really don’t feel any different. It seems that is will make a difference being this age as things might start to get a little cheaper. More on that later.

The ‘big day’ went as well as I could have hoped. I did not want any big celebrations or fuss that I think people might have wanted to plan, so it was a quiet day. I had changed my Facebook profile to not display my birthday, to see if anyone actually remembered. Guess what? Nobody did remember. It has come to something, when people, including some family members need a social media site to remind them of birthdays and the like! What was a surprise was, when I was searching for something on Google, I hovered over the graphic on the Google web site, and saw that Google sent me birthday wishes. Was a bit of a shock, before I realised that Google does actually know my birth date.

Lots of presents and a few cards, and a nice day out with K***s parents at Harlow Carr gardens. Then lunch at The Black Swan in Burn Bridge, near Harrogate.

One of the ways that being 60 has got a little cheaper is my prescriptions are now free. After my operation, I realised that it would be cheaper if I got a prepayment prescription certificate (or PPC). This drastically reduced the charges by over half. But, it seems that when you get to 60, the charges stop and all my medication is now free. The pharmacist, told me to reclaim the balance, and it looks like I may get somewhere in the region of £25.00 back.

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On Wednesday we set off for a couple of days break at The Black Swan (different one from before) in Fearby, just outside Masham. We got there in good time and decided that we do the Black Sheep Brewery tour. It was a very interesting couple of hours, and if you are in the area, I suggest you give it a go. You will not be disappointed. Especially with the beer sampling you get at the end of the tour! Now this was another way that being 60 was a little cheaper. The tour cost is £8.50 per person, which includes 3 x 1/3 of a pint of beer as your sampling. However, and I never spotted this, if you are a ‘senior’ aged 60 or over, you get in for £6.99 and still get the beer at the end. It seems that there are a lot of places that do this kind of reduction for people over 60, and I’ll need to look out for them. One thing that bothered me a little, was that no proof of age was required ……. Maybe my little joke about being as old as I look was not such a joke after all!

We arrived at our place of stay, at around 4pm, booked in and then went for a short walk round the village. It seems that The Black Swan is the only pub in the village. It worried me a little, that it might be a bit noisy later on in the night, but it turned out not to be the case.

The restaurant/breakfast room/bar had an unusual collection. The whole of the roof was covered with chamber pots. Must have been over 200 hanging from the ceiling. It made for an interesting if somewhat bizarre display. Mind you, saying that the landlord seemed to drive everywhere in an old U.S. army jeep, so I suppose each to his own.

Thursday was the day we were to do what is known as “The Druids Temple Walk”. Now this is not as dramatic is it sounds. The Druids Temple is actually a folly built in about 1820, by the owner of the Swinton Estate, as a means of employment for local people. It is stated that it is a 5 mile circular walk, although to me it seemed to feel more like 8 miles! But it was worth it when we got there.

We had a quick visit to Thirsk on Friday on the way home. Nothing special there for me, I’m afraid, but K*** seemed to like the place. K*** likes to make our breaks last as long as possible. Me, on the other hand prefer to get home as soon as possible on the last day.

All in all, it was a good couple of days away. The weather could not have been better and the scenery was just perfect.

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Monday will be interesting I think. The team I work with now, seem to like to ‘celebrate’ people’s birthday milestones, and they seem to know when everyone’s birthday is. Thing is, that I’m not in my main office tomorrow, so I’m not sure how things will pan out or what might happen when I go to the main office on Tuesday. I think I need to get some sweet stuff to take in on the Tuesday, but I shall just have to play it by ear. Before the last workplace review, the team I was in just did not do anything for birthdays. They didn’t even send each other Christmas cards, which always seemed unusual. I did get a ‘Get Well soon’ card after my operation, but it was given to me about 2 weeks before I returned to work, so I felt a little bit cheated.

 

 

Tomorrow is another decade !!!

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Let’s start with the title of this post shall we? Tomorrow, 20th April 2015 I will reach a milestone in my life. The day will see me hit 60 years old! And in reply to all those kind people ….. yes I do look it and at times I do feel it. So that’s that out of the way.

For an early birthday present, S**** took me to see the wrestling at WWE Live. It took place at the Leeds First Direct Arena, which is a fairly new venue. Although I love watching the wrestling, the thought of going to see it live was something, I had never really considered. So it was a bit of a surprise when he produced the tickets. To be honest, K*** bought mine and he bought his own, but the thought was his. I really enjoyed it. It was great to see some of the big names in the wrestling world. The seats were good, and we both had a good view of all the action. I know it’s all scripted and it is more of a pantomime that a sporting event, but it is very entertaining. The atmosphere was amazing, and I have to say, I did get into it quite a bit. Even the two kids right behind me that were joining in, with very annoying voices added to the whole enjoyment of the event.

It was good to spend some time with S**** as father and son. It has been a while since we did anything together. We used to go to the local pub for the ‘Quiz Night’ every Tuesday, but that stopped when one night R*** flipped and K*** struggled to cope with it.

But, the day was not without its problems. I needed to get some cash as the ticket machines in the car park would not accept my debit card, so tried to use the nearest ATM. Again, my debit card was not accepted, not even to obtain a balance. Luckily, I had a card for another account with me, so all was not lost. However, it did nag me a little, and I could only put it down to my card being damaged or something.

When I got home, I checked my account on the website, to find that there had been two unknown transactions for $200.00. A swift panic call to the bank, quickly sorted the issue out. It seems that a clone of my card had been used in New York on the 10th. The bank had picked it up as a potential fraud, as they said that the time difference between the last use in England and the use in New York was too short and when the second transaction was made, the card was blocked.

I now have a new card and the cash has been refunded, so all’s well.

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Remember me talking about my mobile phone? I was going to get a Windows phone. I was still not sure about changing operation systems, but when I talked to the sales person about the phone, he advised that “…. We no longer stock that model, because of the issues with it….” There was no mention of what issues they had, but it made the decision for me. I had another phone in mind and I was kind of hoping they would be out of stock of the Windows phone. So in the end I settled for an HTC. I went with the HTC Desire 620. I have had an HTC phone before and was very pleased with it. Up to press, I am very satisfied with this one too.

I was a bit worried about the new contract though. It cost slightly more (the provider has changed all the ‘plans’) and has only a 2gb data allowance. My previous contract had unlimited data, and although I checked my data usage and found it never went above 1gb in the whole 2 years. I was still concerned that I may be losing out. I am monitoring it and well within the limit. I have not used the internet as much as before, so it might take a couple of months before I’m sure I have enough.

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And now, a question. Why, when the road sign indicates a 50 miles per hour speed limit, do some drivers think that it means ‘drive at a speed between 30mph and 40mph’? It happens all the time. The major road when where we live to the centre of Leeds, is an ‘A’ road and for a great deal of it the speed limit is 50mph. You never actually get to that speed! There is always some driver that, for whatever reason drives slower than that. It’s not an age thing or a gender thing. It’s not just at 50mph it happens. Many times on a 30mph road, does one driver takes it to mean 22mph. Do these people own the road? Do they apply some complicated mathematical formula that calculates the speed for them? Or are they simply just inconsiderate drivers? I tend to think the latter applies. Rant over!

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Finally, does this theme work? I have struggled a little with themes for this blog, as I never really know if it looks right. I think it does, but I’m not the reader. Would be interesting to know your views.