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More strange stuff . . .

/ Tony / 6 Comments

I am currently Home Alone. Mrs H has gone away for a few days, with her sister and father, to a cottage in North Yorkshire. I don’t like that kind of holiday, in fact, these days I don’t really like holidays. So here I am, the ‘saddo’ supposedly ‘enjoying my space’ (whatever that means.)

My sleep pattern does not exist. Some nights I can sleep for seven hours uninterrupted, but other nights it’s three hours then four or five hours of dozing sleep. The kind of sleep where you don’t realise you have slept, but time has moved on.

Well, last night was one of those nights! I staggered off to bed at around 11:45 (wife away, don’t forget) and was soon asleep. I assume I was soon asleep as I don’t remember being awake for long.

At around 3:30am I awoke. Unusually, I still felt sleepy, so after a quick visit to the bathroom, I snuggled down to sleep. After a few moments but could have been longer, I suddenly realised that the room was getting lighter. Sitting up, I quickly noticed that the Amazon Echo Dot that we have in the bedroom had somehow activated and the room was filled with a blue light. It lasted no more than ten seconds, but it was quite disturbing. I spent the next 30 minutes or so, trying to think if I had mentioned the ‘Alexa’ word in my sleep. Very disturbing!

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You may recall, I had a cause to contact WP support over an issue I had. I’m told that the issue has been passed on to the developers. I have now discovered another issue.

I decided that I would like to change the theme I use for my blog. I’ve had this one (Independent Publisher 2) for a couple of years now, and I thought I needed to have a refresh. Endless scrolling followed, but there was a problem! I seemed to be unable to preview a large number of the themes available.

I thought at first the issue was with the ‘free themes’ (I’m not paying any more for this.) But no! The issue affected most of the paid themes too! So I contacted Support! I pay for it so they might as well earn it.

I got a reply the next day (which was good service, I thought). It seems that my current theme is a “Classic” theme. Most of the themes are what they like to call “Block” themes. Support explained, clumsily I thought, that the ‘preview’ only worked properly for ‘Classic’ themes if I was previewing a ‘Classic’ theme. I needed to be using a ‘Block’ theme to preview ‘Block’ themes.

This has also gone to the developers, but as the ‘Happiness Engineer’ explained, they didn’t think there was any chance of it being changed or fixed.

Glad that’s over . . . hopefully

/ Tony / 3 Comments

The past ten days or so have been a bit stressful, to say the least. It started on the Monday when my father-in-law was rushed into hospital with suspected pneumonia. My wife stayed with him until 3am on Tuesday, in the A & E department, hoping to get him onto a ward. That didn’t happen until Tuesday evening. Then on Wednesday, in a bizarre twist, my Mother was rushed into the same hospital with the same suspected condition. She too was left in A & E for over 19 hours until a bed could be found. The staff, what little there was, were brilliant and did all they could with the limited resources available, but unfortunately, they tend to bear the brunt of patient and visitor frustrations.

They are both out now and on the mend, hopefully.

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Another bit of stress came when our youngest came for a home visit. He has an obsession with Mickey Mouse and his flat, at the care home has many pictures and wall stickers of this cartoon character. Towards the end of July, he came for a visit. He came with a request for “51 Mickey Mouse stickers!!” He was able to show me the ones he wanted. They were located in South Africa and at a price of 1900 Rand (plus postage), but I managed to explain that they were too expensive, as it worked out to around £100. He accepted this, but almost immediately ask for “4 Mickey Mouse stickers.” He then showed me the new ones, and I agreed to get them.

That’s when the problem started. The seller was on holiday and wouldn’t be back until the 16th of August. He seemed to accept this, but then the nattering began. He was asking everyone for “4 stickers.” We managed to order them eventually and told him that they would be arriving at his flat on Monday 22nd. All was going well but then a new phase came in. He started asking for “16 stickers on Tuesday!” Nobody had any idea about these new stickers, but he kept mentioning them.

The stickers finally arrived on the 23rd and he is very happy with them. It was later that day when it suddenly struck me where the “16 stickers on Tuesday” had come from! I had told him about the seller being on holiday and had said I would order the stickers when he came back … the 16th of August, which was also a Tuesday. I am convinced, that in his Autistic mind he was checking that the stickers had been ordered on Tuesday the 16th!

Not the best start . . .

/ Tony / 6 Comments

R**s was home on Friday for the weekend. We spent most of the day waiting for storm Eunice to start, and when it did, it wasn’t as bad as we had been led to believe. Well not for us anyway. Then at around 17:45, we got a power cut. I had been expecting one all day and I thought we had got away with it. The problem was that everything went down. R**s did not understand this and he became more and more stressed. We were off-grid for only 30 or 40 minutes but it seemed a lot longer. As the power cut continued, we realised that we needed to calm R**s down and opted to give him his PRN medication. He has not had any for quite a long time, but it seemed to work.

Suddenly everything began to work again. Lights came on, the wi-fi router fired up, the burglar alarm sounded and everything was back to normal. Or so we thought. It became obvious that there was something amiss with R**s’s television. There was no signal. He has a secondary Sky receiver and the TV was showing a graphic that said “No Signal”. K**h thought it may be the satellite dish, but it was working downstairs. after a great deal of ‘Googling’, we came up with the idea that his box may need to be reset. This was not as easy as the Googlites were explaining. We seemed to have buttons and switches missing.

Composite AV
HDMI

Then, for no reason whatsoever I selected the ‘Source’ button on the TV handset and instantly realised what had happened. The power cut had reset the input to its default Composite AV. To view from the Sky receiver it needed to be changed to HDMI. Once this was done, everything was back to ‘normal’. I should have remembered this from when we had the problem a couple of years ago. We now just had to reset all the clocks, timers in the house that do not have a battery back-up, of which there are many!

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SCART

The next morning all seemed okay. His computer was working and so was the Sky receiver. I quickly nipped out to the bottle bank and came back to hear that his DVD player was not playing correctly. Or more correctly wasn’t displaying correctly. I immediately checked the ‘source’ which was correct, but quickly realised that it must be the SCART cable that had worked loose whilst I was trying to reset the Sky receiver. After a few minutes of juggling about and we had ‘lift off’. Everything back to what we call ‘normal’ again.

Then it snowed!

Hello COVID Year 3

/ Tony / Leave a comment

R**s came home for the weekend on Friday. We have not seen him since 30th December. He likes to be in his flat over the New Year as fireworks upset him, and at his care home, they are able to minimise any startling noise. So it’s a lot calmer for him.


The home went into ‘lock-down’ on the 2nd of January, when one of the staff tested positive. As per the Government guidelines (sic) they were not allowing home visits until there was 28 (?) clear days without any new infections. That changed about a week ago to 14 days, and so he was able to come and visit for the weekend

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Leeds Civic Hall

We had his assessment on Wednesday, which was very traumatic. The Social Worker went through everything with us, and noted everything about him. This should have been done before the funding meeting, but there was nobody available at such short notice, except for the Duty Social Worker. He had little or no knowledge of R*** or his case, so could only go on what he was being told.


The case now has to go to a panel, who will decide if it is an appropriate placement. If it is, and I think we all made a good case, then it goes to a Financial Assessment to see if some of the funding needs to come from R***’s benefits, before going to yet another panel for financial approval.
It’s just more worries on top of more worries, especially as this is likely to happen every year.

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Work is turning into a bit of a chore at the moment. The Assistant Manager left, and it seems that people are jockeying for the position. To be honest, I don’t think any of them are capable. There is more to a managers job, than simply telling others what to do. The boss has her favourites though, so it is down to her as to what happens.


I’m still half-heartedly looking for something else. This job is getting a little too strenuous for me these days. But I don’t want a job that has any form of responsibility. I had enough of that over the past 50 years. I’d love a job, where I can sit at a desk and tap details into a computer system. I wouldn’t want a phone as I’m not very good with people on the telephone. In fact, I’m not very good with people full stop.

An interesting day . . .

/ Tony / 5 Comments

Everything was happening yesterday. My granddaughter, S***** had her 2nd birthday and came around for lunch with her parents and other grandma. And the youngest R***, came home for the weekend. He usually comes home every other weekend, but the dental work he had done upset that routine.

He got home around 11:30 and as usual he took himself off to his room to use his laptop. I went up about 10 minutes later with a drink of water for him and everything seemed fine, although I did notice that his TV was showing no signal. He was listening to a music CD through his DVD player and didn’t seem to be bothered. I went up to tell him his lunch was ready and saw that although the satellite box was on, there was still no signal. So while he was having his lunch I re-booted the box. Nothing changed. I then did a reset and still nothing. by this time he had finished his lunch and was back in his room, asking me to “Fix Sky!”

I spent a while looking through manual, and Googling the problem but nothing seemed to work. We told him that we would have to ring the ‘engineer’ to get it fixed fully believing that he may need a new box.

Meanwhile the lunch party was in full swing downstairs. Everyone was having a good time but because one of his autistic ‘quirks’ (for want of a better word) R*** didn’t join in. He is not very good with a lot of people. I was up and down most of the time, trying various other Google solutions, with no effect.

I was about 15:00 when something clicked. When he played a CD before, through his DVD player, the track listing came up on the screen, but this time there was still no signal. I then thought, that the HDMI cable to his TV had come loose, but it couldn’t as it was a fixed cable. That’s when it hit me. I picked up the TV remote and clicked on the ‘Source’ button, which by it’s very name is the place where you decided where your TV feed is coming from. The screen lit up and showed that the source was set at the TV’s default which was Freeview. Now as this box is not connected to an external ariel, Freeview is not available. I scrolled through the option, then knowing that I was looking for the HDMI-2 feed. Once selected the screen started to show all the programmes it should show. Everyone was happy.

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Back downstairs and the lunch party was nearly over and little S***** was starting to open her presents, of which there were many. to say she is only 2 years old, she certainly knew what to do, and soon the room was filled with torn wrapping paper and scattered presents. She is fascinated with books and with a TV character called “Hey Dougie” so most of the presents seemed to on those lines. Her other grandma left around about 16:00 and her daddy told us that K***’s father was going to pop over with a present, which was a nice surprise all around.

Initially, the idea was that the ‘Birthday Party’ would have been today, but she had been poorly with a throat infection which meant cancellation. However, given the effectiveness of the antibiotics the doctor prescribed I think the party could have gone ahead as planned. But never mind, I think it all went well.

Random tech problem . . .

/ Tony / 6 Comments

© Microsoft

I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my OneDrive. I have two laptops. My main one is downstairs but when I bought it, I decided to keep the previous one upstairs as a kind of back-up machine. It is a bit slow, but it was a good machine. I did want to try and connect both as a home network, but that doesn’t seem to work with Microsoft Home edition. I had ‘misplaced’ a couple of files that I now need to use. They were not big or even complicated files, I just didn’t want to re-write. I thought they were on my OneDrive, but I could not find them. I then had the idea that they may just be in the documents folder on old laptop. And they were.

© Microsoft Office

I copied them into my OneDrive, along with some video files that I had forgotten about. Must have spent a good couple of hours opening, and copying the files, or so it seemed at the time. I shut down the old laptop and trotted off downstairs ready to work with these newly found files. But … they were not in the OneDrive I was accessing from downstairs. I ‘ummed and ‘ahhed for a while before deciding that I must have two OneDrives. Seemed reasonable as the Office package on the upstairs laptop was Office 2013 and downstairs it is Office 365. All I need to do is copy the files I wanted onto a Flash Drive and then onto the downstairs machine. Problem solved … or not.

Try as I might, I could not get the files copied and was receiving an error message:
Error 0x8007016A: The Cloud File provider is not running …
Restart after restart would not cure the problem and in the end I gave up for the evening.

© SanDisk

This morning, after a lot of Googling, it came to light that I must not have signed in to my OneDrive on the upstairs Laptop. In fact, the service was not even running, I must have disabled it in Task Manager. More clicks and reboots ensued and finally I was able to copy the files to the Flash Drive and onto the main machine. Then I found that they had synchronised and so all the copy and pasting was a total waste of time. Thankyou Google and all who sail in you. If the fact that I was not signed in to the OneDrive upstairs reason had been one of the first in the Google search screen, I could have saved a lot of time and unnecessary brain work!

Can’t keep shifting the blame …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I don’t know what has happened to our postal service over the past few months. I know coronavirus has a lot to answer for, but twelve months down the line, you can’t keep blaming it for the current issues. We seem to have seen an increase in issues over the past two months.

Back in November, a parcel was delivered to the wrong address and annoyingly the people at that address moved house just a day or so after the parcel had been delivered. Since then two more, smaller parcels have gone astray. Last week three bank statements, all with the same address were delivered to three different addresses. One came to us and the other two went to neighbours at either side of us. The week before, K***’s new bank debit card was delivered to someone in the next street. We even had a letter from the DWP hand delivered by someone in the next village. It is not good.

On Friday, the post did not get delivered until just before 2pm. Now I’m old enough to remember when we used to get a second post, which was usually around mid-day, but that’s not really acceptable, considering how little is actually being delivered by the Royal Mail.

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I received a reply back from WordPress support regarding my ‘suggestions’ for the desktop app. I get the impression that it was a standard reply. Basically thanking me ‘for reaching out‘ and for my ‘feed-back‘. I am told that they ‘...can’t say whether or when they’d be implemented, but consider them noted…’ which is better than nothing. I do hope they consider them, as the app could be a great asset.

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Youngest son did come home for the weekend on Friday, which was great news. Because right up until his car and support worker pulled up outside the house, I had a very odd feeling that it may not come off. But he was in a happy mood when he got here and S**, his key support worker and friend, said that he was so happy that he could come home and see us. He will go back on Monday sometime and hopefully he will be home again in two weeks. His regular ‘home visit‘ pattern is to come to us every other Friday for three nights, but outbreaks of the virus at his care-home put paid to that again. So as long as there are no outbreaks on his unit and we stay clear, it could be back to normal(ish).

Difficult day tomorrow …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

The youngest goes back to his residential place tomorrow. He has been home for the weekend which he does every fortnight. He knows he is going and we think (you never can tell) that he is looking forward to it. He sits at his computer desk with his legs crossed and waits for his transport to arrive. Then it’s a quick flick through a couple of YouTube videos and he comes downstairs to go.

He has a diary/calendar that shows when he goes away and the day he returns, as one of his Autism traits is that he needs to know what is happening. If he knows, then he seems to accept things better. It’s basically an Excel spreadsheet with different coloured cells for different events.

Tomorrow is different. Tomorrow he goes, and because of the restrictions, he will not be coming home until mid-December. This is different from the last time, during lock-down. Last time we didn’t know it would happen and there was no other option. This time, we do know and we could have had the option of him staying here with us. It may sound harsh, but he is better off in an environment that we know he enjoys, with staff that enjoy looking after him. When he is home, all he wants to do is be in his room. He will not go out unless it is on his planner, so it becomes very frustrating all round. He had to go for his flu-jab yesterday, and it took us nearly an hour to get him to go. Thankfully, the nurses at the surgery know him and were aware that he might be a little late. But they got there on time and all was well. The staff at the surgery are quite amazed that he just lets them do the injection, although he is like me (another story), he has to watch the needle going in so it doesn’t make him jump.

He does not know that he will not be coming home in ‘11 sleeps‘ as his staff will explain on Tuesday. He accepted it then, and it was felt that he may not want to go back if we told him. Very difficult decision.

Too clever for my own good …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

This is a little techy. I have been having a problem all week with the performance of my main laptop. Applications were slow to open and even slower to close. I scoured the internet for answers and did everything, bar re-installing Windows, that was suggested. But the problem remained, and it was getting worse. Some programs were now not even opening. Then today I had an idea. You see, I have two laptops on my home network, both with an attached printer. At the beginning of the week, I thought it would be good if I could print to both printers in an effort to save ink, as the other printer never gets used. After a couple of hours and a fair bit of stress, I got it working. I then installed the other printer on my main laptop so that it could be seen. Then all I had to do was to ensure the other laptop and printer were switched on and I could print to it. Really quite pleased with myself at that point.

I didn’t really want to have the other laptop and printer to be on all the time, so I shut both down. This was on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday, I started to notice the performance issues. As Tuesday was the day when Microsoft updates Windows, I put the problems down to that. When there was a second update pushed on Wednesday, I was convinced that everything would now be okay. Not so. The performance had improved slightly, but not so as you would notice. It was getting so bad that I began to think I had a virus or something. I searched the internet for the problem and the answers were as I expected: run an anti-virus; run an anti-malware; run a disk clean-up even reformat hard drive and start again. Well I tried all except the last one, but nothing seemed to work. Then another search, came up with something. I may have a corrupt drive recently installed. Hmmm … the only driver recently installed was the printer driver for the other printer. I thought I would have a look at that. I removed the printer from the device list (an I assume that removed the driver) and did a full reboot, rather than a restart.

Now (touch wood) it seems to be back to as normal as it was before. I had a quick online chat with the printer help desk (free thankfully). It would appear, that when the other laptop and printer were switched off any software that you can print from would be looking for the printers when the software opens. As the printer was off, it was not visible and so the delays. I’m not entirely convinced, but it does seem to have been resolved.

(Written with Word 365 – blog template)

Life changer + 21 … aka … bloody hell that was quick!

/ Tony / Leave a comment

I did not mention it, but at the end of the angiogram procedure, the consultant told me that my arteries were ok. He also said that I would be contacted by the surgeon, and I thought he said within 3 to 5 weeks. The appointment letter came today, and the appointment is tomorrow!!! As I say ‘… bloody hell that was quick’. I’m now thinking that what he meant was that I would be contacted by the surgeon AND in 3 to 5 weeks I would have the operation.

It came as a massive shock, and I still have not got my head around it. It has still only been 3 weeks (that number keeps cropping up) since the ball started to really roll. I’m beginning to think that it’s a plan to get me in and get the job done, before I have too much time to think about it!

So now what’s happening is the well intentioned but less informed messages of support. Comments like “… they may keep you in and do it straight away, if they have a cancellation…” which seems to be the favourite of my manager. I don’t think it happens like that these days. Might get ‘bumped up’ a day once I’m in, but the way the NHS is at the moment, there’s just not the staff/time/money to do things like that now.

K*** is taking it very well, at least on the surface. I know from some the emails she has sent to R***’s support nurse that she is very worried. There are two counts for her worry. On one hand she is worried how I will cope with R***, given his sometime violent nature. But on the other hand, she is equally worried how R*** will cope with me being ill. It could be a bad time for all. However, we may all be getting this wrong and R*** will be fine and understanding. It’s something you cannot tell with R***, but I don’t intend to worry about that.

Work is being very good about all this. They have done me a favour last week with my time off, and I’m very grateful. So tomorrow, I’m working from home in the morning (will set up after this) then taking flexi time in the afternoon. Can’t beat a bit of give and take.

Get ready for tomorrows update, if they let me home!!

Workplace review .. moving on

/ Tony / Leave a comment

The new workplace review is starting to pick up speed now. I had, what they call a “Work Style Assessment” on Friday. That, basically was to a document that formally set out how each one of us will contribute to making the best use of the available desk space. It seems that at any one time, at least 28% of the office desks are not in use; people at meetings, training, sick etc etc. we have a program called “Changing the Workplace” which is trying to maximise the available office space to save money. Mine worked out very well for me. It means that one day a week, I’ll work from a satellite office, one day a week from home, leaving three days a week working from my base office. This, of course is to be more flexible than rigid. It might mean that sometimes, I do two days in the main office and two days in another office, it depends on what work I’m covering. It was what I was looking for and it seem to fit in with what the service requires. However, formalising the “Working from Home” part, means that I need to have either an office or a proper work station. When I have randomly worked from home, I’ve sat at the dining room table. 020214_1241_Workplacere1.jpgThat is not going to be allowed, which I kind of expected. So yesterday, I set about tidying up my computer desk, clearing out some of the rubbish and making it more of a computer work station than it was. So it should be okay now. All I need to do, when I’m working is to move my personal laptop and slot in the works one.

Of course, the ‘moaners’ are still finding things to moan about: the expense; the inconvenience; the increased travel; earlier rising; getting home later; unsettling, there seems to be no end to the excuses why this is not a good thing. Those people should take a good long look at their conditions of service. It is all explained there, and before they go running off to their respected Trades Union, they should be aware, that the Unions signed up to this from the very start! We have an ‘Away Day’ on the 7th, where we should learn a lot more about what is happening. Well it started off as a day when we get to meet our new colleagues and get to know a bit about them. However it seems that it is going to be a ‘bonding session’ and a ‘workshop’. Neither of which, is what I was expecting. I have also heard that our team will be “absorbed” into the service the following week, but that’s only a rumour, so I’m not sure how accurate it is. Still I accept that it is a worrying time for some people, who have never been outside their comfort zone. Me, I’m just going to get on with it. As I mentioned before, we have no choice, and at the end of the day we still have a job. The bigger worry will be when the new structure is formalised and we have to start applying for our jobs.

TGIF ……

/ Tony / 1 Comment

   Well the week at work, went as well as can be expected. Friends remain friends, and colleagues are just people you work with (or try to). I must re-evaluate the people I call friends !! Some of the ones I used to think of friends are… shall we say colleagues, and some of what were colleagues, I would like to have a s friends. I am beginning to get confused now !!!!

   Home !! Well R*** continues to be very challenging at the moment. I/we don’t know what it is, but he can switch from being happy and loving to being angry and violent in a split second !!! There does not seem to be a trigger at all. Unless we are the trigger !!! If that is the case, then we are completely sunk.

   Just looking at the contents of this post, and I have to say, what a miserable sod I must appear to be !!! It is not the case.

  I now have the instructions on how to post a picture slide show. That is the weekend task. Wish me luck !!

Well pleased …..

/ Tony / 1 Comment

   The computer task I had scheduled to run as a test, this morning, went without a hitch. The routine started, did what it had to do and finished. A couple of things were different from the usual, but it is nothing untoward. Part two of the testing will happen next week. I have set the routine to run at 1 minute past midnight on Monday morning. If all goes to plan, and I don’t see why it should not, then our notices will be ready for printing when we get in.

   Youngest is not very happy tonight. Mrs H said he was upset when he got home, and that he had been upset on the bus. We are guessing, as he cannot tell us, that someone on the bus is causing him a problem. Of course, the escorts can’t say what upsets him, just reports that he is out of sorts. Mrs H is seeing his teacher tomorrow, so may get more of an idea. Could be the length of time he is on the bus that’s the problem. It is silly really. We only live a mile and a half away, but he has to go by the school transport because there is nowhere to park to drop him off.

   I uploaded a video, to Facebook from the gig on Saturday night. Looks quite good, and already B** tagged his flatmate in it. Well pleased ……

Mind numbing …..

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Here I am blogging from work. It’s a very quiet day, with no senior managers in the office. I am taking the opportunity to configure a report on our system. The main case database progresses cases through the system. Each stage of this case progression has to have 1 of 6 flags set for the report to work. There are over 4500 of these stages, and it is that which I am doing at the present ….. and as I mentioned, mind numbing !!!

As usual, there are some who are asking the question “What time can we go home ??” They have been asking the same question since December 23rd. Why did you not ask for the time off ? We do not need you this week. We go through this every year, with the same people.

Youngest has now gone four days, without any medication, which is a record. He is accompanying his brother to the dentist today, so that may be the straw etc etc.

Home again

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A ridiculous amount of rain this morning in Whitby. Made packing up the car a bit of a damp experience. The rain did not stop until we reached Pickering. Had a walk round, then onto a Garden Centre nearby. No purchases though.

Lunch at the White Horse at Deighton. Then back home to await the return of the youngest, and to wake up the eldest.

The prodigal returns …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

Well he came home for one evening. Mrs H all giddy at the thought of him being home for the night. He made the tea for us, and did quite well too. He should be okay making a tomato sauce now. Just needs to keep his concentration focused.

Pleasant night at the Red Lion for the quiz night. No one in when I got there. It was not as mad and hectic as the last couple of times we’ve been. I suppose, his drama friends out so outgoing, that when they are not there, it’s a bit flat. He does take the piss out of D** quite a bit. But the thing is, I don’t think D** knows when it is happening. Of course, no win again. The usual bunch won. I’ve stopped taking it serious now. You just cannot win against people like that.

And that’s about it.

All done..sort of

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Well the reports got done. I tried doing the ‘fiddly bits’, but I did not know what ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ actually wanted me to do. Juggling the spreadsheet about, using financial controls is not my kind of thing. So after consulting the boss, I left the job ‘unmolested’. Anyway, neither of the people for whom the report was for, was in this morning. So not really my fault. I got a couple of Spike’s reports done too. That shut him up. I don’t think he expected me to have them done. I’ll get the permit one done first thing tomorrow. I did learn how to create ‘Dynamic Ranges’ in Excel and how to create a User Defined Function, so not a wasted day then.

I’m getting really pissed off with that person I mentioned in an earlier post. I don’t know if they are getting worse, or if I’m just picking things up that I would normally not bother about. It was funny to watch her going though R***’s desk this morning, looking for things she can take when he leaves. Could wait until the guy’s gone at least.

Big man has got the Auto to do next week. He seems confident and he should be okay. I’ll make sure the Reg 10 copies are in plenty supply. He’ll have to make sure that only valid ones go. I reckon there could be a lot that get binned.

It’s dress down tomorrow. I really don’t know if I can be bothered with it. I am not comfortable wearing jeans and things at work. There is not that work/home separation when you don’t get changed at then end of the day.

Holidays next week. Sunny Blackpool here we come. It is strange to think that IMG_2342Blackpool is one of the most deprived towns in England. Where does all the tourist cash go ? Everything seems to be a little more expensive there than here, and the place will be heaving over the Easter Weekend. Saying that, when you look at some of the shops away from the promenade, it is very depressing.

It will be a strange feeling, without the eldest. We have been away without him once before, but not for a full week. He should be fine if he does not have any ‘emotional crisis’s’.  We just hope everything will be okay, and that he will be sensible and mature. Fingers crossed then.