Posted: Thu 28 February, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Commuting, Driving, M1, People, Travel |
Last night, I finally saw the M1 Congestion Scheme in full effect – vehicles in all four lanes, using the whole thing properly.
The only problem?
All the signs were saying “Hard shoulder for emergency use only”, so the scheme wasn’t *actually* active at the time.
Some days I really despair.
Posted: Tue 26 February, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic |
Well, that’s done.
I’m intrigued by how a twenty-minute job needs a slot of “12-6pm” to be booked in, but there we go, at least it’s done now.
Now, about that refund…
Posted: Tue 26 February, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised |
Today I’m working from home, waiting for Anglian Water to come and fix things.
It’s nothing major – well, it is, but it’s not like a water leak or anything. Basically, whoever installed the little grey boxes to ‘read’ the water meters (for whatever reason, this house has two) fucked it up – or the boxes are faulty – and have been reporting roughly three times the actual water use. Which, of course, I was getting billed for.
The last bill came in, and I queried the figures. Anglian had screwed up something else as well, just for chuckles, so the entire thing was nearly four times what the corrected bill is. Which is, needless to say, impressive.
Anyway, today they’re replacing both readers, and providing Anglian with correct ‘start-up’ figures, so hopefully from here things will be a lot more stable.
Needless to say, I’ll be keeping a close eye for a while on both the readers and the meters, making sure they match. And waiting for a significant refund.
Posted: Sat 23 February, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, People, Thoughts, Work-related |
Since moving to the new place, I do miss having dogs around. Prior to here, I’ve had dogs (even daft pain-in-the-arse bastard ones like Hound) for the last eight years, and you kind of get used to it.
So I kind of miss having them around, but at the same time there’s no way I could justify it at the moment with how life’s running.
As it is, the cats are OK if I leave them overnight. I always make sure they’ve got enough food, and all that, but really it’s pretty easy. I’ve also located a nice local person who can come in and feed them etc if I have to be away for longer, which is also a bit easier.
With a dog (or more) I’d also be far more constrained with walk times etc. which I couldn’t actually manage on a regular basis – let alone the extra joys there would be with me doing a long one-dayer or overnighter.
I get a regular reminder of this from the neighbours though – they have some little thing (I’ve never actually seen it, to be honest) and every time they go out, the poxy thing howls and yaps for a good 30-45 minutes, and sometimes longer. I’ve no idea why they never seem to take the bloody thing out with them, but there we go.
Anyway, it all just reminds me of how needy dogs can be, and how much I wouldn’t want my neighbours to be having to live next to someone whose dog(s) howl every day when I go to work, or go out anywhere.
Posted: Fri 22 February, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Stupidity |
Getting home from the travels of the last couple of days, I discovered I’m an idiot.
Well that’s not strictly true. I’ve always known I’m an idiot. It’s a hard thing to miss, to be honest.
Anyway, the evidence in this case was as follows :
- Because I’d left at Ungodly O’Clock, I’d left one of the main lights on in the living room. Oops.
- Somehow I’d also left the kitchen window slightly unlatched
- Because of 2., the cats had shoved the window open, and had been in and out all the time I was away.
So all told, it’s been OK, and the cats have slept all evening.
But still yeah, I’m an idiot.
Posted: Thu 21 February, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Public Transport, Travel, Work-related |
Yesterday was another Devon run – I didn’t get to go down (Fnarr!) last week due to feeling ill, so it ended up being this week instead.
I was doing the trip with my direct boss, and he suggested that instead we went by train instead of driving. I’m not quite sure of the reasoning – except it meant we didn’t do stupid mileage – but all told it wasn’t an experience I wish to repeat.
The journey down was OK – as much as train journeys ever are – but it took just over four hours when the drive takes three. So leaving home at 5.45, train at 6.30, into the Devon office just after 10:30. (Usually if I leave at 6 I’m in the office at 9 – 9.30)
To be fair, we got a bundle of stuff done, several meetings, and some very happy customers.
For whatever reasons, we stayed overnight at a local hotel (well, pub with rooms) and came back this morning. And that journey was a pig.
We’d forgotten it was half-term, which meant the train back was absolutely packed. It had eight carriages, with three “First Class” carriages which were utterly empty. (No idea why – I assume that Devon -> London has a lot of First Class passengers usually) The other five carriages were all full, every seat with a ‘reserved’ ticket on it.
So instead I ended up standing all the way from Devon to Reading, where I finally got a seat for a whole 20 minutes.
The journey back to Milton Keynes took three and a half hours (which wasn’t too bad) and then another half-hour to get back to the office.
All told, it’s been a long journey. I feel like the time’s been a little bit wasted – particularly today – and could’ve been much better used if I had the long one-day trip instead of splicing it between two days in this way.
Still, it’s done, and I’m home now.
Posted: Mon 18 February, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Health, People, Work-related |
In my office, there’s a number of people who’ve been on a bit more of a health kick so far this year – one aspect of which is that they all drink a lot more water.
Work supplies a lot of the ‘standard’ drinks for the company – primarily tea, coffee, and bottled water, as well as a bundle of other odds and sods. It’s not a bad workplace, all told, and they’re pretty reasonable.
Sadly though (in my opinion) some of the people are somewhat less reasonable. As a result, they drink the supplied water, and piss and moan when it runs out. But they only ever drink the bottle of water, then chuck the bottle away and get another one. It’s about as anti-Green as you can get.
I’ve also been drinking more water (as detailed previously) but I have one 750ml bottle that’s now lasted me three months. I just refill it each time, rather than needing (or more accurately, feeling I need) a new bottle every time.
I don’t really care, to be fair. It just annoys me on occasion when other people a) can’t be chuffed to provide their own stuff, or b) take the piss.