Key Information
Posted: Fri 26 January, 2024 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »When I got the new (to me) car it only had one key – although it had two fobs, it was just that the actual keyblade on one of them was missing. (Which is quite an achievement in the first place!)
I like having two working keys for the car – it means, among other things, that I can leave it with people (valets, MoT/Servicing etc.) without leaving my full bunch of house keys as well.
So I asked at the local dealership what the price would be for a replacement, and they quoted an OK-but-high price for it, saying it might take a couple of days from ordering in order to get the right one – oh, and have the V5 registration certificate as proof of ownership. And then didn’t get round to it.
This week though, I did a quick trip to my local(ish) Tesco that I know has a Timpson concession/branch at it. And (being organised, for once) I remembered to take the spare key fob with me. Nothing to lose by asking, and all that jazz.
So I asked, and got it done for £50 (less than a sixth of what the dealership had quoted) in less than fifteen minutes.
I’ve always been impressed by Timpsons (among other things, I like that they are open to employing ex-convicts and so on, opening doors that many places close) and I’m glad that I took the time to use them for this one.
Booklist
Posted: Tue 2 January, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Kindle, Reading Leave a comment »Every year, I do the GoodReads reading challenge – setting myself a target of number of books to read, and then keeping track of it through GoodReads. I usually blast through the target – for example 2023’s target was 100, and I ended up with 153 – but I’d rather aim low(ish) and succeed rather than shoot for the moon and fail.
It’s worth pointing out that there are lots of things I don’t like about GoodReads – their controversies this year about fake reviews and so on in particular – but for this kind of basic usage, they’re fine and I’m yet to find a similarly comprehensive setup to manage it. So… it’ll do.
I also rarely bother writing reviews etc. (unless it’s a particularly awful thing I’ve just read)
Anyway. This year I’ve decided that I’m going to try and reduce the number of new book purchases, and instead to carve through a decent swathe of my stuff that’s bought-but-still-unread. (Which is a huge pile, and I daren’t actually count how many things are in it) I’m not going to say “I’m not going to buy any new books” – mainly because that would be a) ridiculous, and b) unachievable (plus I’d have already failed on that score) – but I’m going to try and reduce that count a bit and get through older stuff instead.
As a result, I’m setting my target this year to be 120 books. (It was originally 100, but I changed it up a bit) I know there are some I re-read that I can race through because they’re familiar, but I think if I make new ones the majority this year, that might slow me down a bit, so 120 is realistic. (Ish. I’ll almost certainly exceed it, but it’s a number I’m happy with)
Now it just remains to see how I do with it!
Over and Done
Posted: Mon 1 January, 2024 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Festering Season Leave a comment »
Welcome to 2024
Back to the normal intermittent rubbish, as and when I think “I haven’t written anything there for a while!”
I’ve got a bundle of things bouncing round my head that I should jot down – thoughts and plans for the coming year that are emphatically not resolutions , that kind of thing.
But in the meantime, it’s really just a sigh of relief to get to the end of another Festering Season.