Unsettled

Posted: Wed 3 December, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel | Leave a comment »

I have to confess, I really don’t know how Hound survived the weekend.

We went up to Marple (just outside Manchester) and had rented a cottage for the weekend so that we could take Hound with us, rather than diverting via Berkshire in order to put her in kennels with someone who knows her. Normally this is no problem – we’ve done this on our trips to Ireland, the Lake District (twice) and Devon. Hound walks in to the place, sniffs round, lies down, and is fine.

Not in the case of the place in Marple. The actual house was fine – we both quite liked it – nothing special, but enough for us to stay in. set right by the canal, it was fairly quiet, and suited us well. But Hound hated it – she just didn’t settle at all. In short, she was a total pain in the arse, unable to settle down when we went to bed, kept on mooching about, scratching the carpet, the lot.

On the Friday night it ended up with me going into the living room at about 2am, and sleeping on the (very small, two-seater) sofa. As soon as I’d done that, the pox-ridden cowbag went and laid in her basket and slept.

On the Saturday night she was even worse, and finally settled at 2.45am. Again, it ended up with me on the sofa, that being the only way she’d lie down at all. Before that time though, she came this || far from being strangled. Or, considering the proximity of a nice cold canal, drowned.

We’ve no idea what it was she hated about the place – but there was obviously something ‘wrong’ with it. We’ve never really seen her in that sort of mood before either, so it was definitely something novel.

Equally, come the Sunday she was most eager to leave the place – she was in the car before we’d even started to pack up, she just had this complete urge to leave the place as soon as possible. Very strange.

Away for the Weekend

Posted: Fri 28 November, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Travel | Leave a comment »

Tonight we’re off up to the Manchester area for the weekend, so don’t expect too much in the way of updates between now and Monday. There’ll probably be a couple, but well, don’t expect miracles.

As it is, we’ll be seeing friends up there on Saturday, and then by bizarre coincidence my parents are Oop Norf the same weekend, seeing my brother in Derbyshire, so we’ll be seeing them on the Sunday.

And then back home again.

So see you on Monday…

Beach Trip

Posted: Sat 1 November, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel | Leave a comment »

Tonight, the next village along is having its firework night party. I don’t think we’ll actually hear anything of it at all, but due to the date, we’re going to be spending most of today exhausting Hound.

So it looks like we’ll be off to one of the North Norfolk beaches – Wells or Holkham most probably – to let her run about like a loon. Then (probably) a late-ish lunch, another run on the beach, and then home.

It’s nice that Hound is getting older – she doesn’t need as much exhausting as she used to. After all, three years ago (as this post shows) it was an all-day affair that needed four or five walks but now we should get away with two.

All the same, there is a lot to be said for the levels of daftness we’re exhibiting. I just hope the weather’s OK, or we’re going to be thawing out while Hound snores her head off throughout the evening…

Mileage

Posted: Sat 11 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Driving, Travel | Leave a comment »

As part of my own business, I’ve just paid myself my mileage expenses for the last month.

As per HMCE guidelines, my company pays me 40p per mile for the first 10,000 claimed miles of the tax year, and 10p per mile thereafter. And it’s just paid me £1,050. I’ll leave it to you to figure out just what the mileage is that I’ve covered in the last month.

But put it this way – I’ll be *very* glad to be radically reducing my commute as of Monday 20th, to less than half of what I’m currently doing. That’ll be one happy happy day, if only to allow my arse to not be moulded into the shape of my driving seat for a while…

Convoy

Posted: Tue 9 September, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

“OK, so we’ve got this huge abnormal load to take through Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk. It’s going to screw traffic up royally, because it’s roughly 1.25 carriageways wide – and just about the entire route is dual carriageway at best. It’s also only moving at a maximum of 10mph, and needs a police escort, outriders etc. So by that point well, we’ll be pretty much taking up two carriageways.”

“Oh fuck, of course, there’s the A11 between Brandon and Thetford, and that’s only a single-carriageway each way. So for that one we’ll really screw things up traffic-wise.”

“So I know, let’s time it so that we’re on that section of road at 7am on a weekday. No-one will be using it at that time, will they?”

“And even better, let’s not give out any warnings at all. That way, we can piss everybody off, because they won’t even see it on the local news that morning, or hear it on the radio traffic news reports until it’s way too late for them to avoid it. You know, just to add icing to the cake.”

Or at least that’s what I imagine the conversation must have been like, when planning to do the journey with this load. Fuckwit bastards.

Blocked Roads and SatNav

Posted: Mon 1 September, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Travel, Weirdness | 6 Comments »

Another day, another pig of a drive in to the office.

Today, two trucks had collided, with one spewing its load of 10T of steel all over the road. Luckily (in some perspectives) I knew about this one before leaving home, so I’d also brought the SatNav with me.

By the time I got to the A11/A14 junction, the police had completely closed off the A14, and were sending people down to the M11 to come back up the A505 – both of which were by now also completely rigid with traffic.

I set TomTom to know that there’d been a roadblock on the A14, and at first thought I’d let it take me where it wanted. Until it kept insisting I turn round and go back to the A14. Stupid piece-of-shit satnav. So in the end, I used my knowledge instead, and got through the middle of Cambridge instead, with TomTom repeatedly insisting “No, you need to go back to the A14, you need to go back.” and then eventually “Oh, hang on, yeah, you’re right, you can go this way, and you know what? It’ll take you right to the office.” The undertone of “I’m great, aren’t I? How would you have managed without TomTom” is probably just me disliking the poxy thing.

Actually, I’d have done pretty well even without TomTom. I was 90% sure of where I was going, and where I needed to be. I might have made one mistake, but that would’ve been it.

Also, I want to check this on the way home, but I’m sure it’s pointing right to go West on the compass setting. Any time I noticed it today, it was doing so. All told, that’s a bit of a worry…

Life Imitates Art

Posted: Fri 11 July, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Travel | 1 Comment »

Oh, I can so identify with today’s XKCD webcomic. I haven’t yet worked out what timezone my body clock is in at the moment, but believe me, it isn’t GMT (or, for the pedants, BST either).

(The timestamp of this post probably goes some way to explaining what I mean, too)

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →