Love FiLM

Having a quick rant today about LoveFiLM or whatever they are called.

Recently I've been renting TV boxsets from them, all good.
The first one I had they stuffed up, I didn't get the first disc, they had had it returned, so when I complained about it, they sent out the second disc...but I still hadn't had the first one!
The next series came out fine, disc 1, a random film, disc 2 and disc 3, the random film in the middle wasn't ideal, but was ok
The third series got sent out the other week, watched and returned the first disc and now they have sent me out the first disc of another series on my list...

Hang on a minute

I would like to finish each series before starting the next one, that would be helpful. At least they haven't sent out the first disc of one series, and then the first disc of a follow on series without finishing the first one off

(Yet)

PMA (positive mental attitude)

So I'm being more positive and not whinging with this post...that's what I promised I'd do

One very quite complaint though, bear with me there could be relevance to the post (and other new posts). I'm posting from my work laptop, and it's got a little fault, for some reason the "R" key doesn't always register, or it registers twice. It's a little irritating, but I usually catch it and correct it.

Anyway...back to the PMA
Things are going really well at the moment.
I've been out with the ukulele group a few times recently and I've had a great time and hardly fluffed up anything, although at the weekend I did play a few z chords on a couple of songs which I don't know that well, but I'm getting better and I know a few of the songs off by heart now. I'm even starting to sing along as well!

Last week we had a big works event, apparently because I work in the People team (and the payroll) I get to go to all these big events, this is my second. The first was in Warwick, so I had a nice hotel and all that, but this time it was at my office, so I was able to go home at the end of the night. We did a few "fun" things and there were some presentations by the management board team which were really interesting about the direction and what happens next kind of thing. The evening we had a nice big meal and charity event which was really good, it's nice to be able socialise with people from other areas of the group (and other countries) and talk about things other than work for a change. Of course, there is still some work chat going on, but it's more relaxed.

The garden is looking good, and I picked up some more bird seed this weekend so I can encourage the birds back into the garden. I only put some out this morning though, so I've not seen anything yet, but I suspect that everything will have gone by the time I get home tonight, will have to have a proper check this weekend.

Life is generally pretty good at the moment :)
Px

Open letter to Drivers

Ok so I have already written an open letter to cyclists but after the recent poor weather in the UK (no real surprise) I'm going to have a moan about some drivers now

My mum used to tell me that there are a lot of idiots out on the roads, and she didn't want me to become another one. Well mum, I'm sorry to say that I am not the safest driver out there, but given the number of idiots I've seen recently, I have to say, I'm actually not that bad!

So anyway, here is me moaning (remember, I'm in the UK, we drive on the other side of the road to most people):
To the drivers who sit in the overtaking lane...it's an over taking lane, you are only supposed to be in it if you are overtaking something, if the left hand lane is clear, PULL OVER, especially if you are going slower than the car behind you. Just because there is a long line of cars in front of you all not overtaking something, doesn't mean that you should be doing the same, they should be pulling over too. The only time that I will agree that it is acceptable to be in the middle or right hand lanes when you are not overtaking something is when there is a junction/sliproad ahead and you are moving across in case there is a car coming down the ramp to join the carriageway.
Drivers pulling out in front of me on the carriageway, that space I left wasn't for you to squeeze into, that was my safety zone, I always try to give more space in front of my car, just in case. You pulling into that space means I have less space in the event of an accident. This is compounded by you pulling out in front of me and carrying on at the same speed that you were going before, pull out and speed up, quit pootling!
It's foggy day, I have my lights on, I can see other cars that have their lights on too, nice! But wait a minute, there's a silver car going the other way with no lights on and the hammer down. Seriously? Its foggy, you can't see anything clearly and you're in a silver car, you may as well be invisible, PUT YOUR LIGHTS ON!
Do you want me to open my boot (trunk for any Americans out there) so you can get a little bit closer? Drivers that ride the back end of my car are likely to get a little bit of a shock as I am prone to tapping the breaks sometimes just to shake them back a little. I know it's not the safest thing for me to do and trust me I'll pull over if I can, but if you are that close to the back end of my car, maybe you need the shock to make you drop back a little.
Doing other things while you are driving is foolish! Chatting on your phone is ok if you are hands free, but if not, don't answer your phone. Don't text, email, play games on your phone either.
Don't smoke while you are driving, that's probably the worst thing in my mind. Imagine you're driving along the open road, taking a drag of your cigarette, nice and relaxed. But then you drop the cigarette, you don't know where it's gone, you start to panic, frantically looking around for it, not paying attention to the road, you feel something burning against your leg, you start to hop around in the car, brushing your hand under your leg and BAM you hit a tree/wall/other car/pedestrian.
Eating/drinking while you're driving, I'm ok with this as long as you've prepared things and you're not having anything hot. By prepared I mean that you have previously (while at a stand still) opened up what you want to have and it's sat next to you, or you have someone in the passenger seat next to you offering you what you are after. Remember though to take your rubbish with you, not chuck it out the window.

So many things I could rant about, but I don't want to have another downer post, I promise the next post will be full of nice things and rainbows

P

One of "those" days

Yesterday I was having one of those days...

Everything started off ok, I managed to have a nice lay in, I got a couple of things done that I'd been meaning to do for a little while And I was getting ready to sort out the last couple of thing in the morning, including a quick trip to the shops to get some things for lunch. It was my turn to cook for my mum (we take it in turns on Sundays)
I get my shopping list, my wallet and my phone, and I left the flat, as I pulled the door shut, I suddenly though about my keys, which I knew were still sat on the table...brilliant!
So I had managed to lock myself out
I have a spare set of keys that I had been meaning to give my mum for a while, but they were also still inside.
The other set of keys were up in Staffordshire with the girlfriend who was visiting her parents this weekend.
So there I am, silently swearing to myself, I had a quick look around the building to see if I'd been sensible enough to leave a window open, but I am security conscious and everything was shut or open just a tiny fraction, enough to let some air in, but not enough to be able to open up the window properly and climb in.
Bugger!
So a quick text to the girl to let her know of my situation and then I call my mum who live 15 minutes walk away:
"Morning mum, have you got anything in for dinner?" knowing full well that my mum has her fridge so full that you have no idea what's in there
"No, it's your turn to cook"
"Oh, well funny story, I've locked myself out, so I'm walking around to yours now"
"Ok, well we can pop around the corner to the shop and get something for lunch then"
Really? Pop around the corner...she always has loads in, but apparently nothing for dinner...
Anyway, I get there and we go out around to the shop. And in this time I hear from the girlfriend who had been having a nice lay in that she would be heading back later after her dinner and should be home mid to late afternoon.
"I should've given you the money and you could've gone on your own" My mum is in her 70's and although she cycles most every day, she doesn't drive and rarely walks anywhere. She's also a good foot shorter than me, and I walk with a reasonable pace.
"Well why don't you head back and I'll get everything and come back and cook"
"No, we're almost there now" We're no, we weren't even half way at this point, but my mum is stubborn (like me)
In the shop I grab a few things and I ask her, have you got this and have you got that, her response was always "no I don't think so, so get some" I sent her off to find something for pudding and she came back with an ice-cream dessert that would feed 4-6 people and some jam tarts. I also pick up a loaf of bread that I know I needed (there is a point to me telling you that I promise).
We get home and as I'm starting to put a few things away, I spot mushrooms in her fridge, we had just bought some of these, onions, we had just bought some of these, a cucumber, we had just bought one of these..you see where I'm going with this?
Anyway I also manage to knock something out of the fridge and that hits the floor and breaks, sending it contents spraying of tomato pasta sauce over the front of the fridge, the floor, cupboard doors and my socks. I get down and, again not paying attention, I kneel in some as I'm trying to clean up the rest, giving me a nice red blotch on my clean(ish) jeans.
I crack on and cook dinner, that went pretty well, I only spilled a couple of things out of the pan, but they were solids so I could pick them up easy enough.
We have pudding, the ice cream dessert that had to be put in the fridge rather than the freezer because the freezer was as full as the fridge, so it's a little soft, but it hits the spot. There's only the two of us though and so we have half the pudding, leaving the other chunk in the fridge (still no room in the freezer)
We potter about a bit
I helped out in the garden a little bit
I got given some rhubarb
We watch a little TV
I check my phone and see a text from the GF, thinking it's a message saying that she's set off and what time she will be back, but no, it's a message to say that her lunch was going to be late and she'd be home a little later.
No problem, I am fine with this, but I'm also sitting there thinking, we're going out tonight, I've not had a shower yet, and it's a hot day, I'm starting to melt.
When she does get back it's just after 6, I've been out of the house for over 7 hours, I hadn't managed to feed my tortoise and I knew she would be sulking, I also still needed my shower. Turns out so does the GF who had only remembered that we were going out about half an hour before she arrived back at mine.
I start to get my bread and head out the door from my mum's, when she turns around and says don't forget this, and hands me a bag of mushrooms, cucumber and onions, along with the rhubarb that we'd got from her garden, all things that I didn't need that she said she didn't have while we were in the shop.
I get back to mine and get in the house and then have to turn things around pretty quick to get back out the house and head over to our friends for the evening. we were late, but that's ok
we had a great night though and it more than made up for the irritation of being locked out for the whole day and then having to rush about a bit before going out.

Open letter to cyclists

Dear Cyclist,

I want to commend you on not only keeping fit, but also on reducing your carbon footprint and getting out in the open doing so. You are putting me to shame with your cycling everywhere.

As a mark of respect, I promise to uphold the following principals while driving:

• I will always give you plenty of room, having cycled along some busy roads myself, I know just how daunting, dangerous and scary it can be when someone in their car goes screaming past you doing "the speed limit" (yeah right) and doesn't give you enough room;
• I will always defer the right of way to you where it it your right of way, I will not pull out of a junction in front of you on the basis that you are a cyclist and I am in a car, therefore I'll be safe and faster than you;
• I will wait a sensible distance behind you until there is an appropriate time to overtake you, I will not be right behind you and I will not squeeze past you, I also agree not to sit there revving my engine behind you in a frustrated and intimidating manner

These are only a few simple things that I promise to do around you.

However, I will make this deal providing you, as a mark of understanding, will also make the following concessions:

• Traffic lights are there for all road users to obey, if it's red, you will stop at the lights and wait until they turn green again, or you can get off your bike and use the crossing like a pedestrian
• Wear a helmet, I am encased in a metal shell, I know that it might not save me if I'm unfortunate enough to have a major accident, however if I am on a bicycle, there is a much higher risk of injury, I have broken my wrist twice, both times because I fell off my bike, fortunately I had my helmet on though, so it was only my wrist
• Wearing HiVis is a great move in the daytime as well as in the evening/night
• Use lights, in my car, I will be pulled over by the Police and at the very least be told off for not having working lights, however, then number of cyclists I see who rely on the street lights and the lights of a car being enough to be seen astounds me. Little flashing lights are ok, but they are not a replacement for a good steady beam. A head torch is not a good substitute, because when you move your head, you move the light too
• Lead by example, if you are out cycling with your children and you make them wear a helmet, you have to be wearing yours as well. Imagine there is an accident, little Jimmy has his helmet on and escapes with a broken wrist, but you didn't have yours on, so now little Jimmy has on daddy to go out on his bike again
• If you are in a group, please cycle in single file, riding two abreast serves to infuriate the driver behind you and they might not be me, they might not be patient, they might squeeze past you at the wrong moment, causing an accident.
• Use cycle paths if they are there, they have been specially made for you as a cyclist, use them, they are safer than the roads that's for sure

I live in Oxford, there are a lot of clever people in Oxford, there are a lot of cyclists in Oxford, therefore it's fair to assume that there are a lot of clever people on bikes. But driving around, you wouldn't believe that half of the time.

As a driver, I will keep my word, here's to hoping that you, as a cyclist, will enter into this deal with me.

over a year

It's not a record, but it's also not great, but it's been over a year since I last put anything on here...so maybe it's time I started again

Many things have changed

Some things have stayed the same

But like with any new page, everything is clean and fresh, so it's time to start again

I will be back, especially as I have control over all my blogs again, old and new alike, all in one place.

I doubt I will be adding to the really old one, the last time I blogged there was 2009 and so many things have changed since then. But I like having it there, it serves as a nice reminder of things from back then and I'm not going to be removing or editing pages from it. You can't erase the past, no matter how much you might want to.

So this is my blog, it's personal to me
The opinions herein are mine and only mine, if you don't like them, that is your choice, you are entitled to your opinion as much as I an entitled to mine

If, and that is a big if, I go into detail about things with people that you might or might not know, I will not be putting their names here, and if you want to comment, which you are more than welcome to do, I would expect you to keep to these rules as well

Right, seeing as I am at work and I should actually be working, I'd best sign off for now