Sunday 12th December 2010

You know that lovely old rhyme “Thirty days hath September, April, June and all the rest; except November – which seems to have about Forty, and December – which seems to have about Eighteen” … yeah; that one.

December seems to go twice as fast as the other months, doesn’t it?  At least I managed to get my Christmas cards done yesterday though.  Took all of 14 minutes.  I have no friends.  This is the only time of year I’m actually grateful for that.

Anyway: what else has happened this week?  Did I tell you about my printer?  When I first started writing, I reckoned I’d need a printer, so went to PC World of Confusion and a young boy in an ill-fitting suit and scuffed plastic shoes – I expect you know the one I mean – sold me an HP (H-useless Packof–) one.  It was half price.  It didn’t take me long to realise why …

One of the reasons I’m so poor is because I have to keep feeding it cartridges.  It’s hooked (like Holly Barton on Emmerdale), and craves a new one almost every week.  As soon as it gets its fix, it just wants more (like Holly Barton on Emmerdale).  In an effort to feed its habit, I’ve had to give up on branded cartridges and look for alternatives.  I found a dealer (like Moira Barton on Emmerdale), on eBuy gum, and that’s worked ok for a while, but I think I’ve been stitched up and that they forgot to actually put the ink in the last few I’ve had, so – in desperation – I was drawn to Amazone’s seductive offer of a colour cartridge for £9.99.

I fed it nervously into HP’s hungry mouth, but it just clunked and spewed out a tiny blue photo.  I saw red – no, blue.  I felt blue.  No, red: with rage.  I was trying to print out a REALLY, REALLY urgent compliments slip to send out to someone with a copy of my book, but there was no way I could send that, so after a few choice words by email to the supplier (and demanding a refund), I did what I should have done 6 months ago … cried. No … well, yes, but after that, I went straight back onto Amazone and bought a whole brand new Kodak printer for the same price as two HP colour cartridges!

I ordered it on Friday afternoon, and even with all the snow and traffic chaos of last week, it still arrived on Monday morning.  How impressive is that?

“Does it work ok?” you ask. Er, I don’t actually know yet!  I’ve had such a busy week I haven’t even opened the box, but I’m confident it’ll be ok.  I’m hoping to do it tomorrow.

As I write, I’ve got my Christmas toones file playing on my iTunes.  Nice, isn’t it?  Very relaxing.  ‘There’s no place like home for the holidays‘ by Perry Como’s one of my favourites.  Do you like that one?  Oh, and I play the Carols and Capers album by Maddie Prior and the Carnival Band about 200 times during December!  It’s just so ‘Oooh’.

Don’t you just love Christmas lights?  Want to see some?  Course you do.  Here’s the tree at the Outlet Shopping Centre near my office. I can see it from my office window too.  I’ll be sorry when they take it down after Christmas.

Talking of shopping: there’s a nice Garden Centre just outside Cirencester. I popped there on Friday just to quickly pick up a jar of the lemon curd I like, but it somehow managed to turn into a crisis.   I’d decided to get a couple of Christmas presents while I was there too, but spent so long agonising over what to get that the lemon curd went past its sell-by date. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

And talking of lights … cyclists.  When I’m driving to my office at about 6.30 am in the really dark dark of a winter morning, I regularly encounter (but only at the last second, just as I’m almost about to drive over the top of them) men on bikes, dressed head to toe in black and with no lights front or back.

It’s bad enough that most of the cars in Swindon drive with half their lights out (see last week’s post!), but I truly wonder what’s in these mens’ minds when they set off each morning.  If a car ran one of them over, the driver would get the blame, yet it’s surely tantamount to having a death wish to be on a bike dressed all in black, with no lights, in the pitch black, isn’t it?

Don’t ever say I don’t try to be a good citizen though, yet my helpful cries of  “Have you got a death wish or something?” seem to go almost completely unheeded.  They’ve probably got their iPods in and can’t hear anything either.  I don’t know why I bother sometimes.  And as for people who come off roundabouts without indicating … well, just don’t get me started!

Gosh, is that the time?  I have to go.  I’ve got my Christmas present to wrap.  I want to get it done today so that I’m not worried about running out of time.  It’s only 13 sleeps till Christmas now you know?

Couldn’t let you go without a photo of duck and chook though. Here they were on Wednesday morning hoping to get into the house again.  All the water in their bowl was frozen, so I’d just poured some more on top and they were just having a little drink.  Aren’t they cute?  The sheep were all huddled up together against the hedge too as I took this photo, yet as the sun came out and the ice melted away later that morning, they all got up and had a wander around the field.  Bless.

Hey; I took a video in the Garden Centre.  I’ve just remembered. I wonder if I can upload it onto here for you to see?  I’ll try now.  Hang on …

If it works it’ll be fun.  I’m doing it right now.  IMG_0236 OMG, it’s worked!  Check it out.  This is from the Garden Centre yesterday.  How they manage to train them to do that is amazing, isn’t it?

Don’t forget: you can comment if you like, or if you enjoy my weekly ramble, you might like to tell your friends about it.  Ooh, ta.  And remember too, that you can follow me on Twitter if once a week isn’t already more than enough for you!

Lastly: remember too, that a Poinsettia is just for Christmas – not for life – unless you were in Tesco at 6.30 am Saturday 11th December, when it wasn’t even that.  There wasn’t a single one in the whole place.  I thought at first that they’d just put them somewhere else, but they hadn’t.  That surprised me.  They should have ordered them from Amazonia!  Still; tomorrow’s another day … and so is Tuesday.

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