Drama King

Wheels have turned and, as you would expect, things have happened.

Some good ... some bad!

I can report that the road outside my house has, at last, been resurfaced and white lines have been painted at the junctions!

If it hadn't been so cold outside, we would have been tempted to hold an impromptu street party in celebration.

One thing that was celebrated (with a can of lager) was the completion of repair work on our garage roof.
The old roof ... described by the roofers as 'Weetabix' because of the way it crumbled ... was stripped away and new boards were laid on Thursday. On Friday it was sealed with a fibreglass resin which, surprise-surprise, both cats promptly walked through, necessitating some frantic and, for my part, painful paw-cleaning.

On the plus side, it means that the cracked wall can now dry out and be repaired. On the negative side ... it cost me two thousand pounds!

Actually, now that I think of it, they were the only two good things, except that I got paid at the end of the month.

Bad things have also happened.

Some things have pissed me off.

Some have had me fuming.

Others have made me sad.

But I am a roughie-toughie ex-soldier and I have to stand firm in the face of adversity.

I have to be the strong, sensible voice of reason in this difficult time.

I must be a rock of stability in this time of crisis!

Or, as my wife would put it, I have to stop running around like a headless chicken.

Women!

What are they like?

They have no idea how hard it is being a man and even less sense of drama!

An Update and a Rogue E-Missive

"Don't eat the fish!" I said.

But did they listen?

No they bloody-well didn't!

I've been looking at an empty goldfish bowl for a week now.

I miss Rex and Sylvia!

So ... anyway ... things are moving!

Yes, I know the garage wall moves, if you give it a nudge, but that's not what I meant.

I mean, of course, that in the next few days we are hoping to have our garage roof repaired!

I can almost hear you all a-whoopin' an' a-hollerin' with delight! Believe me, it has been a long time coming. Not the whoopin' and hollerin'; I meant the repairs, although I welcome the whoopin' and hollerin' too.

At first there was the money issue, which was solved by a number of unsolved bank raids across the length and breadth of Wales. Then the weather conspired against us by being, as British weather tends to be, rather unpleasant. Now, the only obstacle is the roofer himself ... we have to wait until the end of the coming week for him to finish a job, then it's our turn.

Other news?

Well the only thing worth mentioning is the fact that I received a rather nasty email and, thinking it was from a relative, I opened it. Within the blinking of an eye Outlook had sent out over thirty emails to people in my contact list. It was only then that I realised that for some reason Norton had de-activated itself (everyone said "I didn't do it!" when I asked them if they'd turned it off).
From what I gather, once opened the reader would be asked to re-enter their email password to confirm something or other. Hopefully no one fell for this and deleted the email without giving out any secrets. To anyone who received one of those nasty little e-missives ... my humble apologies!

It will not happen again ... he said hopefully!

Blogging with the Speed of Light

I remember, as some of you no doubt do too, the days when a PC was a box with a slit in it and a monitor.

Those where the days of 700 odd megabytes of memory and no hard drive.

Days of constant disk swapping and slow processing which, never the less, made us proud because, back then, we were pioneers; we belonged to the few who ventured into new and promising future.

Now, having ditched the antiquated device which once masqueraded as my laptop, I have find myself once again at the cutting edge ... well, almost ... of home computing technology.

Please say hello to my new 2.7 Gigahertz Samsung!

Yes, yes.

I know you can't actually see it, but it is indeed there ... or here ... and performing like a dream.

47 second boot and ... hahahahahahahahaha! Sorry! I get excited! ... and I can access all the sites and do all the things that my old (deceased) laptop would not allow.

Happy?

Damned right I am!

So ... let's play catch, shall we?

The garage wall and roof:

Negotiations are underway for it's repair. It's going to be far more expensive that we first thought, but at least we are nearer to the job actually being done.
As for the wall ... we will wait for about six months to allow it to dry thoroughly before having it braced with steel rods.

The house roof:

I haven't mentioned this one yet, but we are getting that done too. Moss removed, guttering cleaned and firmly secured.

My car:

Well I have a new one, as I have already mentioned, but it is now mine ... ALL MINE!!!

The fence:

It's an on-going thing, I'm afraid. I have bought the remaining panels in order to complete the job, but the wind has saved me the trouble of removing the older panels by spreading them evenly (and in small pieces) throughout the neighbourhood.

Oh, there is so much more to tell and, no doubt one day I shall get around to reporting it all in detail.

But for now, I intend to try and find out how Windows 8 can piss me off even further.

It may (if reports from others are to be believed) be very good operating system but for an old DOS man like myself, it's going to be hard work.

Catch you later!