One Step Up

No More Sites

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:48:41 GMT

Are any Blogexplosion users having the same problem as me? Every time I surf to try and build up my credits I keep getting a message saying that there are no more sites to surf.

This morning when I got the message I checked my account stats and I had only surfed 64 sites. Surely there are more sites than that in rotation?

I have posted a message on the forum but so far have no solution.

Is it only me that's affected or is anyone else having the same problem?

Talk to you later,

Cuddly Polar Bear

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:21:53 GMT

Apparently a woman jumped into a polar bear enclosure at a Berlin zoo and was mauled.

To get into the enclosure she had to negotiate a fence, prickly hedges and a wall. That was one determined person wasn't it?

The question is, why did she want to get into the enclosure? Surely she didn't just want to cuddle the polar bear. I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to get anywhere near one of those things, I bet a playful tap from his front paw could take your head off!

This is a quote from a police spokesperson:

"The woman has proved herself to be careless by jumping into the enclosure," a police spokesperson said.

"Logic tells us that polar bears will do this type of thing in this situation."

You can read the story here.

I can't believe the stupidity of some people, can you?

Talk to you later,

Routines

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:25:42 GMT

Working in a town centre newsagents has enlightened me to the eccentricities of some of the regular customers.

There is one man who comes in and buys a Sun, Star, Northern Echo and Daily Mirror. He also buys Lottery, Thunderball and Euromillions tickets and without fail will hand over the same three playslips each time. Over time the playslips will get creased if you use the same ones all the time and the machine doesn't always read them properly. It might spit them out and say there are too many numbers picked or it may pick up an extra lucky dip - it's only a machine after all.

The lottery people brought out these Fast Pay tickets which we can make on the machine. All it is is a credit card sized ticket with a barcode on it which contains the exact same details as the playslips. These tickets are then put into a plastic holder which protects them and stops them getting marked or creased. The machine reads the barcode and produces the lottery ticket quicker than when we have to feed in a playslip.

Anyway, one day when this man handed over his playslips I asked him if he would like me to make him some Fast Pay tickets as they would be more convenient for him and for us but he said "no, I like to use these." So I explained that the Fast Pay tickets are exactly the same, they would have the same numbers on so he would get exactly the same tickets but he flatly refused saying "I like to keep to my own routine."

I didn't try to persuade him any more, he was obviously stuck in his ways. He happened to come in today and bought his usual Sun, Star, Echo and Mirror and he went to hand me his lottery playslips. He started getting annoyed with the playslips and said to them "just go in the right place." I didn't know what he was talking about but I watched what he was doing with them. Instead of just handing me them he had to have them in a particular order and spread like a fan! One of them obviously wouldn't go exactly how he wanted it and he was getting annoyed that it was spoiling his little routine!

Don't you think that's a little bit obsessive?

There is another man that comes in and he is just as bad. Every day he buys a Sun, a packet of cigarettes and a carrier bag. The trouble is he won't buy them all at once, you have to do it in three seperate transactions. It's quite a busy shop so you can imagine how annoying it is for us and the other customers who are waiting when we have to serve him three times.

One day I tried to get him to buy them all at once and when he put his paper on the counter to pay for it I asked him "are you getting your cigarettes today as well?" he said "I'll get them in a minute - I'll pay for this first", at least I think that's what he said.

Why? What's the point of me having to do three seperate transactions? It's always going to be the same price - �5.81 - but no, he can't pay for it all at once. First of all he buys the paper, 30p. Then he buys the cigarettes - �5.50. Then he has to buy his carrier bag - 1p. Meanwhile the queue is getting longer and longer and to make matters worse he starts talking to me which wouldn't be so bad but he has a speech impediment and I haven't got a clue what he's saying to me. The only reason I know he's asking me for cigarettes and a carrier bag is because he buys the same things EVERY SINGLE DAY.

He obviously has to keep to the same routine or else the bloody world will come to an end!

There's another man who comes in the shop every morning at 6 o'clock on the dot. He waits outside the shop for it to open and if it's not open when the clock strikes 6 he starts looking at his watch and peering through the door and he gets all agitated because the door isn't open.

The saddest part is that he doesn't go to work. He has no reason to be up that early in the morning to buy his papers other than it being his daily routine. He's got all day but he has to be at the shop at 6 o'clock without fail. It's crazy!

Are there people like that in every town or is it just Darlington?

I hope I don't ever get like that, stuck in a routine. Can you imagine how stressful it must be having to make sure everything is done exactly the same way or at exactly the same time every day? Life's too short to be so obsessive.

Talk to you later,

My Bicycle

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:34:51 GMT

I only use my bike one day a week and that's Wednesday when I have a 6am start, the rest of the week I walk to and from work.

Last week when I was riding to work I noticed that I was having to pull the brake lever right back as far as it would go before the brakes were working. I assumed that the brake blocks had worn down and needed replacing but when I checked them they looked OK.

Billy had a look and said the cable probably just needed adjusting.

Of course I never did anything about it but as today is Tuesday and I'll be using the bike again in the morning I thought I'd better get it sorted out.

I have never adjusted the brakes on a bike before so I had no idea what to do. The first place I looked for help was YouTube where I found this useful video:

How easy was that?

So when I go to work tomorrow hopefully my brakes will be as good as new. I must remember not to pull the lever too hard - I don't want to stop too quickly and go sailing over the handlebars do I?

On a different subject, I'd just like to say well done to Michael Parkinson for saying what I and a lot of other people have been saying for weeks. No doubt he'll be slammed by all the people that thought Jade was some kind of saint but it makes a change to finally hear somebody talking sense for a change.

Talk to you later,

She Just Can't Reverse Her Car

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:37:56 GMT

I was sitting in the front room this morning when I heard a noise from outside. I looked out and saw the woman from across the road getting out of her car which was half out of her drive. I watched her go to the back of her car and pick up a large rock which was on the road behind her car.

There are grass verges outside our houses and some people put rocks on them to prevent people from parking on them. It just happens that the woman over the road has them on her verge and she had managed to reverse into one of them as she was coming out of her drive, goodness knows how as she would have had to steer her car onto the grass to get it.

I watched her put the rock back onto the verge then get back into the car. She then pulled forward through her gates and tried two or three times to reverse it out. Her drive is at 90 degrees to the road so why was she having such a problem? She was getting closer and closer to the gatepost each time she tried to back the car out. She then managed to hit the gatepost, scraping the door along it so she pulled back in. She then got out of the car and had a look at the damage to the door.

Then she got her bag out of the car, closed the door and locked it up. She then set off walking down the street. I can't believe that she couldn't get the car out of the drive - she just had to come straight back and keep the wheels in a straight line. I took a sneaky photo so you can see how much room she had:

Look at the gap between the car and the gateposts!

Anyway, about an hour later she returned and the fun started again. I picked up my little voice recorder that I use to record things that I think I might use on my blog (it's quicker than writing it in a notepad) and made a running commentary on what she was doing.

I have to warn you that I was getting a bit annoyed watching her and I did swear a couple of times so I will apologise in advance for my bad language:

Powered by Podbean.com

I wish I had picked up the camcorder and recorded it, you wouldn't believe the performance she had trying to make what should have been such a simple manoeuvre.

I can only guess that she got her licence out of a Lucky Bag, or from the bottom of a Crackerjack box.

Talk to you later,

Mice In The Garden

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:47:57 GMT

I've got mice. I don't know how many there are but if I'm not careful I'll be overrun with them.

So I've taken measures to get rid of them - I bought some mousetraps. I didn't want to have to kill them but what else could I do? I have tried a humane trap before but it wasn't very effective as it took so long to catch them and a couple of times they actually managed to escape from it.

Every night I put out a couple of traps - this is my tally so far:

I wonder how many more there are.

I'm sorry I have to kill the little mice but I don't want to risk them getting into the house - I've heard that they can chew through electrical cable and cause fires.

Talk to you later,

Blogexplosion Is Revived

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:00:16 GMT

For a while Blogexplosion went right down the pan but now it's on the up again.

I submitted a trouble ticket to them months ago but never received a reply. I had forgotten all about it but then a couple of weeks ago I received a reply out of the blue. I visited the site and it seems there is new admin who are sorting it all out and bringing it back to life. They are doing a great job - it must be a huge task for them.

The last time I had visited the help forum it was full of spam but now all the spam has gone and the forums are active with real users again which is great news.

I submitted this blog and it was accepted and started receiving visitors straight away. All my credits were soon used up and now I can hardly keep up with it - as fast as I'm earning credits for surfing they are being used up! That's a good thing though as it means that plenty of people are surfing.

So if you want to find some new blogs to read and maybe gain some new readers of your own blog, why not sign up yourself?

I must go now - I need to do some more surfing at Blogexplosion.

Talk to you later,

In With The In Crowd (Or Not)

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:03:29 GMT

I was never one of the popular ones when I was at school. I wasn't in with the in crowd. You know the ones I mean, the girls with the perfect hair, perfect skin and perfect clothes - the girls that all the boys fancy. I was just a scruffy ragger who none of the in crowd bothered with.

You know in PE when the teams are picked? Well I was always one of the last ones to be picked, I don't think I was ever the last but I was one of the ones they had to choose just to make the numbers up. It wasn't because I was bad at sports, it was because I wasn't one of the in crowd.

It didn't bother me not being in with the in crowd because I didn't really like most of them. They always seemed like stuck up snobs to me.

Anyway, in PE we had to do 'cross country' where you had to run a designated route outside of school. We went out of the school gates, ran the route we were given and came back - that was our 'cross country'.

I could never understand why the in crowd girls were always back first. I used to think that as well as everything else they were good at running too. I came to the conclusion that I must be crap at running as they always beat me.

It was only a few years ago when I discovered the Friends Reunited website that I found out the truth. One of the in crowd girls wrote about things that they used to do at school and she mentioned the cross country. She said they used to take a short cut through the grounds of the nearby convent.

After all these years I have found out how they all managed to get back before me. THEY CHEATED. Those bitches! I bet they used to have a good laugh at me for running the full route and getting back to the school completely knackered. How stupid was I for not realising what was going on?

The worst part is knowing that I was so far outside of their little circle of friends that they couldn't even let me in on their secret. BITCHES.

Am I bitter? Yes I am!

Talk to you later,

Strange, Creepy Man

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:41:26 GMT

There's a creepy man that comes into our shop every day. The shop is in the town centre and opens at 6am and he is alway wandering around at that time. He doesn't work and he's not homeless so why is he roaming about?

He's a big, plump man and always wears a dirty beige coat, workmans Rigger boots and a woolly hat. He always has a bag over his shoulder.

He comes in the shop every morning to buy a pint of milk and a bag of crisps. He also buys sweets which he always says in his loud, booming voice are "for the kiddies." Which kiddies? The first time I heard him say it I immediately thought he was some kind of pervert and the more I hear what he has to say the more I'm convinced that there's something not right about him.

One of the lasses was pregnant and one day before she went on maternity leave he came in and started talking to her about abortion and the bible. Then he went into his bag and fished out a toy dinosaur and said to her "do you want this for the baby?" Of course she said no. But doesn't it make you wonder why he has these toys in his bag? Is he using the sweets and toys to try and entice children?

He was in the other morning and while I was getting his change out of the till he said "there are some terrible things happening in the world now - eleven year old girls having sex." I didn't answer him, I couldn't believe that he'd said it. Then he said "I'm a virgin. I'm 63 years old and still a virgin and I'm proud of it."

I just handed him his change and turned away.

Yesterday he was in and said "when you've been alive before you were born you learn to love little girls and respect women." The woman behind him in the queue said after he'd gone that he gave her the creeps and that it was a weird thing to have said, which it was.

He often says that he loves little girls. He's creepy. We all think he's creepy.

Do you think we are all reading to much into this or do you think he's just a sad old man with some sort of mental problem?

We never make conversation with him, all the things he says are voluntary - he just comes out with them. We never know what he's going to say next.

Maybe we should report him to the police but what would be the point? He hasn't done anything wrong, at least that we know of, so they aren't going to do anything just because we think he's creepy are they?

Somebody did say that he entices children with sweets so he can talk to them about the bible but I don't know if that's true or not. If I was a child I would be scared of him - he's so big and has such a loud voice.

I just hope he isn't doing anything untoward. It does make me wonder though, when he buys his sweets and says "I'm going to see the kiddies now."

Talk to you later,

A Cold, Wet Nose

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:03:28 GMT

I was awoken this morning by a cold, wet nose which was nudging my elbow. I looked at the clock - twenty past six.

"Oh, Floss. It's my day off, can't I have a lie in?"

Obviously not. She started whinging as if to say "come on, get up! I need to go out."

So I got out of bed, put my dressing gown on and went downstairs to let this poor dog out into the garden as she was obviously desperate for a pee. Yeah, right.

She sniffed about a bit then decided to lie down with her nose stuck up in the air and her eyes shut, enjoying the early morning breeze.

Thanks a lot, Floss.

I couldn't stay mad at her though, well how can you be annoyed with this face?

This is the 'please choose me' face that we saw at the rescue centre the day we decided to take her home with us. It works every time.

There was no point in going back to bed so I made my breakfast and turned the laptop on to check my emails and visit blogs like I do every morning.

After I'd showered I took Floss for a walk then when I got back I did a pile of ironing that I really should have done on Sunday but couldn't be bothered to.

Then I got the Hoover out and vacuumed all through the house - those dog hairs get everywhere.

At ten to one I left the house to make my one o'clock hairdresser's appointment, it's only a short walk so I was a few minutes early.

I always go to the same place and ask for the same girl to cut it. She now knows exactly how I like it cut - short, nothing fancy just short. I can't be bothered messing about with my hair on a morning so I like to have it short. I once grew it long, way down my back and it took ages to sort it out. I have greasy hair so I have to wash it every morning or else it just looks..... greasy.

It used to take about half an hour to blow dry it then all I did was tie it back. In the end I decided just to get it all cut off and I've kept it short ever since.

A couple of years ago when this girl cut my hair I think she was having a bad day and she went really overboard with it - she practically scalped me. I vowed never to go to her again for a haircut so the next time it needed cutting I made an appointment elsewhere. Big mistake.

The girl who cut my hair didn't seem to understand how I wanted it cut and I ended up with virtually a mullet. I was not happy, especially as I was charged nearly twice what I normally pay.

I got home and could have cried when I realised the full extent of the damage. So I took matters (and the scissors) into my own hands and tried to make it look better. It did look a little bit better by the time I'd finished but you could tell that it hadn't been 'professionally' cut.

People kept telling me I should have gone back to the hairdresser and demanded that she put it right. Oh yeah, right. After what she'd done in the first place do you think I was going to let her anywhere near my hair with a pair of scissors? Not a chance.

So since then I've always gone back to my original hair dresser even though I had vowed not to - I'd rather be nearly scalped than have a mullet any day. She's never gone mad with the clippers apart from that one time so I won't complain about her again.

When I came home I picked a few Daffodils from the garden as they were wilting a bit. I thought they would look better in a vase than lying flat against the ground outside and they do add a bit of colour to my mantlepiece.

Anyway, that's been my day so far. Don't you wish you had a life as exciting as mine is?

Talk to you later,

A Certain Person

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:10:59 GMT

If ~~that long streak of piss~~ a certain person tries to be clever with me the next time I have to work with her I will not bite my tongue - I will tell her exactly what I think of her.

This is the one who claims she used to be a model, who thinks all she has to do is to stand behind the counter looking pretty (some hope). It's not my fault that our new boss made her clean the shelves.

Just let her start with me again.

That's just about all I've got to say about that (for now).

It seems that I was wrong about Jade Goody when I said her cancer was just a big publicity stunt. Sadly, as you probably know, she lost her battle with the disease yesterday morning. It's terrible that someone so young (she was only 27) should be taken like that, leaving behind two young sons.

That said, can that now be an end to it? I'm not the only one who is sick of seeing her on the front pages of the newspapers and magazines. Do we have to wait until after the funeral until other stories take the front page?

I do hope we don't have to put up with the 'massive outpourings of grief' that we got when Princess Diana died. People die all the time. Why do so many people go overboard with grief and sorrow over people they didn't even know? Yes, it's sad but life goes on for goodness sake. I can understand the feeling of overwhelming loss over people that you are close to but not over people you've only seen on TV.

Maybe it's just me - I have been called cold hearted or hard hearted on more than one occasion. Personally I just call it being down to earth.

Talk to you later,

People

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:33:39 GMT

As I've mentioned before I work at a newsagents shop in the town centre. The longer I work there the more I realise that there's 'nowt so queer as folk'.

A lass came into the shop one day last week and said "can you change me this �5 note please?" To which I replied "I can't get into the till unless I sell something" which is perfectly true - there isn't a no-sale button. She stormed out and said "that's a f*cking con".

Why is it a con? It is a shop, the business of a shop is to sell goods - it is not a bank. She wasn't even a customer, she hadn't bought anything - just wanted change.

A young lad aged I would guess about fifteen came in and he asked for a packet of cigarettes. As you must be eighteen to buy cigarettes in this country I asked him if he had any ID, to which he replied "oh, I'll bring it next time" so I said "well I can't serve you without seeing your ID". He replied "well I'll show you it next time". I said "no, it's now that I need to see it" but he continued to argue. When the penny finally dropped that I really wasn't going to serve him he just said "it doesn't matter then" and went out in a huff.

Just this afternoon a girl came in and asked for 10 cigarettes. When I asked if she had any ID she said "I always get served here" so I told her I needed to see her ID. She argued with me saying "oh, come on - everybody else serves me". When I still refused to sell her any she just muttered something and stormed out. What's the point in arguing with me? Did she think I would suddenly have a change of heart and say "oh well that's OK, if everybody else serves you then so will I". I don't think so.

I'm sure they think we were all born yesterday. If they really are over 18 and carried some ID with them they could save themselves a lot of aggravation. They'll never learn.

Two young lasses maybe late teens or early twenties, both with pushchairs, came into the shop (which is a very small shop) bringing their pushchairs with them. There is hardly room for one pushchair, never mind two. Only one of them wanted to buy something but between them they managed to block the whole shop - nobody could get past them to get in or out. So one of them was buying a packet of chewing gum for 39p while the other one stood there and said "it's not very big this shop, is it?"

Talk about stating the bleeding obvious.

Are these people born without brain cells? Why didn't she wait outside the shop with the two pushchairs while her friend came into the shop for her chewing gum? Why did they both need to come in with the pushchairs? You don't need above average intelligence to work that one out do you?

The scary thing is that these people are producing offspring.

I really do have to bite my tongue sometimes.

The worst ones are those who are talking on their mobile phones. If I'm in the middle of a phone call and I'm going into a shop I finish the call before I go in. So many people do not. They come in with the phone clamped to there ear, totally oblivious to the fact that they are shouting and that everyone else can hear what they are saying. They come to the counter, still talking on the phone and don't even have the decency to acknowledge the person who's serving them. They hold the queue up because they can't concentrate on getting their money out - they are too busy talking.

One day when it was very busy and they were queueing to the back of the shop, there were three of them in the queue all talking loudly on their phones and I could hardly hear what customers were saying to me. I just wanted to scream "SHUT UP!" I couldn't concentrate and I could see that other customers were getting annoyed.

What has happened to manners? If my phone ever rings when I'm in a shop I either answer it and say "I'll phone you back, I'm in a shop" then hang up straight away or I go out of the shop and answer it. People don't seem to have any regard for others these days.

On a lighter note, yesterday for the first time this year I was able to take the dog for a walk without wearing a coat or a jacket! This is a very rare event, even last 'Summer' there weren't many days when we didn't need to wear jackets.

I realise that by the weekend the weather is forecast to be cold again but to be able to go out with no coat for that one day was bliss!

Talk to you later,

Spring Cleaning

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:20:25 GMT

I've made a start on the Spring cleaning today - I've done both the bedrooms. I've thrown clothes away that I don't want, don't wear, too big for me, too small for me, don't know why I bought them in the first place - got rid of them.

Everything's been tidied up and put away neatly, I've even dusted and polished which is a very rare event for me these days.

I've also shredded all sorts - bank statements, receipts, letters, payslips dating back to 2006.

Talking of shredding, there was a story on the local news a couple of weeks ago about a dog that put it's tongue in the shredder and it got shredded.

The owner of the dog and the shredder has called for manufacturers to change the design of the shredders and put a safety guard on to prevent things like this from happening. Well, I'm sorry lady but I don't agree. Why should the manufacturers have to spend money re-designing them because of your stupidity? You left the shredder on the floor unattended, set on automatic mode and your dog went to investigate it. If you had any sense you would have put the shredder where the dog couldn't get to it and you would have switched it off when you weren't using it.

Of course it's not your fault is it? It's the manufacturer's fault. It's not you who's to blame, it wouldn't be, would it?

That's the trouble nowadays, people won't accept responsibility for their own actions - blame someone else for their own carelessness

Happily the dog made a full recovery.

I've added my Bloglines reading list to the sidebar. I know there are quite a few on it but I will be removing some of them, those that haven't been updated for a while or that no longer interest me. If yours is one of the ones that I remove please don't be offended - it's nothing personal. Not that I think anyone on the list actually reads this blog.

I think I've got it set so that the most recently updated blogs are at the top, so the first ones have the freshest posts.

Talk to you later,

Green-Eyed Monster

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:11:51 GMT

I had to take Floss to the vets on Saturday for her annual booster injection.

When the vet examined her she discovered that Floss has a heart murmer but said it was nothing to worry about.

She then asked if she was having any problems so we told her that one of her eyes is sometimes moist . She said that Floss might have a blocked tear duct and she put some green dye in each eye. The dye is supposed to work it's way down and come out of the nostrils, if the tear duct is blocked the dye wouldn't come out of the nostrils. Fortunately the dye did come out of Floss' nose which means her tear ducts are clear.

The dye made the whites of her eyes green - she looked like David Banner before he transformed into the Incredible Hulk! By the time we'd got back home her eyes were back to normal and I couldn't take a photo to show you so I've improvised:

Well obviously it wasn't as bad as that but you get the idea.

Anyway, she had her injection and was given a clean bill of health so hopefully she won't be paying another visit to the Doggie Doctor until this time next year.

Talk to you later,

I Can't Believe This

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:57:29 GMT

I was reading the local paper today when I came across a short article about this:

This is a product called Egg In An Instant. Here's what the article says:

A new product is being launched for people too lazy to crack an egg.

Fresh liquid egg in a carton is made from 100 per cent pasteurised British Lion eggs, and contains an average of ten whole eggs per half litre.

Egg In An Instant is said to last up to 21 days unopened, and three days after first use. It will be available in free-range and non free-range forms.

Elwyn Griffiths from producer Oaklands Farm Eggs told The Grocer magazine: "We want to make it easier for people to eat in.

There is a massive student market out there, massively lazy, massively into convenience."

He hopes that retailers will stock the cartons in the fridge alongside fresh milk.

The product will be launched at the International Food and Drink Event in London next week.

Does anyone else think that this is the height of laziness? Surely it would be quicker and easier to crack an egg than to try and open one of those cartons.

What will they think of next? I thought it was bad enough when bags of grated cheese started to appear on supermarket shelves but ready-cracked eggs has to top that.

Talk to you later,

No Tea Today

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:27:04 GMT

My shift today was 11am - 5:30pm so I decided to make a corned beef stew in the slow cooker for tea. I have done this many times, it's so convenient to be able to leave it cooking while I'm at work and it's nice to be able to sit down for my tea as soon as I get home.

It's a very simple slow cooker, it doesn't have a timer or anything so I have one of those timer adapter things that you plug into the wall socket then plug the slow cooker into it.

I set the timer so that the cooker would switch on at 1pm, pressed the 'on' switch on the socket and went to work.

When I got home at 6 o'clock I expected to walk in the door to be greeted by the aroma of my cooking corned beef stew but I couldn't smell a thing. Something wasn't right. I put my hand on the slow cooker - not that I needed to - I could see through the glass lid and I knew it hadn't cooked, it was stone cold.

I checked to see if I had switched the plug on and I had, I knew I had because I could remember doing it. What I hadn't done was to set the timer switch to the current time. How stupid am I? The way I had it set it would have switched on at 3 o'clock tomorrow morning.

I was so looking forward to my corned beef stew but I had to settle for a cheese omelette instead!

Talk to you later,

A Very Useful Thing

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:36:31 GMT

When I started my job about ten months ago I bought myself a pushbike so that I can cycle to work when I have 6am starts. I don't think the buses are reliable enough at that time on a morning and there's no way I would walk there at that time so the best solution was a bike.

I hadn't ridden a bike for years and was a bit wobbly at first but my confidence has now grown and I'm not nervous of the traffic anymore.

One problem I have though is that when I have to check behind me to see if there are any cars coming when I want to pull out I tend to go slightly off course. I don't know why that is - maybe I'm still not confident enough. Anyway, I decided to buy a handlebar mirror to see if that would help me:

What a difference it has made. At first I felt a bit silly riding around with it sticking out of the handlebar but now I don't even think about it. I find that using the mirror is so much easier than looking back all the time and I don't go off course anymore. I'm also less tense when I'm riding because I can see what's coming up behind me all the time so I'm not startled by vehicles overtaking me.

The mirror wasn't expensive but it's the most useful thing I've bought for the bike. You'd have thought the most useful thing would be the high viz jacket that I bought to wear when I'm riding it but to be honest there are so many motorists who don't see me even when I'm wearing it that it doesn't seem to make any difference - it might as well be called an invisibility jacket!

I don't know what else I can do to make motorists see me apart from stick a great big neon flashing sign on my head announcing my presence. But even then I don't suppose some of them would notice me - I do wonder how some of them managed to pass their test in the first place.

Talk to you later,

My Dog, Floss

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:19:55 GMT

My dog is a Collie cross, we think she's a Collie/Staffy cross. We got her from the Dog's Trust at Sadberge in April 2001.

When we first brought her home she was hyper active, I think she was just so happy to have a new home. She had already been taken by two other people but they had both returned her to the kennels after a week because they couldn't cope with her. That is something we couldn't do. What chance did she have to settle down and get used to her new owner after just a week?

So we persevered with her and she's a perfect house dog now. She barks when anyone comes through the gate to warn them that this is her house. She's really a big softie and her bark is worse than her bite.

She loves being outside. I think Summer is her favourite season as she spends all day out in the garden, when it's dry that is!

It was nice and sunny this morning. I opened the back door and said to Floss "go and have a pee before I go to work", so off she went into the garden. She was gone for ages so I looked out of the back door and there was no sign of her.

I went into the back room to see if she'd sneaked back inside while I wasn't looking. When I glanced out of the patio windows this is what I saw:

That's Floss, laid on the decking in the sunshine. She just can't help herself, that's where she has to be!

It's a dog's life.

Talk to you later,

Am I Cynical And Heartless?

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:58:41 GMT

When it was first announced that Jade Goody had terminal cancer I didn't believe it, I was convinced it was all a big publicity stunt and that she would suddenly find some miracle cure. Let's face it, her popularity had faded a bit before the announcement was made hadn't it?

Then all the press announcements were made by her publicist, Max Clifford which also made me think that it was all a publicity stunt.

Well, sadly it seems that it isn't a stunt and that she really is dying of cancer. It must be a terrible thing to have to deal with and I'm sure she must be frightened, as I would be.

That said, do we have to have it splashed across the front pages of most of the papers practically every day? I work in a newsagents shop and that's all I see every day, 'that' story on every newspaper and a fair number of the magazines as well.

People who come in the shop are always commenting on how they are sick of hearing about it, some of them refuse to buy a newspaper with her on the front of it and will resort to buying the Daily Sport just so they don't have to see her on the front page.

Yes, it's sad but she is not the only person who has suffered from this terrible disease. Look at what happened to Wendy Richard. It was announced in the news some time ago that she was suffering from cancer and no more was said about it until her death was announced last week. She will be remembered as a talented actress - what will Jade Goody be remembered as?

One last thing, today one of the daily papers announced on the front page that a breakthrough cancer cure might have been found. My first thought was wouldn't it be a coincidence if Jade was the first one to be cured.

Yes, maybe I am cynical and heartless.

Talk to you later,

Waste Not, Want Not

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:18:17 GMT

As Billy works away from home most of the week my meals are usually things I've thrown together for convenience. It's usually omelettes or pasta with tuna or sausage, egg and chips but today I made something that I've never tried making before.

I had a bit of mince that needed using up and half an onion. I hate to waste anything so I thought to myself "what can I make with these?" Well, what else could I make but beefburgers. I mixed the mince and onion together in a bowl and added a beaten egg to bind it together. I divided it into three balls and flattened them and put them on a baking sheet, cooking them in the oven at 200c for about half an hour.

I think maybe I should have only used half of the beaten egg to bind the mince as they spread out a bit when I cooked them. I should also have added a bit of Worcestershire sauce to give them a bit of zing but all in all they came out OK.

This was the first time I had attempted making my own beefburgers and I wasn't following any directions, just guessing at what would work so I am feeling quite pleased with myself for ending up with something that actually resembled proper beefburgers.

I needed cheering up after what had happened earlier.

Talk to you later,