50+ and proud of it.

Well it's 2 3rd Dec ember and I'm still holding my breath. However, there was a *slight* disaster Friday - I upgraded my m otherboard and of course that w as the end of that. To cut a very long story short, I had to break the R AID array , format the hard drive and reload the OS (ag ain). Still, on the pos iti ve side, I got rid of a load of cr*p that was on the drive sin ce about 1998. If only I can remember the email passwords...

Heard on Radio Kent this morning: "I had a bottle of Salad Cream that had gone off. I checked the Sell By Date and it was the 21st Dec 2012. It must have been Mayannaise instead" Boom Boom !

I knocked on my son's bedroom door the other day. "Um, I'll only say this once, but your car's MOT runs out in a few weeks, can you book it in please?" Time passes. "Hello Dad, my car passed the MOT. I paid for it myself." I had to confess to partaking i n a glass of wine and a sit down.

Last weekend I got two red cards from the Post office - "We have something for you!" (No shit, Sherlock, isn't that what the Post Office does?). Anyway, ignoring the fact that I *was* in on Saturday and that the Postie probably wrote the card before ringing the door bell in an upmarket version of Knock-Down-Ginger , I ventured to the main Post Office this morning. I parked in one of the "½ hour" parking places and walked the 100 yards to the Post Office. The queue was out of the door. And along the wall. And down the side of the main building. It was 07:59. I was 14th in the queue. I know - I counted. It is, of course, the run up to Christmas and it seems the entire population of the town has ordered presents from eBay or Amazon. We all stood in the queue, staring silently at our feet or the Town Hall opposite, occasionally glancing at each other in the queue and mostly looking at the elderly chap at the front of the queue. There was no sign of the man behind

Last August I thought it wise to inform the Pension Service that my mother had moved into residential care and therefore (amongst other things) wasn't eligible for her winter fuel allowance. *ring* *ring* - press a load of "1"'s and "2"'s - and eventually... "Hello, how can I help?" "Yes, my mother's moved into care and I just..." "Sorry, who are you?" "I'm her son and I just wan..." "Sorry, can't speak to you, Data Protection and all that." "I have Power Of Attorney (so bloody well listen mate)" "Sorry" "No, just listen please, she's changed her address and I..." "Ah, please send in the POA. Bye" Right. I sent off POA with a covering letter about her change of circumstance, my winter fuel concern and 'please send all correspondence to me', amazingly enough, get the POA back within 24 hours. My sister rang me up a few days a