50+ and proud of it.

(ring, ring, ring) "Hello" "Hello, it's me 1 ! I just stabbed myself in the foot with a pair of hairdressing scissors!" "Umm, what did you want to go and do that for?" "Never mind why, shall I go and get a tetanus jab?" "Dunno, ring up NHS Direct and ask them" "Are you kidding, they'll just says 'Yes' to be on the safe side, and I've got better things to so than to wait hours on the phone waiting for someone to answer" "Your choice, it's your foot that's bleeding - why don't you ring up the local hospital 2 and ask them instead?" "Good idea. What shall I tell them?" "You could say that you decided that the stress of the Festive Season 3 has become too great and you decided to end it all by stabbing yourself in the foot - just in case you changed your mind later." "That's not helpful" 1 The Wife. 2 Minor Injuries Unit only... 3 Can't say "Chri...

Shit happens, as my friend used to say (sadly, he's dead now, but that is another story 1 ). Mr Ego drilled a hole in the wrong place for the handle on one of the small doors. "Don't worry" he says, I've ordered another one. A *large* parcel turns up some days later with a full height 600mm door. I ring MFI (again). "Err, there's a parcel here with the wrong door in it" "Why did you order that one then sir?" "Eh? I didn't order it, it was the fitter he... Never mind, can you send me another door?" "Why do you want another 600m door, when it's wrong?" "No. I want another door to replace the one that's got the hole in the wrong place" "Oh, What door is that then?" "The small 'on the wall cupboard' door' that's only 450mm high!" "We don't make that one" "WTF? Look at the sales order woman, I ordered four small cupboards!" "Oh they're...

So the "man" turns up last Monday armed with a screwdriver and a large ego and starts to fit the kitchen. He decides that because I've not paid him to do the plumbing for the sink, he's going to fit the sink unit such that it's impossible to get to the pipe-work behind; and he knows that the dishwasher infeed hose won't reach the appliance tap under the sink... I got him back by going to MFI and asking them supply me with the shelves which he's taken away with him because there's no place for them. Well, they're my shelves, I want to throw them away, not him. I eventually re-do the pipework and fit the dishwasher, outside tap spur and new monobloc tap using "speedfit" flexibles. I should at this juncture point out that the new kitchen saga all began because the old taps dripped. The new tap dripped. I take the tap back to B&Q and ask for a refund under Sales Of Goods Act - not fit for purpose. Much to my amazement, I get a full ref...

So we've got this new kitchen on order from MFI and decide to buy the sink from B&Q (Gillingham). (We liked the colour or something). Now B&Q bless 'em, put a list of other "stuff" to get when you buy a sink. On the shelf it says "you need Packs A, B & C 1 " - which we duly purchase. Pack "B" is the complex double-sink pipework that you need to get it all to drain away through Pack "C" - the bottle trap. We go home. After three... "oh the leg bone is connected... etc etc" and after 20 minutes it's obvious that Pack "B", part F32 does not in anyway shape or form connect to Pack "C", bottle trap. My wife reads a label on the sink hidden behind the Leopard 2 that says "You need Packs A, B & D". We decide go to Herne Bay for a day out and on the way back, drop into B&Q (Herne Bay). To pick up Pack D and meet an old 3 man in a B&Q suit who claims to be a plumber:- "Sorr...

It's like this. The weather stays dry for 2 weeks - they come and put up the sides and they find that the specialised roof hasn't turned up from the makers as it should - and of course it rains overnight. So all that lovely sun-drying has come to naught... Bugger. I woke up at 3:00am to hear the rain pouring down. "Don't worry" I think, "I can always sweep it out in the morning" The 3:04 paranoia sets it... "Hang on! The doors are fitted, is really is like a swimming pool now, it could potentially get to six feet deep! Don't be silly, it can't rain that much! Ah, but, there's a hole where the sparky has drilled through the wall to put the ring-main. My God! If it gets that high it'll be all over the living room. Quick get up and open the doors...". And so and so forth in a similar vein. Fortunately, I fall asleep. I awake to find about 1mm in puddles on the floor. The men arrive. "Hello, don't worry, the lad will dry i...

I came home from work today (in the dark) to find that the conservatory was completely erected. "Odd" I thought, "I understood that it was going to take at least 3 days." I got the keys and went inside to have a look, was very impressed and went back indoors. "Nice isn't it?" asked the wife. "Yup, it's damn cold though, I though all that double-glazing was supposed to hold the heat?" "Well, they'll be back tomorrow though" "Why" "They haven't put the roof on yet..."

I am ashamed to admit that I trusted what my eldest son told me. Short version: Letter from Police about speeding, "It wasn't me" "Are you sure?" "Yes, really wasn't me, I was sh***ing my girlfriend at the time." "Ok, I'll write a nice solicitor sounding letter" ...time passes... (ring) (ring) "It's the Police, (blah) Peverting the course of justice (blah) Video evidence (blah) Lose license (blah)" "Um, it was me really" Funnily enough, I went very quiet. I am really, really, really f*'ing annoyed with the little twat. Not for speeding, we've all done that haven't we chaps?, but for lying to me...

I certainly didn't expect one of the hedgehogs to hibernate in the greenhouse... I need to do some research - do they get up at all for a snack, like squirrels do? Or, can I shut the door? Are they smart enough to ring the bell if they want to get out?

Another outing for the daughter in the car. This time 3 miles along the main road to pick up son number 2 from his friends. Her boyfriend came with us in the back of the car. "Don't say a word! " I warned him. And, to be fair, not a murmur was heard. When we got back I asked the question - "Well, that wasn't too bad, I didn't think I was going to die that time, did you?". There was an ominous silence. "Ummm, only twice..."

The men have gone and left a nice wall with a concrete (oh, and jabalite) floor. In England, as you know, it rains a lot. Therefore the answer to the question "What's the difference between a swimming pool and a walled conservatory base?" is of course "None". The first member of our family to discover this was Leo, our ginger tom cat. He still hasn't recovered.

It was daughter's 17th birthday yesterday and we ventured out onto the road for the first time. Getting out of the village is interesting to say the least as the roads are very narrow and generally not suitable for novice drivers, particularly at nightfall. With a suitable amount of encouragement along the lines of "err, my side of the road please" and "ok, I'll get the branches from under the wipers" we reached a heady 35 miles an hour as we neared the next village. A country road isn't a real country road without a 90 degree bend in it, is it? So we duly hit said bend at the aforementioned speed. "Eeek, brake, brake, BRAKE!" - fair play we reached the bend at a leisurely pace - and then we hit the floodwater at the apex. I have my arm out of the window and most of the rainwater is now forced up my sleeve and down the inside of my jacket. Then "something happened" and a noticed a weird thumping noise from the nearside. "Pull ov...

The men finished the dwarf wall and got on with the floor. These guys have to "raise the floor" to get it onto the same level as the rest of the house. I spoke to the Floor Man - "You've got to raise this up a bit, how much concrete and ballast are you going to use?" "Err, based on the dimensions and knowing the density of concrete, I'd say about 8 tonnes" The Deputy Floor Man raised a surprised eyebrow - "Wot?, sod off Jim, I ain't mixin', humpin' an' layin' 8 tonne o' muck, you can soddin' well do it" I sloped off sideways muttering something about 'how many teas were required' and returned some 5 minutes later. "Err, me and Eric have had a word and we're going to put in a jabalite 1 floor which is much better and has greater thermal properties, and, err, more expensive" "I'm not paying anymore, it's not in the contract, stick with the plan" "Ok, we're going t...

I often have conference calls between the USA, England and Europe. These are notoriously long-winded and can go on for an hour or more. So it's not unusual for people to be late in "dialing in". Today was no exception, the Chairman of the call (i.e. the chap with the meeting password) had sent an email to all participants saying that even he was going to be late. However, I dialed in smack on time (at 14:00 BST) to hear the meeting start - the Chair having resolved his earlier problem. The following amazing 1 conversation took place:- 14:00 "Hi all, how are we going to proceed?" 14:01 "On Tuesday we'll turn everything off and restart with new parameters" 14:02 "Everyone alright with that?" 14:03 "Yup" 14:04 "Bye" (click, click, click). I then immediately receive another call from a customer which goes on for approximately 30 minutes. During which time I see an email pop into my inbox at 14:25 with the message "Yo...

I went home last night to find a large trench where the decking used to be. At the bottom was the foul drain (as expected) plus another (unexpected) 4" pipe running at 45 degrees across the corner of the trench. "That's a problem" I thought. It turns out to be the rainwater pipe running into the soakaway which is found to be approximately 300mm from the foundations. Graham, the builder, is smart enough not to carry on with the surveyor's say-so. So the surveyor rings me up this morning to tell me that there's absolutely no problem at all. "So what's the problem then?" "There isn't one. Shall we carry on, or shall we dig up your entire garden and reposition the soakaway at 5m from the house?" "Eh? There is a problem isn't there, or you wouldn't be on-site and ringing me up would you?" "No, no, the rainwater isn't going to eat into the foundations and make the whole thing collapse!" "So you'r...

SKI - spending the kids inheritance . Well, why not? Of all the things my Aunt would have approved of is a conservatory and a new kitchen. The last time we looked at this was about 3 years ago and found that B&Q do the exact conservatory that we wanted - so we toddle off to B&Q and get another quote. "It's £6,500 supply, customer fit" he beamed at us. "Ok, what's that with you fitting and doing the dwarf wall? "That's £19,400, sir." (Not a blog typo, he really did come up with that) "Eh?" "Oh err, um, I made a mistake, I've added the base work twice! Gosh that's only £13,400 now!" "Bye." I toddle off to the local independent conservatory chap who builds to your exact measurement. "There you go, here are some plans from B&Q. How much to supply and fit?" "About half and that's with a free fan or free cane furniture" "You've got the job. Hang on, it's says here in yo...

Can anyone explain to me why Ezeedsl keep changing the web address of my personal site from "www.ptv.e7even.com/ htdocs/ index.htm" to "www.ptv.e7even.com/index.htm" - i.e. without the /htdocs? This seems to happen randomly and without warning. It's damn annoying. Also, "Blogger's" spell checker suggests "Cling Film" for "Gillingham" - which amused me...

We spent 10 (count them) hours in total trying to buy a new kitchen over the weekend: 4 * 2.5 hour "consultations" with MFI, B&Q and Homebase. The latter being most fun. We turned up to an appointment with "Sara" who claimed no knowledge of us. "He wrote it in the book" I complained. "Oh yes, so he did". Anyway, "Sara" was "busy" and could Julie (or whatever her name was) do it instead? Now Julie has just spent the last two weeks on holiday and got back late the night before - so the poor love was shattered before we even started on her. "I've just come back off holiday and they've changed the software!" She hadn't a clue how to drive the new CAD package and spent most of the time moving the mouse over the icons hoping that the tooltips would give her an idea. She knew she had to click the little "disk thingy" to save the work - it kept popping up with a "Save As" dialogue whic...

For the first time in what seems like all of the Summer, I managed to be free for the "last Saturday of the month" last weekend and went to my American Car Club meeting at "the diner". After saying 'Hi' to everyone I was handed a free raffle ticket, and, I also bought some more to help the club funds. Later on in the evening I was most surprised to be handed a plaque that read Car Of The Month - Oct 2006 . This surprised me somewhat as I hadn't even had much chance to wash & polish it. I had however missed the vital point. "Who's got number 635?" "Oh, that's mine. What have I won?" "Here's your plaque". This is true.

Now much as I love my mother, there comes a point when oldpersonicide becomes a distinct possibility. Every year for her birthday, we go up to the Midlands and bring her back for a week 1 so that we can take her out and all those good things. My wife organises her work and takes a few days off, I arrange "no meetings" so I can come home for lunch and the children make sure that they are "in" during the evenings. We drive the 4 hours up to the Midlands. "Hello Mom, get your suitcase we're going back, we've got a table booked tomorrow for your birthday" "I'm not going." I think it's because her shoes don't fit - don't ask. So, thinking on feet, we decide to go to a place called Ironbridge in Shropshire and have an afternoon out. We go to a quintessentially English Tea Room opposite the Iron Bridge and have Tea and Scones 2 . So there we are, sitting in glorious sunshine sipping English Breakfast Tea and eating possibly the...

I've been driving for some 34 years and it's only when you start to teach people to drive that you realise it's not actually a natural thing to do. My own experiences being lost to a few distant memories such as:- "Err, I suggest you don't run into that parked car" "Stop looking at the motor bikes and watch the road!" and, in response to my "It's impossible to reverse around that corner!" was "Get out, shut up, and stand there while I do it" - thanks Dad. Anyway, daughter is doing Ok. But I realised what I was up against when I had to tell her to "straighten up" after telling her to turn left. Fortunately, the kerb isn't that high just there...