Quiet days

Well, another two weeks with no blog entry - you'd think there was no news, and you'd be almost right.



It's been quiet at work. A few people off sick but we still seem to manage OK. I've had the odd frustration as people failed to supply the data I need to run my reports, but at 5:00 it doesn't matter any more. My biggest wins this week were getting the drinks machine and printer fixed. Two weeks ago someone called the repair people about our tea/coffee machine. A week later the tech was in fixing the innards. He went away and still no machine so I rang them after a week to see what was going on. I think he had just forgotten to turn it back on because we saw no tech, just the usual maintenance/filling person and next thing it was going! The worst thing was that they seemed to have left the tea and coffee in for the whole two weeks so it was a fairly well brewed cuppa for the first day or two.


The printer was broken for half a day before I put the call in. By the time it was fixed there were two days of print jobs on it, which of course no-one bothers to pick up. Lots of confidential stuff lying around for anyone to pick up... The lack of security at the bank really has surprised me. They've recently had a push on security, including enforced encryption and so on, but you'd think the ideas were all new from the way they go on. OGHS was more secure than Lloyds in some respects.



The car park continues to provide some interest. Last week we got home to find a burnt out wreck in the next block. (We only went out one day in the whole weekend and that's when it happened.) The cars either side were scorched and had their trim melted off so they'd be a tad annoyed, but not as annoyed as the owner. Apparently it was an electrical fault, but there was very little left of the car and the scaffolding it was parked under was burnt. That scaffolding has been there almost as long as we have but we haven't seen any sign of actual work. It must be costing a fortune. Later that week there was a row of cars with wheel clamps on - one had two clamps for some reason. A while back they closed off the rough carpark so there are now 20 fewer parks in the street and the workers get desperate for somewhere to leave their cars. It's crazy because nothing has been done with the closed lot.



On motor related issues, we can no longer get reverse gear nor 5th. J has the car booked in for Tuesday, but I'm not looking forward to the diagnosis. From a quick Internet trawl it would seem the linkages are the most likely cause, as they are plastic and wear quite quickly. If so it won't be horrendous, but still money we don't want to spend.



The pound has dropped to a record low against the Euro which is probably good for Mum but a disaster for us on the eve of our trip. It has dropped from 1.65 when we went last year to 1.23 so quite a significant percentage. They are talking recession over here so it'll be interesting to see how that impacts on us.


We went for a walk around Hotwells, which we hadn't explored even though it is very close. I've put some pics here. There are whole quarters of the city we haven't looked at, but we haven't done too bad a job thanks to J.





I have to hurry up 'cos she who must be obeyed wants to cut my out of control full head of hair back to a no 3. She cunningly cuts it to make me look like a semi-bald 40+ year old.