Where do I start?

Last night I came home to find a card through my door telling me that Royal Mail had tried to deliver a parcel, but as it needed signing for they had taken it back to the depot to await further instructions. This was irritating as I’d instructed the auctioneer who sent it to send it to the shop, and he had confirmed he would. There should have been no need for me to collect it.

There were two books waiting for me, but I’m going to gloss over that as I really don’t need more.

At 5.10,  well inside the planned delivery window, Currys arrived with their delivery. This was good, and one less thing to worry about. It was also a demonstration that Currys do get some things right.

We rose at 6.30 next morning, one of us being quite unhappy with the situation, and the other being grumpy because she had had no breakfast.

When we walked to the car all the windows were down. This has happened before. It has even rained in before, as it had done this morning. Fortunately a quick wipe and the heated seats soon cured the damp. I finally got round to Googling it later in the day. There are two causes – faulty wiring or pressing the unlock button by accident – if you have the keys in your pocket, for instance. Last night I sat down with the keys in my pocket so this is a likely scenario. I’m hoping it won’t happen again.

The parcel was  duly picked up. As I waited I struggled not to strike up a conversation with the next man in the queue. Generally I find this quite easy. But I’m generally not stood next to a man with a head full of metal and mutilations. He had massive earlobes with rings in, a row of studs doen the centre of his head and two “horns” built up under the skin of his head. I was impressed by his dedication to ugliness, but also slightly repelled.

It was disappointing to walk out of the office and watch the spawn of Satan drive away in a Peugeot 208. It’s practical for commuting and great round town, but when you think End of Days you don’t really think Peugeot.

Julia cheered up after we stopped for breakfast. We don’t usually have McDonald’s twice in a week – honestly!

At the surgery I picked up my replacement prescription, and, the “lost” prescription tucked in it, though slightly messy. I suspect they had a good look for the lost one and found it before deciding to irritate me further by giving me both.

Of course, if I now take it into the surgery they will accuse me of having had it all the time.

I dropped Julia off at work, went to work myself, did some parcels, put a few things on eBay and did a bit of admin.

Silver Eagle, Silver Britannia

An Amazon driver came to drop something off for me but had to ring to find where I was – it seems they aren’t trained to look at shop fronts and spot the numbers.

One tenth of an ounce of 22 carat gold – A £10 Britannia and a $5 Coin – the stated face values have little to do with the gold content and the exchange rate is not accurate either

When I got into the car at 4pm, the quiz show I had been listening to in the morning was being repeated. I had to listen to 15 seconds that I’d heard in the morning, and after that I was able to listen to the parts I’d missed when I’d switched off the car in the morning.

I’m now waiting for the people next door to come home because they have a parcel for me – the Amazon system went wrong somewhere, I was sure I’d asked for a delivery to work, but the system shows I ordered it for delivery to the house. It’s a cheap camera case so I don’t know why they just didn’t leave it in the porch like they usually do.

Today’s coins are from a couple of sets produced by the Royal Mint – gold in 1997 and silver in 2003 – with blurb about friendship between nations. The coins are decent enough – Philip Nathan has done some great Britannia designs and the Walking Liberty by Saint-Gaudensis an all time classic coin design. The branding, on the other hand, could do with some work. Words like Ladies, Freedom and Liberty are usually associated with products other than coins.

Silver Coin Set

Gold Coin Set