Tag Archives: disorganisation

I’ve Done It Again

12 Replies

It’s now seven days until the end of the month and a large number of submissions still need work. I also need to get my first draft done for the talk, so I can check the USB works this time. Last time, I was lucky as I had plenty of examples. This time I don’t have so much to pass round. I’ve had two years to sort this out and I am still not sure if the USB will work – this is poor organisation of the highest order.

Soda bread with spring onion and cheese. And possibly garlic, I can’t tell from a photo. No new photos of lambs or puppies so I am falling back on bread.

So, here I am. A talk needs writing and testing, a month’s poetry needs submitting and I have other bits and pieces to do. Plus, I am still not feeling 100%. The good thing is that I know it’s all my fault. No external circumstances, no excuses, nobody else involved. It’s the best way, because I don’t need to waste time on excuses. I am going to get going and a week from now I will have amazed myself by all the work I have done.

This may not include reading other blogs as time and energy are limited, but I will catch up the week after.

It is better, I think to peer into the future and see a bucket of writhing eels which all need taming, rather than to look into a bucket and see a solitary pond snail in my future.

It may not be the best selected metaphor, but I’m warming up for poetry and these things creep in. However, I’m sure you get the gist.

And, as the first casualty of my need for industry is word count, I will cut it at 250 and go to do something else.

Plain soda bread with butter. The addition of butter doubles the size of my repertoire.

How Difficult Can It Be?

13 Replies

Blue Tit 

After much comparing and researching, we finally fixed on a broadband supplier. Having experienced Virgin in the past, I crossed them off the list (it is my ambition never to use them again for anything after the mobile phone debacle) and BT/EE, who were are with now, are too expensive. We also crossed off the smaller providers, as you never know how good they will be, and that left us with three. In terms of cost, service and satisfaction they seemed pretty similar, but a quick look at local wireless networks seemed to show that Vodafone were the most popular.

So Julia called them up online using her phone and filled in all the copious forms which seem to be necessary these days. This was made more complicated by us currently having two addresses – one needing an internet connection and one still being our current billing address for bank cards etc. It was more than slightly annoying when, after pressing the button to send the documentation, it refused to accept it. Julia did it all again – same result. And again . . .

Pied Wagtail at Donna Nook nature reserve.

So next morning, she rang. She was on the phone over an hour giving them all the same details, because the system had crashed. But eventually, we got it all done, though it was, by this time, costing us £1 a month extra and the £130 shopping voucher had become a £75 credit. However, it was, at last, arranged.

Or so we thought.

A couple of days later we had a notice of cancellation. Julia rang to see what it was about and was told that it was an acknowledgement that we had cancelled the order. We said we hadn’t, they said we had, we said we hadn’t, they said we would have to reorder, so an hour later . . .

We are now waiting to see what happens. The router should arrive by courier this week, and they should be round to install it later in the week. However, they don’t install it themselves. The installation will be carried out by City Fibre, one of the providers we decided not to use.

Let’s see what happens.

Mistletoe from eBay

Pictures are from December 2018 – Clangers because we used them as Christmas decorations that year after their appearance in a local scarecrow festival, and the birds because I saw these two species today at various times.

Marmalade Hoverfly

An Early Morning Phone Call and a Grumpy Reply

8 Replies
Hoverfly on Welsh Poppy

Hoverfly on Spanish Poppy

Monday morning.

8.36.

The telephone rings.

Any time before 9am and I immediately think it’s either an emergency or a call from a different time zone.

It turned out to be neither. It was the Urology Department. Could I go in on Monday 20th for my operation?

No, that won’t be possible.

At that point an icy one entered the conversation. Why would that be?

I explained, in the same sort of tone, that as far as I knew I didn’t have to justify myself to them.

They changed tack at that point and explained they needed the information for record keeping purposes. Probably so that when something goes wrong they can cover themselves. I have had experience of things going wrong, and recognise the signs.

Bee on Welsh Poppy

Bee on Spanish Poppy

The reason is simple. Julia won’t be back from Canada and, as the hospital always stresses, in a confrontational and aggressive manner, I won’t be allowed home without an escort in the taxi and someone at home. They agreed that this was the case.

Actually, I’m not sure they can stop you going, and I have always won my case when arguing about it before. Why should Julia take time off work just to escort me home.

I then apologised for being grumpy, but explained I’d tried to explain all this before and nobody had taken it on board. That’s always a problem with hospitals – they don’t listen.

She then reminded me that I had an appointment with the anaesthetist on Thursday and needed to keep it so we could proceed.

Poppy

I replied that I was fully aware of this and that it would have been far better, given my mobility problems, if I could have seen them last week when I was in for the rest of the assessment.

She said she didn’t work in that department.

And that’s where we left it.

It may all go smoothly, but I bet it doesn’t.

Looks like I may be off blogging for a few days w/c 27th May.

Poppy

Sorry about the uninformative captions on the last two photos. And yes, having written the title, I realise 8.36 isn’t really early, but it is for a phone call.

Making the most of adversity

2 Replies

Another day, another problem…

I know I ought to be talking in terms of challenges, solutions and lemonade at this point, but it’s difficult to see an upside right now.

I’m looking for my car log book. I don’t know about the rest of the world (Americans, for instance, seem to carry them in the car every time I see a traffic policeman ask for one.) In the UK there are two general reactions to being asked for your log book – smugness from the organised people who know where they are and panic from people like me.

I’ve had the car eight years. I can’t always find things after eight minutes. I need it this afternoon when collecting my new car or things become more complicated. First port of call was the filing cabinet where my wife puts things.

Yes – “puts things”. Her filing makes a pack rat look like an obsessive compulsive

An hour later I’m no closer to finding the log book, but I have hit a rich seam of out-dated bank statements so tonight I will be shredding. And so, as this episode closes I can at least say that when you have paper – make compost.