Tag Archives: work

Struggling with Technology

The netbook is a little slow and awkward compared to my laptop, but it’s still charging, which is more than you can say for the laptop.

I’ve even managed to put some photos on, starting with the Fat Rascals from Wednesday. I’ll put some others on as I go along.

It seems that there is a USB port on the netbook, but I had failed to see it. – I’m not the sharpest tool in the box.

I tried downloading from the camera, but the netbook kept trying to reformat the card. Reformat sounds like an improvement, but as most of you will know it really means destroy the several thousand photos I have carelessly stored there. I don’t want to do that.

I’m going to have to improve the way I store my photos before something bad happens to them.

Eventually I loaded some photos onto a flash drive and transferred them that way.

At work, amongst other things, I loaded up some engraved coins., known as Love Tokens. They are quite common on Victorian coins and often crop up in mixed lots of coins. They were, it is usually said, engraved by young men for their girlfriends. If that is true there were a lot of talented young men out there.

Engraved sixpence

Engraved farthing

Back to Work

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It’s been a funny start to the week. With Monday being a Bank Holiday, I had yesterday off and will be having tomorrow off as usual.

I really should work harder.

We had a lot of parcels, several vexatious enquiries and some things to put on eBay. We now have 1,200 items in our eBay shop, compared to around 600 a year ago so things are going well.

We also had some good sales today, including a sovereign before we were officially open. People seem to be buying sovereigns at the moment – it’s probably something to do with worries over the breakdown of society after we leave the EU.

I put some sweetheart brooches, some Masonic bits and a cap badge on this afternoon. It’s not as worthwhile as ending world hunger, but it pays a few bills.

Royal Engineers Sweetheart brooch – Great War

Grenadier Guards Sweetheart Brooch WW2

One More Quick Post

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I had a day off today and spent much of it trying to write. It didn’t go too well, though it could have been worse. That, could well be the motto for my life – good, but could have been better.

I also checked on the internet to see what sold in the shop, and found that one of the coins I’d listed yesterday had sold. It often seems to be the way. In fact most of today’s orders were for the cheap and cheerful end of our stock. That’s the end at which I operate.

Now, having watched the day slip away, I find it is time to take Number Two Son to work. I will return with only 40 minutes to post, so am getting it done now. And that, I’m afraid, is why it was hardly worth your while clicking the button to visit. Sorry about that.

The final picture is my breakfast from Tuesday – overnight oats. You put oats, milk, yoghurt and fruit into a tupperware and leave it in the fridge overnight. It’s just a posh name for cold porridge. However, it does save time in the morning as I take it to work, and as I always arrive at work early I use some of that time for eating breakfast instead of starting work. On Fridays I will eat cold porridge in the garden with Julia.

Overnight Oats

Note how I’ve included the keyboard in the picture to indicate that I’m a high-powered, high-fibre thrusting executive.

Photography can be so deceptive…

Laundry, Driers and the Decline of Moral Standards

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Julia’s new routine means that we no longer have to be up at five on a Sunday morning. However, Number Two Son is still working for another month, so I’m still getting up at six to pick him up at seven.

It puts some shape in my day, which is something that worries me about our new routine – it’s going to be easy to have a lie in and waste the day.

After getting him home I filled the car with laundry and headed off in hope of beating That Bloody Woman to the driers. It went quite well. The laundrette was empty apart from The Big Lad so I filled three small washing machines and set them going. It nearly worked.

Doing laundry…

Reflections

Two of them finished, and I got the contents into driers. At that point, the Other Bloody Woman walked in. She doesn’t even wash in the launderette, just waltzes in with bags of wet washing and takes four of the seven machines. She filled two machines and went out to get her other bags. So I grabbed a sweatshirt from one of my driers and chucked it into a spare drier to stop her taking all four. She wasn’t particularly happy when she returned to find the drier taken, but I had, at least, left her the last one, which is more than she would have done for me. Three minutes later my last machine finished and I filled it so I my conscience was only mildly bothered. I hadn’t spent half an hour washing just so that I could allow someone else to walk in and take all the driers.

I’m not sure that I’m a good person these days. All this drier politics is eroding my sense of right and wrong…

Life Gets in the Way

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Robin

Just a quick post. Number Two son has been called in to work early so I want to squeeze a post in before going out.

I also have to make tea. This is potato wedges, veggie burgers and beans, rather than the comforting beverage. It’s just a modern twist on the old favourite – burger, beans and chips. We are, as you can probably guess, not familiar with the concept of fine dining. On the other hand, I’ve never been mistaken for a bag of bones.

I had a strange experience with the printer at work yesterday. It refused to connect to my computer. Everyone else could connect with no problem. Eddie printed out the compliments slips I needed and a while later Mark printed out two invoices.

After half an hour of messing about unsuccessfully, including restarting, reloading and reswearing, I gave up, got back to work and decided to restart the router at the end of the day. I thought the end of the day would be a good time, as it would, the way my luck was going, probably wreck our entire network.

A couple of hours later the printer chugged into life and disgorged two pages of printing. Fortunately I’d cancelled the other print jobs that had failed or I’d probably have ended up knee deep in paper.

I haven’t a clue why it suddenly started working.

When we were finishing, I passed Mark his invoices. He was surprised. He’d forgotten all about them because they were part of a job he’d tried to print 12 days previously. Yes, twelve days! Printers truly are a mystery…

They are not long, the days of wine and roses

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I’m sure I’ve used that quote before, so I apologise if I’m being boring. Here’s the full poem for those of you who want to read the rest. Like the days of wine and roses, it is not long. The title, in contrast, is longer than most haiku.

When I was looking for quotes on the swift passing of time, I couldn’t find one that felt right, so it was back to the reliable Dowson yet again.

The subject was on my mind on the way home today as it was definitely shirt sleeve weather and spring was in the air.

We have a number of domestic projects to get through this summer and I am aware that one sixth of the year has nearly gone. It’s a worry because this has happened before. One day it’s February and the next time you think about it, it’s September and we still don’t have the upgraded heating system or the new kitchen we’ve been promising ourselves for years

Today absolutely flew by, with plenty going on – parcels to pack, coins to sort and customers to serve. It was one of my more enjoyable days in the shop, which has been a bit grim recently. It’s nothing to do with the shop – it’s just that I still haven’t really adjusted to not being my own boss. Or to working with someone who gradually accumulates, and defends, all the stationery in the shop.

I had arrived at the point where I wasn’t really enjoying work and was giving serious thought to employing some of the knowledge gained from decades of reading crime novels. I’m just about to start a new book on my Kindle…

On the Way to Work

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It was a blood testing day today. I went down for 7.30, missing the initial rush, and found myself third in the queue. Just minutes later I was in the chair, bled in seconds and was out of the car park so quickly there was no need to pay.

After that I picked Julia up, dropped her at work and was at the shop for 9.30. Keen or what?

We had 20 parcels to pack and after a brief pause to eat my marmalade sandwich (I don’t like to eat before the blood test) I set to work.

“A prudent bear always carries a spare marmalade sandwich tucked under his hat in case of emergencies.”

– Paddington Bear

Sunrise, Trent Bridge

Sunrise, Sherwood Rise

Sunrise, Trent Bridge

I sent a parcel to Slovenia today, which is a personal first, and another to Hawaii, which is a first for the shop. Last week I sent a parcel with a ZIP code of 90210. I’d been close a few weeks ago with 90211 but today I landed right on it. It’s little things like this that keep me happy during the day. I looked the areas up on Google, and it makes me feel quite exotic for the rest of the day.

That was as good as it got. I had the afternoon off, pottered about, listened to the radio as I drove up to Clumber Park, decided not to bother with Clumber Park as the light had gone…

It wasn’t, to be honest, much of an afternoon.

The photographs were taken while we were stuck in traffic on the way to work. We could do much in the way of composition but the colour was nice. There have been better mornings for colour, but not one where we had the camera out and a queue of stopped traffic. Then, being cocky, I took one of a reflection.

Reflected sunrise, Nottingham

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Life after the Care Farm