Srsly peeple - how dificult is it to run ur text thru a speel chk before uploadign it to ur site?

After uploading to mine I find odd words out of place - but - like - who reads here anyway? It never fails to annoy the happiness out of me when I see an online sales-room with bad spelling or the content not having been proof-read.

It isn't the fact that they can't spell - that I can understand - not everyone can spell - but ffs - every single piece of uploaded content has to go through a computer and every single computer has a spell check onboard somewhere.

Here is what got me ranting this evening (from a company which is advertised in 4 or 5 of the magazines I either subscribe to or buy off the shelves:

Prices…
If you are an Imaging Proffesional such as a professional photographer, digita; artist or graphic designer, please drop us an email with details of your business and we will respond with a trade price list applicable to you.

They are obviously working on the theory that if you are uncertain as to how to spell something - throw as many versions at the same sentence as you can!

I haven't emailed them yet and after seeing exactly the same blurb in two other places on the site it is doubtful I will.

Perhaps I am cutting of my no's to spite my fase?

Tags: Rants, Spell Checks

I hate banks.

I hate them.

Hands up who likes their bank. Can anyone point me in the direction of a bank which is able to make non-robot decisions like "Let's ring this girl who has been banking with us blemish free for the last X number of years as she may wish to run down to us with the cash that has been in her pocket for the past week and lodge it against this cheque we are about to refuse as it is for £25 more than she has in the account at the moment." I would love to move to that bank rather than stay with the current ones I deal with.

Nah - they will just go on ahead and bounce the cheque rather than allow the account to go in to the red.

How come *they* will allow their fees to put you in the red though? Huh? Surely there ought to be a law against that. someone ought to do something about that.

(Ok, I admit, there are two different banks involved in my rant but that doesn't make my rage any less.)

Banks are evil. They frustrate the hell out of me and I hate them all. Some are more evil than others but they all have a certain level of evilness running through their vaults.

*goes back to work muttering about the evils of the banking world*

Tags: Banks

Here is one thing I have learned in ten years of being in business. It holds true no matter what business you are in.

The people who NEED you to bend over backwards to help them out of their panic are the most likely to let you down or mess you about.

I suppose it stands to reason. If they are in a panic they thrash about in it looking for someone to help them out of it. That means they use the conversation with you to define their own thoughts about the situation. These thoughts will change in a while and what you thought were concrete plans turn in to a thought-process for the other person.

The thing to remember is that they will have no concept of the amount of work you will be putting in to the situation from your side in order to appear professional and helpful. So don't expect any thanks for that.

The person who NEEDS their phone taken apart and working again before their sick mother goes in to hospital / child goes on holiday for the first time / husband has to drive to Dublin will forget all about the phone you have spent 2 hours working on when their next crisis comes along (and they do come along for these people all the time) and will only call in to collect it after a week. And that will be after you have ordered in a part especially for them and paid Special Delivery charges that almost wipe out the profit of the repair. . . .

Or the family who simply can not get all together on any day other than a Sunday due to work commitments so you grudgingly agree to sacrifice the only day you have as a full family to facilitate them and then when you ring them to see where they are "they forgot - sorry!"

The person who suddenly gets an unexpected date for a wedding and needs to ring round every photographer they can get their hands on at 10pm at night to discuss plans which are really being made up on the spur of the moment and will be asking for the likes of "Can you be in three places at once please?" so you try to figure out how to do that because you are a helpful individual when really any sane person would say "No. Even Superman had problems with that kinda job" will totally forget who they rang and when you ring back for some more detail the next day you will find they have "just signed up with a friend of a friend who can arrange for his best mate to be in two of the places . . . "

Or the person who NEEDS to have the family photographed during the Christmas holidays (when I am shut) because one member has just flown in from Outer Mongolia WILL be the person you never hear from again. I am STILL waiting for an order from that girl despite her NEEDING prints urgently.

Or you will get the odd person phoning on a Friday afternoon at 4pm who needs photos taken and ready to email to their merchandising company on Monday. You go out of your way to rearrange your whole weekend to visit them on the Saturday to discuss the layout of the job and spend an hour with them giving them the benefit of your expertise and artistic ideas, while the children kill each other waiting in the studio when really, you ought to say "No, I will have to juggle too many things to do this job to your time-scale."

You then disappoint your children by telling them you wont be available all day Sunday as you have to work. You wait for 3 hours for the call from the client to see what time she wants you there and finally ring to ask only to find out that she "was just about to ring to say the merchandising people have a photographer already lined up and will send them next week."

There is a balance between "helpful and professional" and "sticking to your guns with the details you know work for you without coming across as arrogant". I find this a difficult one as you have to throw "eager to make money" in to the mix.

I know all of this is *just business*. You get the rough with the smooth. But every time I get a customer who can't abide by my "hours of business" or needs "images by Monday" I just KNOW they are going to be trouble.

And it is less likely that I will be helpful for the next person.

/rant

Tags: Work, Rants, Customers

I have to ask. Are we the only household in Northern Ireland who groans and asks "WHO EVVVER TOLD JULIAN SIMMONS HE WAS FUNNY?" whenever he graces us with his presence on the telly?

I can't work out if it is just us who think that he ought to have dropped that fake Belfast accent about 1985 - a year after he started it. Well, ok, 1995 then? No? For crying out loud he should have ditched it by 2005 then!

Or, if we are in the minority and everyone else in the country loves it. Perhaps you could let me know.

I think he is a lovely person - but I can not stand the accent he puts on.

Julian, please stop.

Tags: Rants, UTV, Television

Did you notice the photos I posted of the school sports day this year?

No?

That's because I didn't take my camera.

Some time ago I realised that I was taking photos to show other people things that I should have been witnessing for myself but that I was actually missing out on because I had a camera stuck to my eye. Mummy type things - school plays and such like. Sometimes I look at photos I have taken and can't remember taking them. Worse - I can't remember the event because I have been so focused (sorry) on the taking of the photos rather than the taking part.

Hmm - ok - this may be because I am a photographer and it is hard for me to not be joined to my camera via my index finger at all times but there are some things more important to *experience* than to *document*.

Who am I documenting for anyway?

So, with that theory in my head, it was with interest that I found out about Non Photography Day on 17th July.

Whatever your activities that day, appreciate the life and dimension of the moment you are in rather than documenting the appearance of it.

The idea instantly rang true for me and I felt a sense of relief that someone else felt the same way as I did about it all. When you take as many photos as I do in a year, it doesn't do any harm to stop and take stock of the important things and simply have a day off. I know that some people will think it is a silly idea and will be scornful of it all but I totally understand the sentiment behind it.

On 17th July I will be spending the day with my family on holiday. Thankfully I wont have to cancel any client shoots or abandon a wedding! I will be trying my best to have a day without my camera stuck in front of my face.

Do you think my children will recognise me?

Photo by poppy kay over at Flickr.

Tags: Photography, Photos

Today is the 1st of May. I have until the 25th to pull off my final project for college. Once that is done the HND will be finished. This is the FINAL. That's IT. am trying not to think about not seeing everyone again - the exhibition is paramount until the nervous breakdown that will come after it. But - in that time I have so much to do it is overwhelming.

I have to do more research - the research that should have been done in February but I left til now.

I have a workbook to write up. Yup - some of it is done already - but not enough.

I have final photos to touch up.

I have an installation to make out of railway sleepers. Using a chain saw that refused to be hired out last night and when we borrowed one from Dawn's Dad IT refused to work.

I have to ask permission from the gallery to put railway sleepers on their wall - not sure how that is going to go. . .

I have to organise promotional literature to be put on display at the exhibition. The problem is that this stuff is so expensive it is actually better to think bigger and use this as an excuse to get promotional stuff printed for my business - stuff to use in work as well as for the exhibition. The problem there is - that is a completely different kettle of fish and I now have to think about photos other than the ones I am using for the project - arrrrrghhhh . ..

IF the sleepers thing works I then have to organise the photos to be printed up with acrylics - if they don't then they have to be printed a different way - and then framing organised - there are a lot of IFS still.

Oh, and I have to organise a list of names and addresses to give to the gallery to send out invitations to friends and family who would like to attend. I think I have everyone covered now - if I haven't asked you for your post code recently then you may not be on the list - so feel free to ask to be included.

In the meantime, if it ain't involved with the final project then it ain't important - so please forgive me if I disappear for a while. See you on the other side. . .

Back in the days when I worked a real job and had a real boss and made real money I worked in an office with another girl and our boss. But that is a whole other blog in itself.

My boss, let's call him Mervyn, cos, well, that is his name, had a few sayings that I had never heard before. One day someone annoyed us, pulled a flanker on us and generally pissed us off doing something sneaky.

Mervyn pacified us by saying "We'll get him in the Long Grass."

It became a bit of a saying for us in the office. It was one saying that stuck with me and I still think it now and then when someone messes with me.

Currently there are several people who will have to watch out when they find themselves in the Long Grass.

You see. The threat is enough. It is enough to say it. You don't actually have to do anything. It is satisfaction enough that some day there will be Long Grass for that person and they will . . . ok - you get the idea. It is very similar to "Long Runs The Fox" and not to be mixed up as "Long Runs The Fox In The Long Grass."

There is a photographer, local to me who, technically, ought to be my competition. He was a customer of Iain's long before I was a photographer so when he called in one day to say Hi, I chatted away to him and gleaned as much information from him as I could. I know where he gets his photos printed and who he orders his albums from and what associations he belongs to but he knows nothing much about me.

He proudly showed off a couple of wedding albums one time and although I can't really fault his work, I also wouldn't recommend it either. If I have to turn down a wedding, it would never occur to recommend him.

The shop next door has recently put a large tv on display above the checkout. You know the type. It carries PowerPoint presentations advertising various companies and to my absolute shock one day I noticed an advert for HIM in there. I was speechless! How RUDE. This shop is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to me! He couldn't have been any closer unless he plastered an advert across my own shop window.

After a while I decided that it must be a "blanket coverage" - all the local shops would carry the same advert and he would have had no knowledge of where they were positioned.

Ok, I know there is clever marketing and all that - but he relies on Iain for his phones and, well, there is a bit of "not pissing off your friends" to be done here I think!

He called today to see Iain. I was up to my ears with work and when Iain came in to see if I wanted to talk to the guy I told him flat I had no time and would catch him next time.

Four minutes later he was standing in front of me talking to me.

We chatted about how business has been. He told me how busy he is, I told him nothing. He told me how many weddings he has on, I told him nothing.

Finally he asked me about advertising - how much I do, how much I spend on it. I told him nothing!! But he admitted that he had taken out a contract to advertise "next door" and he knew that he had had NO referrals from it in the time it had been live. (Oh dear how sad.) He made it clear that he knew it was only going to be on the one machine. Like, DUDE! Next door to me? And now you are looking for sympathy from me? Seriously?

I wondered how much he had paid for it - there was no point in me doing it in THAT shop - but it would be good to know - I didn't have to wait long before he spilled the beans. £65.

Hmm. . . £65 a year wasn't bad - might be worth it. You only get so many seconds and so many times a day but wait, he is still talking - saying something about months, tune back in, what is he saying?

£65 a MONTH?

I fought (and won) the urge to snort out loud. The sound that I DID make I blamed on the dog. And got away with it.

He said he is really disappointed with the response, or lack thereof. He also said it was a silly commitment for him to make but he thought that if he only got one wedding out of it he would be quids ahead. He is going to contact the company and ask to get out of the year long deal a few months early. Good luck with that.

Remember the money I saved on the Lotto? Not playing the Lotto over the past few years has saved me £905. Add the £780 I have just saved by not advertising next door and I think I owe myself a pat on the back AND a new camera!

And that, is him, having been caught in the Long Grass. Mervyn would be very satisfied.

And get this out of my system. . .

I recently wanted to bid on a computer item on eBay that was located in America. I contacted the guy first and asked if he would send to the UK. He replied within a day and said yes. I had also asked if he had a Buy It Now price and I wanted the item quickly. He said no - he wanted to let it run a little and see how high it went - that is fair enough. I was prepared to pay £25 for it and actually stuck a highest bid on it for that. It finally finished four days later with no other bidders and I won it for the paltry sum of £5. Ha!

I emailed him and asked him how much he wanted for the postage. No reply. I emailed a further twice before I got a reply ten days later. I was quite sure that he wanted to back out of the deal as I have seen these items go for £30 to £40 at other times and I know he regrets letting it go for so little. By the time the reply came through I had already guess-timated the postage and sent him $20 (£10.51) being a fiver for the item and a fiver for postage. I "sent money" through Paypal and sat back happy I had done my bit.

Two days later, his first contact with me was a refund of the Paypal money and an email saying he only sent to Confirmed Paypal Addresses. I was confused because I HAD taken the time to get my address confirmed years ago - then realised that I had changed the delivery address from the Confirmed home address to the more convenient work address. I emailed to explain this to him but he was adamant that he only sends to Confirmed Addresses. I resent the same amount (I still hadn't had an invoice from him) via Paypal again with the proper-less-convenient-address and sat back. Again. The next day I received an eBay invoice from him saying $18.99 - but I had already sent the $20 so didn't bother replying to the invoice.

The next day I received an Unpaid Item dispute from eBay. WTF? I had paid! A quick look in Paypal told me I HADN'T paid - the payment hadn't gone through - I must not have pressed the PAY button. It HAS been known for me to be this stupid before. I paid the eBay invoice immediately and within a day I had positive feedback on the item.

Ok. So. It isn't the end of the world. And that should be the end of the matter for me.

But I just can't bring myself to archive that email until I do something about it. I looked on eBay to see if I could put in a "I am REALLY annoyed about this Unpaid Item Dispute as it is the first time in my whole eBay career I have ever had anything like this and don't you make the seller send a personal email first before you allow this to be raised against me?" but there isn't a thing like that anywhere funnily enough.

I SENT him three emails asking for the amount he wanted. I SENT him $20. I HAD already shown that I WANTED the item and was PREPARED to pay for it. All he had to do was send an email to say "OI! Where's me money?" and I would have realised my mistake. Is it me? Am I being overly sensitive?

Ok - don't bother answering that one - I know the answer. He has thousands of feedbacks and I know he is only protecting his own interests but revenge WILL be mine. I am going to post him something like "Takes ten days to send an invoice then will give Unpaid Item if you are a second late paying. A1 eBayer. NOT"

Ok. Maybe I wont. But at least now I can get rid of that damn email out of my inbox. One down. 23 to go. . . .

You may remember the way the London Trip ended. Badly. In a word.

We missed our flight home because of a typo on the easyJet "Cancelled Flights" page and ended up miserable in a hotel room and stuck in a bus for hours the next day, missing a full day at work and only making it home by late evening a full 24 hours after we were due.

Once we were home for couple of days it struck me that, really, there was no reason that we couldn't put in for compensation. We had kept all our receipts and cleverly I had taken a screenshot of the easyJet "Cancelled Flights" page which I was able to print off and attach to a wonderfully written claim. No one really gave it much of a hope that easyJet would come through for us. After all, it was our word against theirs that there had been a typo. And have you SEEN the easyJet program on the telly? They never give an inch!

Imagine my absolute delight today to get an email saying:

Thank you for your letter about your claim.

May I take this opportunity to sincerely apologise for the incorrect information displayed on our website and the inconvenience caused as a result of this.

I can confirm that I have discussed your matter with my Manager and they have agreed to refund your extra expenses.

I am writing to confirm that we have authorised a refund which covers the cost of your rescue fee, hotel, and bus.

Once again we apologise profusely for this error.

She apologised both SINCERELY and PROFUSELY! What more could you ask for? I am mightily chuffed with myself for putting the effort in to it - it took me the guts of a day to word the claim and gather the receipts etc but it was still worth it - the total amount refunded was £220 - not to be sniffed at!

Well done easyJet for doing the right thing. They could have been real arses about it all but this time they acted beautifully. I WILL be telling them this too.

Now, onto my next project. I will soon be writing (on behalf of our classmate Davd) to the Radisson at Stansted Airport to ask why he was given the "cheapest room available" at a price of £168 being told there were only "three other rooms available" when, two hours later two friends of his arrived and were given "the cheapest room available" at at price of £129.50 and by that time there were "only nine rooms available in the whole hotel! They may run for cover - my letters of complaint are now legendary. . . .

I was recently told a tale about how hard it is to sign up to Flickr with a new account because of all the hassle you have to go through getting a Yahoo account now. I kinda nodded and agreed and sympathised at the time but didn't REALLY understand because my transfer from Old Skool to Yahoo had gone very easily, what with me having an Yahoo account from ages ago.

This evening I decided to stop putting off setting one up for David. He got a camera for his birthday in November and has done nothing with his photos so far, other than delete them. I told him to walk around and take some new photos, then we settled down to create the new account.

An hour and very many pulled out hairs later we finally managed it.

Shame on you Flickr and Yahoo. There is no way that anyone with as little computer experience as a noobie would now be able to sign up for Flickr. It didn't help that we kept coming to a dead end where it was telling me I wanted to sign in to MY account with HIS Yahoo. I was physically smacking the computer and shouting at the screen by that stage.

He is now signed up, with his first five photos online.

I am NOT available to help anyone sort out their Flickr problems from now on. Not until my blood stops boiling anyway.

I don't think I have mentioned it before here but most people who have been around me for any length of time have noticed my intolerance of things that annoy me. Noises mainly, but some smells too. I am not going to go into it all here tonight but suffice to say some things really bug me and they seem to bug me more than other people. I think it goes in cycles - mainly nothing annoys me - but when it starts it can get a hold of me for a couple of weeks and stupid wee things really annoy me. I know they are stupid things but there is nothing I can do to stop them annoying me.

I think it started the other day when the new external hard drive arrived and was smelly. I think it lowered my resistance.

Today the next door neighbour's dog was barking. I sat and tried to get on with my work but just as you thought it had stopped it started up again. Finally I did a thing I have never done before - I went out and glared at it.

That didn't really work too well to be honest. He was standing behind the fence (you remember the fence?) barking at the the trees blowing in the wind, the grass growing or the stones settling in the drive way - because I seriously did not see anything going on around the development that required a dog to be barking at it. I went back into the house happy that I had glared at him.

Two minutes later he was barking again.

I stormed back out and looked for him - he was standing at the opposite end of his garden barking out a different fence this time. I can't vouch for the fact there was nothing to bark at there.

Before I knew it I had shouted "OI!" at him. Made no difference. Bark Bark Fecking Bark.

The owners leave their back door open so he can come and go as he pleases and I know when they bother to shout at him for barking they come to the back door and whistle. So I whistled. He trotted back expectedly to the back door and I went back into the house happy.

I swear three minutes later I was back out there ready to throw stones at him, right between the eyes if possible. But this time the woman was out with him - standing in the yard, looking out the fence at a neighbour putting her baby in the car. The dog was barking, the woman was watching, the dog was barking, the woman was watching and I was seething.

Dude, no one on this earth wants to hear someone else's dog barking - why would you stand right beside your dog and allow it to bark? If it was my dog it would be barking only long enough for me to execute a quick toe up the rear end.

I lost my bottle though and just couldn't bring myself to shout again. I DID go back in to the house and bang the door hard enough to rattle the bedroom windows.

After that the barking stopped. I have no way of knowing if my shouting / whistling had any effect or if he would have stopped barking on his own but thankfully he didn't bark any more.

I would love to do an anonymous letter to my neighbours.

"Dear Number 17, If you don't shut your barking dog up I am going to report it as a nuisance."

"Dear Number 1, Please inform your daughter's boyfriend it is not cool to beep the horn at 2am at the weekends or rev the engine at 8am when he picks her up for school."

"Dear Number 19, Please inform the person who calls for your son at 8.20am that it is not required for him to beep his horn outside MY bedroom window and that the boy is always waiting for him at the door."

"Dear Number 18, Please inform your children it is not funny to sit in the car and beep the horn continually just to see how long it will be before Mummy comes out to scream at the top of her lungs. .. . . " oh, that's us then! Ooops!

At least I would have good Dog Etiquette IF we had a dog. . .

Today I started to doubt my very sanity in a way that made me think I should ring the funny farm and book a nice long visit for myself. . .

The History . . .

We started looking at this housing development away back in 1999. We then looked at this house in the early summer of 2000. We bought it and moved into it on the 20th October 2000 - so we have been here six years now. . .

I have been tempted many times to blog about my neighbours, but you know how word travels, private as I THINK this blog is, word can get out quickly so I don't generally talk about them. Actually they are all ok, we get on ok with them all. We live in a cul-de-sac of seven houses and all the other owners are grand, with the right smattering of new-borns, children the same age as ours and then there are some grandparents too - we are like a wee village all to ourselves!

The only blot on the landscape away back when we were first looking was a hideous white satellite dish in the garden next door to us. It is humongous - I mean real big - probably six feet in diameter. There is a lot of speculation in the cul-de-sac about what the dish is required for. As the guy is a night-time-only taxi driver we are all convinced that he records porn all day and sells it by night. And that's is just the rumour *I* started anyway. . .

Last year they put up a fence on our boundary line. It's a good enough fence - we can't complain about it. T'is much better than what was there before and it was free - so who are we to complain?

Last week I arrived home in the middle of the day to see the guy sitting in his garage, a table in front of him with a small tv on it and a normal sized white satellite dish beside him. Bizarre huh?

Well I thought so until today.

I left the house at 11am to go to Tescos for a little bit of shopping. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a black satellite dish attached to their side of the fence. I blinked a little bit. What? Was this going to be a permanent fixture? I thought about taking a photo of it but then realised I may be a little anal about documenting this sort of thing so didn't bother. I wish I had now.

When I came back from shopping at 1pm the black dish was no longer there. T'was all gone. I blinked again and reckoned they had just moved it to a better position.

When I came back at 5pm from the birthday party Jessica had been to, I was absolutely flabbergasted to see a WHITE satellite dish in the place the black one had been. I sincerely hope none of my neighbours were looking out of their windows at that moment as I did a double take and then stared for a full five minutes rubbing my eyes. . .

Why have they got so many dishes? Why can't they stick the small one on the side of the chimney like everyone else? This IS going to annoy the happiness out of me now - it is in my line of sight (especially when I am taking photos of it) and they have wound the cable round the fence post several times too. We can see that you know. Sigh.

It wouldn't be so bad if they shared the porn around the cul-de-sac free of charge. . .

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled. Read More...

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled. Read More...

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled. Read More...

Three things have annoyed me today. These are the things my nightmares are made of.

One. I am NOT happy with the photos I took today. Not. I just have to say it out loud. Sometimes I really just hate photography. Damn.

Two. I had to order a new sim card for a mobile phone account I have but don't use. I intend to start using it again. Iain gave me the number to ring, in fact, he rang the number and pressed the first "If you require nah, nah, nah or nah please press nah" so I didn't know what section I was in when he handed it to me. I put the phone up to my ear and found myself still in the menu system listening to "I am sorry, I did not recognise the number you typed. . . if you would like to hear the options again. . . " I pressed STAR. I went into that part of the menu again but I didn't WANT to hear my balance. I didn't HAVE a balance. . . I hung up as there was no way to return to the MAIN menu.

I shouted in to Iain for the number again and he shouted it back to me. I dialed it. It said "We are too fecking busy to deal with your sorry ass right now please try again later." Fecker. I tried again immediately. They must have known it was me as the number was unobtainable - I must not have waited til LATER enough.

I tried it several times after that, each time it was unobtainable. I double checked it against the number I had written down and in final desperation I took the phone into Iain to tell him about it. I smugly watched him dial the same number knowing the unobtainable tone was about to sound in his ear. He gave me the phone back and said "there you go - it is ringing now." Bastard. I don't know how he can do that. It annoys the hell out of me every time he does it. Fecker. Blast.

I ordered the sim card from the very very nice lady who was so nice to me (and NOT situated in India!) that I started to chill a little.

Many of my bad dreams involve having to phone someone, probably in an emergency and not being able to dial properly for some reason. This is where it comes from. SEEEE?

The third thing happened this morning, this morning, this morning, this afternoon and then this evening.

I wanted to order two things from an internet company. I went on this morning, ordered them successfully and smugly thought how easy things are to order online. A while later I received an extra email from them asking me for a copy of a credit card statement so they can verify my credit card. I suddenly realised that I had my work address entered for both billing address and shipping address. That must be why. I snatched up a statement and headed in to work with it.

When I got in to work I figured I could cancel the order and insert the billing address properly. I cancelled and went straight to checkout. Without changing the billing address.

D'OH!

This is the point where I started using real strong bad language.

I cancelled again (but received the order confirmation and the second email about the credit card verification again for the second purchase. . . ) and went through the motions again this time taking my time and getting the address right. But there is a wee thing wrong with my mouse - if I am not sitting right it quite often will right click by accident. It brought up the "back / reload/ etc" options right over the BUY NOW button so I had to hit RELOAD to get rid of it which . . . reloaded . . . without all the details. Had to start all over again.

FINALLY I managed to order it before I left work and came home knowing that that was all sorted.

This evening just as I was getting ready for snoozes when I thought it all through - I hadn't received the THIRD credit card email this time - was that because the address was correct this time or . . . was it because the two items were STILL sitting in the cart?

OMG. Nightmares I tell you.

I have just finished the order and have the credit card copy sent to them too. Big sigh.

Now, who would like to open a book on how many of these items I am going to receive? Two? Four? Six? I am reckoning there is a fair chance there could be a total of EIGHT items winging their way to my shipping address right now.

Time will tell.

On a more positive note, I got my hair cut today. I managed NOT to get any parking tickets AT ALL.

Today I parked on the street in the nearest village and nipped into the fancy hairdressers just to see if they could fit me in today. It is handier than going all the way into the town and I am fed up with my £12 haircuts where they are in a rush and just do what I tell them to do - I wanted someone to do what they thought I would suit for a change. I hate hairdressers, have no interest in my hair whatsoever but sometimes I wish it was *nice* and *easy* and *suiting me* as well as *cheap* . . .

The girl said no outright, then said 2.30pm and then when I obviously wasn't moving from the spot, miraculously found that Leanne could fit me in right there and then! Happy days.

I have never spent so long getting my hair cut in my life! Even the time it was all the way down my back and I told the hairdresser to cut it all off - it took a fraction of the time this one took. It was washed and coffee was delivered with a small chocolate on the saucer, a couple of magazines were put on my lap and after a few minutes Leanne arrived, asked me my name and introduced herself! Bloody hell! I have NEVER had my hairdresser tell me her name. This is one of the reasons I seldom go back to the same person more than once - because I don't know who to ask for!

She did the usual "What are you having today?" and I did my usual "I don't know" because technical terms like "layers" and "cut" and "short" are beyond me obviously. In the end I was so stumped by her telling me her name I blurted out that I was fed up with it the way it was and it always sits like this anyway and it didn't matter cos it would go back to this anyway. . . she took this as a challenge and set to cutting.

She cut, shaped, cut some more, totally restyled and after an absolute age she started to cut some more. By the time the hairdryer was turned on I had been there for an hour! She then tonged, cut some more and then spent about 15 minutes just cutting my fringe again. There was so much on the floor by the end I was concerned there was actually anything left in the areas I couldn't see!

Look, don't make me belabour the point ok? She took fecking ages cutting my hair! There were about six different stages to the cutting.

By the time she held the mirror behind me I was well chuffed with it all - I think I like it - for the 5 hours it is going to sit like this - it is going to be washed in the morning and will never look like this again ever!

The haircut was £26. I knew it would be dearer than £12 and less than £50 - but between that, I had no real concept of how much it would be. I handed her £30 and told her to keep the change. I don't normally give tips but this wasn't just a cut - this was a whole new lifestyle!

I went out to the car, got in and sat for a moment trying to gather my thoughts as to what time it was - I had been in there for over an hour and a half. What with the bit of shopping I had done before hand I had been parked there over two hours. I was lucky I hadn't been given a ticket. . . I looked up to confirm I HADN'T been given a ticket. . . .

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it to hell. I am soooo careful. The only other ticket I have every had was in 1989 when I parked on double yellow lines down a little street thinking it was ok because countless others had parked in the same place. I think the fine was £16. These feckers must be £20 by now.

THIRTY POUNDS! THIRTY POUNDS! WTF? THIRTY POUNDS?

I sat for a moment collecting my thoughts. The last thing I wanted to do was to pull into oncoming traffic because I wasn't thinking straight. And anyway - it didn't matter how long I sat there now - I had a ticket already.

I drove down the street, Got to the outskirts of the town and lifted the mobile to phone Jacqui in work. Now . . . I have two mobiles. One with lots of minutes and one with lots of texts. The one with lots of minutes I NEVER use without a handsfree. NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER. I mean NEVER. The other one I never phone out on because there aren't enough minutes on it to justify it. This was the texting phone though wasn't it - the other one was in the house. Aw well. . .

I drove round the big roundabout, chatting away, telling Jacqui I wasn't sure how on earth I was a. going to pay the £30 and b. going to pay it without Iain finding out. I had a plan to use an account he has no access to. . .

It is amazing how many times I pull over for ambulances and the fire brigade. . . and police cars with flashing lights and sirens and ummm. . . this one might technically be for me this time. . .

I was pulled over and given a fixed penalty of THIRTY POUNDS for using the mobile while driving the car. I got into my car at 12.11 and saw my first one and by 12.15 I was handed my second one. Surely that is some sort of record?! SIXTY POUNDS?! How the feck am I going to hide THAT from Iain less than a week before we go on holiday.

I did a little more shopping and didn't make it into work until late afternoon.

Iain LOVED my hair. Kept looking at it and commenting on it. Eventually I asked him if he thought it was £90 worth. I have never seen his face fall so much. "NINETY POUNDS? NINETY POUNDS?"

He couldn't quite believe it. I could tell from his reaction he didn't really think it was ninety pounds worth!

"Well, the hair was £30, the parking fine for sitting in the hairdressers so long was £30 and the fine for telling someone about the first £30 fine was another £30 so the whole haircut cost me £90."

All in all he took it really well. I had to tell him. I was at the point of tears by the time I got into work!

To round off the wonderful day my mother rang me looking for directions to my house. We have been here six years and she needs directions to it. My previous ploy to have her drive round the village 72 times , then give up in disgust wasn't going to work this time as I was going to have to be on that plane with her by 8.50 wasn't I? So I had to give her the real directions this time.

She finished the conversation with "Ok, I know you don't understand but I am going to be there by half past thirty because I just need to know I am on time. Half past thirty will give me plenty of time and it is better to be early than late."

Half past THIRTY? Was she taking the piss?

You just *know* she will aim for 7.15 now to make sure she gets there for 7.30 and then the roads will be so quiet at that ungodly hour of the day that she will be early for THAT and will end up arriving at 7.00am a whole 45 minutes before I told her she has to be here at. . . .

Watch this space. . .

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled. Read More...

To piss off the Renault driver. . . . ?

I haven't had a rant for a while. Not a real rant. Not on here anyway.

The weirdest thing EVA happened to me on the way to work this morning.

Down the road from where I live they have started to lay pipelines. It says something like "North to South Pipeline" (or similar - I didn't take notes) and the funny thing is - the pipeline travels the same direction as I do on the way to work. I keep glimpsing it as I drive along. It is a massive engineering job because at every point I see it there are hundreds of JCBs and Tractors and well, heavy plant machinery. At one time I was convinced it was a new road just for me, from my house to my work but just as I tried to convince Iain of this, the next day the sign went up saying Pipeline, once more proving him to be the better judge of heavy machinery than I.

So, dotted along my journey are little side roads with signs pointing down them to show delivery driver where the field is that they are working in. I have become accustomed to seeing massive trucks coming in and out of those small country roads and know where to watch out for them now.

This morning, as I was driving down a really straight piece of road at 60mph (m'lud) I saw a guy wearing a florescent jacket walk from from one if these off-roads on my right hand side of the road into the middle of the on-coming lane. There was no other traffic on the road. He then looked up at me, saw me, and started walking into my lane. As I was hurtling towards him. He kept watching me as I approached - I thought he was going to do one of those little runs that people do when they realise - oops I misjudged that a tad - but ooooh no - he stops in the middle of my lane and stands looking at me. He raised a hand to me in a "slow down" sort of way. I had a look up the off road and could see no massive lorry that needed me, the only car on the road, to do an emergency stop so I moved into the on-coming lane in order not to knock the fecking fecker down and kept driving.

As I went past him he shouted at me and raised fists at me in a "You were going too fast" or "You nearly knocked me down" sort of manner. DUDE YOU WALKED OUT IN FRONT OF ON-COMING TRAFFIC AND WATCHED ME COMING AT YOU! MOVE YOURSELF!

Why did he want me to stop? Did he think that just because he was wearing a florescent jacket that he was invincible - or . . . . what? I can't get a handle on him. He walked out in the middle of the road and then acted like it was MY fault that I had to change lanes to avoid killing him.

Now - had he been wearing a different kind of hat and been pointing a speed gun at me instead of shaking a fist I may have stopped. . . but as it was - I just went on my way thinking it had been the weirdest, weirdest road thing I have seen for a while.

(I have to point out that I WASN'T speeding at the time and the road was long and straight - HE SAW ME COMING - HONEST!)

I remember a few years ago, I used to travel into Belfast every day - I did a 25 mile drive down the road and then a 25 mile drive back up the road all in the name of getting enough money to pay the car insurance, petrol and the day nursery with enough left over at the end of the month to splurge on one chinese meal.

I was always going the wrong way - I was always in a traffic jam. Hours I spent sitting in motorway traffic jams. I used to be late getting into work, then late getting to the nursery, then late getting the tea started. . . I was constantly speeding when I could and sitting at a stand-still when I couldn't.

I seriously gave thought to buying a micro-lite to hop over the traffic. I used to day-dream about a massive helicopter arriving above me, lowering grappling hooks (or a magnet, or Tom Cruise a la Mission Impossible, or Tom Cruise with magnetic grappling hooks. . . you get the drift - I didn't know then what I know now about him. . . ) and wheeking my car up into the air to arrive at my destination 3 minutes later. Look - I spent HOURS of my life alone in a tin shell watching the other lane going faster than mine - UNTIL I JOINED it then it went slower! What else was I supposed to day-dream about?

O! I know what I used to DREAM about! I had this recurrent dream about me CYCLING to work. I would get on my bike in the morning and cycle to work. The dream was so real and I swear it was fine tuned to the minutest detail, so much so that I used to not wake up because I *was* in work and didn't need to listen to the alarm going off beside me. The girl I worked with, Fiona, used to joke with me when I arrived in late "Oh yea? Cycled to work today did you?"

In those days I didn't say "Feck off" but I still meant it.

Any way.

In the rush hour when you are driving in short zaps you tend to notice things more than you would when you are hurtling at seventy miles per hour.

One day the jam had been sitting still for so long the guy in the car in front of me had to get out for a pee against the central barrier. He was embarrassed but what could he do and who could blame him?

One day I noticed a beautiful stainless steel BMW wheel trim that glistened in the rain as I went past. At least, I think it was rain - who would know with the dirty dirty dirty bastards that pee all over the place?

Then I started to notice in the undergrowth past the hard shoulder that there seemed to be a lot of *dead* traffic cones. I couldn't believe the amount of abandoned cones there were littered up and down the miles that I journeyed every day. They had obviously been left behind when the roadworks were finished - but - who did these belong to and why hadn't they been picked up and how much was the country paying the road contractors for losing their own cones? Why would you order, say, a thousand cones and leave twenty of them behind willy nilly? Were they perfectly good cones? In which case they ought to have been taken back to the depot. Were they broken cones? In which case it ought to have been someone's job to have picked them up and disposed of them!

Then I noticed other types of Abandonment. Temporary Cats Eyes were left in hard shoulders, spades and gloves were thrown into the undergrowth. You could see where the workers had set up camp and thrown all their rubbish every day when they were finished their lunch. . . I noticed all these things. There was even an almighty massive crane left there for six weeks one time - but I should have known better - it hadn't been abandoned - the engine had fallen out and as it was the largest crane in Northern Ireland - there was nothing to come and tow it home. Oh the indignity of THAT!

I eventually came up with two schemes. One was the Cone Amnesty. Where people would be allowed, nay! obligated to stop on the hard shoulder to pick up cones and either keep them for their own traffic calming schemes or return them to the contractors for a finders fee (there was no eBay in those days don't forget!).

The other was where the contractors were fined for every cone found in the area they had been working on when the work was finished and before they were allowed to cash their final payment. How dare they litter my countryside with their non-biodegradable plastic hulking cones?

What are the archeologists going to think when they dig up THAT site in a few years to come - "Another cone, another cone, Oi Tony - here's another cone for your collection. . . how many is that now? Ninety nine?"

I am getting ready to get some work done today. I have loads to do - and need to get on with it. So - let's have breakfast first then.

I run downstairs, pop the bread in the toaster, stick the kettle on. In the time it takes for the toast to brown and the water to boil I have been out to the washing machine, emptied it, put the tumble dry-able clothes in the tumble drier, the non tumble dry-able things on the clothes horse and stick another load of clothes in the washing machine.

I butter the toast and pour the water on the coffee granules. THEN open the fridge for the milk which is just. . . .  thereee. . . . arrrggghhhh - no milk. NOOOOO MILK???? What? There is normally loads of milk - like four litres of the stuff - how could there be NO milk when all I want is like. . .  this much?

I don't want black coffee. I want white coffee.

The most annoying thing is that the kids will have poured approximately half a pint of milk down the sink after their breakfast. The amount of milk that gets wasted in our house annoys me at the best of times but when it directly affects my coffee intake it makes me MAD. Bloody black coffee.

I am sitting here sipping my bottle of water and eyeing the black coffee suspiciously. Can't actually bring myself to taste it. I dunno why I even brought it upstairs.

The most disturbing thing is that when I realised there was no milk for the coffee I thought to myself that I would just take tea instead. Where would the milk come for that then? Tut.

This sitting here and expecting them to jump out at me isn't working.

We have searched everywhere several times now and still no sign. Jessica said last night (after it was dark) "I may have taken them out side you know" so I am pulling on a coat and going to check the lawn.

It was snowing here this morning at 7.15am by the way. Brrrr. Just all wet now though.

(This is dedicated to my Father-in-Law Roy. This sort of thing happens to him on a daily basis. I don't know how he copes.)

I am just sitting here waiting. They WILL turn up. But they haven't yet. That's the sort of thing that happens isn't it? You only find things when you stop looking for them.

The last thing I did was send an email to tell someone how the rest of my day was going to go. I had to pick Jessica up from school, I had to take a disc of photos to the printers, I had to take Jessica out for a girly lunch (it is Red Nose Day and she is in her gorgeous red velvet dress that you have seen her wearing in a previous post), I had to wait for the photos to be printed, I had to rush back to pick David up from school, then I was going to deliver the photos to work where I was going to phone my 3 sets of customers to tell them the proofs were ready, I was then going to go shopping because there never seems to be any food in this house.

And what happened? Nothing. I have done none of the above. I lost my car keys. They are gone. Can not find them. Have looked everywhere. Yes thank you, even there - there is nowhere you can suggest that hasn't been checked. I have looked in drawers, cupboards, pockets of coats, pockets of trousers, under the stairs, on hooks, on the floor under the hooks in case they fell off, normally I find they are in Iain's pocket and he is in WORK but not this time.

The problem is that this car came to us second hand with no spare key. It is a dangerous situation to be in - but when you find that a replacement would be £120 you tend to think that this sort of thing will never happen to me! Famous last words eh?

I know I locked the car yesterday afternoon and it is now open so someone has lifted them and has been back in the car. Goodness knows WHERE they have been dropped. Oh yes, I checked beside the toilets too in case they had fallen out of trouser pockets while the wearer was at the loo. Stranger things have happened in this family.

Of course, the main problem is that I only started to look for them when I needed tham - two minutes before Jessica was due to get out of school. That made me late for school so I had to ring to let them know I was going to be late. No answer. Jessica was not going to be amused if she had to wait for me - there is nothing ruder than your mother forgetting to come and get you is there? It wasn't until I had phoned six times that I got an answer.

I asked the lady to tell Jessica where I was rather than just let her sit there.

Oh yes, I was still looking at this stage. Hadn't actually given up yet. But I still had to lift her. I walked round to a neighbour to ask for a lift to the school round but she wasn't in. How inconsiderate. I phoned another neighbour who had just arrived back from school with Jessica's boyfriend. She gave me a lift round out of sympathy - the same thing had happened to her a while back - only she knew where her keys were - she had dropped them down the drain outside the house!

I ran into the school and stood in the foyer for about 5 minutes. When there is no one in the office the doors have an intercom on them so  . . . . you . .. . . can't  . . . get . . . .  in .. . . . mmmm. Stood and waited. Rang the bell again. . .  Stood a little longer. Then Iain rang me on my mobile to tell me that the teacher had been on the phone to say his wife hadn't been to lift his daughter. ..  I AM IN THE FOYER - LET ME FECKIN IN WOULD YA? Eventually someone walked past and saw me. The intercom is a good idea and, of course, I want my children to be safe in school - but for crying out loud , is there any danger of a louder bell so the mummy you have just phoned to tell her to collect her child could actually get in to do that? No - I am not calm yet.

Back in the house I was adamant this was just a minor glitch in my afternoon plans. I looked everywhere again and asked Jessica to help. She went through the normal "Did you look here - did you look there" . .  yesyesyesyesyes. But let's look again. Eventually, she came and put her hand in mine and said "I am hungry. I want food."

David came home and he started searching too. At about 3 pm I gave up and started to relax a little. It wasn't going to happen. My plans were all going to have to be put on hold to another day. I wasn't going to win this one.

That is where you find me now then.

Sitting.

Twiddling thumbs.

Trying to be calm.

Waiting patiently for a cry of "THERE THEY ARE" and a load of eye rolling and an expected "But I looked there already" from at least three other people. I'll let you know where they turn up.