Latest Happenings

Oops, forgot to blog last week. Perhaps that's because nothing exploded for a change.

Last weekend (i.e. the 23rd) we went to the British Motor Show at eXcel in London. Was pretty good, especically as we had free tickets courtesy of the nice people at Land Rover, to celebrate the launch of the "all-new Freelander 2". We also had some "VIP Passes" to go onto a yacht moored at the riverside there, to meet the design team, examine the cars in more detail and have some free food etc. Well, the free food was, literally, one canape each, and a glass of (very nice, admittedly) fruit juice. We then got spoken to buy some marketing guy, then went out on-deck to see the cars, and had a design guy speak to us for a few minutes. The cars were very nice, although not hugely practical for us now as they are too small. Much nicer than the old Freelander though. Still, it was a bit of a disappointing "do", compared to the last one for the launch of the revamped Freelander a couple of years ago, when they invited us to a place where we could drive one on-road for 5 or 10 miles, then take one off-road, then got driven around in a Freelander rally car by a nutcase rally driver, and got a nice, proper lunch all for free, complete with souvenier photo's of us in the rally car. Now that was a much better day out!

Still, apart from that (and the price of food!) the motorshow was pretty good. So, this weekend we went to the Croydon Motorshow (We like to vary what we do on weekends). This was held in some fields off the Purley Way, and you'd expect it to be rubbish, but it was actually really good. There were no supercars or anything, obviously, but it was actually a good day out, and they had different types of cars come into the central "arena" and parade around a bit, which was more than you'd see at the London one. Even better, it was hosted by James May from Top Gear, and I got my photo taken with him. It was not at all busy there either. I suppose most people were at the London motor show!

Yesterday we went to Southampton on the Great Cheap Laptop Hunt. Tesco's are doing a laptop for £299 which is a mega bargain so I wanted one. I've been calling stores for ages trying to find one, but nobody can tell me exactly when they're getting them in. I found out they had some in Bognor Regis, but they'd sold out, and then found out they had them in Southampton. We rang and they were happy to reserve us two (Saffron wanted one as well), so we jumped in the car and headed down to Southampton. When we got there, they had only reserved us one (grrr), as by the time the girl had got to the shelves to reserve them for us, there was only one left. Fair enough, and she was apologetic. So we only got the one. We felt guilt about not getting one for Saffron, but (as she pointed out), we did go to Southampton to get it, so it was only fair we kept it. The store near my work has indicated they might get some in this week so I'm going to go there every day until we get another one for her.

Last, but not least, Jessi has gone away to her Dad's for 10 days, so the house is strangely quiet!

-Neil

The non-exploding iron!

So, not long ago it was the Non-Exploding Tumble Drier. Last week it was the Non-Exploding Iron. The iron came a little closer to actually exploding though. I was merrily ironing away, when all of a sudden there was a big blue flash from the base of it. I let go rather quickly! It took out the extension lead it was plugged into too. So, I had to go and buy a new iron! That sounds really simple but there was a huge variety in Comet (and this was only a pokey little Comet, not the great big on in Croydon). They all seem to have the same features as well. Anyway in the end I found one I liked the look of and seemed to have all the neccessary features (gets hot, generates some steam, doesn't nearly electrocute me like the last one, etc etc).

We had the BBQ yesterday at my mums. Due to a bit of mis-communication between Ele and my mum I ended up with 2 birthday cakes. Can't complain at that! Although I did rather indulge on the BBQ, and couldn't really eat much cake.

Joe has started crawling. He's not up on his knees, but kinds of swims along the floor. It's very funny to watch.

And it looks like my birthday present will arrive soon. I ordered a new GPS from our employee purchase scheme about 3 weeks ago. After a week it still hadn't shipped, so I emailed them. That email went through to the US who told me (within an hour) that I had to contact France. So, I emailed France. The cheese-eating surrender monkeys took a week to reply and that just said they were looking into it. A week later I got another email saying it had been looked at and to expect a reply soon (why not just send the actual reply?!). Anyway on Friday the status changed to "shipped", and where had it shipped from? That's right, the US. Sigh. I hope I don't get handed a big bill from Customs! Anyway it's now on the van from Crawley. Hopefully someone will be in to sign for it, I don't want to drive to Crawley to pick it up.

-Neil

Hospital!

The highlight of last week was rushing Joe off to A&E. He suddenly flared up in red blotches all over his body when we took him out of the bath. He'd been sucking on a Double Decker wrapper just before, and when we checked the wrapper it said "May contain nuts", so Ele called the medical insurance helpline and they said to take him in just incase.

So, we walked over to A&E (it's sometimes good living this close to a hospital) he was looked over and given the all clear. It had died down almost completely before they saw him anyway. So, scare over. The best bit was there was some kind of building work going on and the path to A&E was blocked off with a sign reading "Use Main Doors". We went to the main doors and they were shut with a sign saying "If these doors are shut, use A&E entrance." We eventually found a way in!

Other news is it's my birthday today! We're not doing much though. Ordering a pizza for dinner is about it. We're having a BBQ on Sunday at my mums though.

-Neil

The non-exploding tumble drier

That's right. Last week our tumble drier didn't explode. You may think this is normal behaviour, and you'd be right, but I think it came close. It started emitting some very loud, house-shaking clonking noises, which got progressively louder and louder, until we decided that perhaps they weren't going to go away, so we switched it off. The top of the drier was red hot. I think the bearings or something had gone, but I know sod all about mechanical stuff.

So, Saturday morning was spent hunting down a replacement. We tried a couple of shops and nearly ended up buying a new fridge as well. In the end, we backed down on the fridge, even though it was £100 cheaper in Comet than in Currys, mainly because they wouldn't give us a deal for buying a tumble drier and fridge together (incidentally the tumble drier was £20 cheaper in Currys, not Comet - so it pays to shop around!). I think the sales manager recognised me from our Camcorder saga of a few weeks ago, so I didn't fancy our chances of getting a discount anyway. So we went back to Currys and bought the tumble drier from there, even though Comet were happy to price-match. In the end we bought a slightly better drier, as we figured we were saving money by not buying a new fridge, not that we had intended to in the first place! The best bit was we could fit it in the back of the new car, so saved £20 delivery and were able to take it there and then.

Then the footie... damn penalties! It's a rubbish way to decide a match (of course I might not be saying that if we'd actually scored some. Somebody needs to tell the players that if they kick it into the air a bit and not along the ground then the goalkeeper has a far lower chance of saving it!). I hate that Cristiano Ronaldo guy. Ele calls him "Monkey Boy", and I couldn't help shouting "Punch him in the face" at the TV everytime somebody tackled him. I hope Rooney gives him a good thumping when he gets back to Manchester. He'll probably leave Man U now though to avoid it. Stupid cissy boy. I bet he gets picked on at United for being a real whiney girls blouse and always finds his mobile phone has been hidden or his laces tied together or something.

Anyway, Euro qualifiers start in a couple of months. Will be interesting to see if Beckham features... I bet he does (if he's recovered from his injury), but that he kind of fades out over the next couple of years. Roll on 2008!

-Neil