Yesterday now, I have been enjoying Gary Delaney at the Key Theatre in Peterborough after the lovely Theresa there rearranged the booking for us, since they had a fair few empty seats due to their own lack of communication…
He was fucking excellent live, and I now I have a sore throat from laughing.
(Yay!)
Isn’t it great when customer service can sort you out 
.
Much too late last night I was ordering stuff online from Mouser. Since it comes from Texas there is a £33 minimum order charge for free delivery, so I generally wait until I have a long enough shopping list before going ahead. Last night I filled my basket, ‘checked’ the list and confirmed the order. Then I read the same list in the ‘your order’s in the system’ e-mail back from them and realised I’d screwed up. I need some 270 kohm 1W carbon film resistors fairly urgently. I’d checked they were in stock and then I’d gone ahead and ordered 270 ohm ones. Damn ! It’s midnight. The pickers and packers in Mansfield TX are beavering away, but everyone at Mouser UK is tucked up in bed, or wherever, so I can’t fix the mistake.
They open at 08:30. At 08:31 I’m speaking to Leander and she tells me that my order’s already in the bag, which is sealed. Would I like to order the bits I actually wanted ? Well I would, but there’s the shipping charge - £12 for an item costing £5.80. Oh, well since it was clearly a mistake, and important to me, she will waive that. Thank you Leander. I love you very much.
Love it!
I love it all the more so, because the vast majority if ‘customer services’ deal with any issue by completely ignoring you. Exceptions are rare and precious things.
Lovely walk round the Fairfield Horseshoe.
11 miles with 3000 ft of climb. Weather perfect.
Now drinking cider.
Up in Covent Garden visiting pals from Oil business. Then at the market passing time with a couple of stall holders talking bolloks
In Glasgow, drinking.
In a commercial boiler room wiring in three new boilers not impressed. I don’t like real work any more
Working out how to/whether to fix the leak in my 20 year old bathroom. I put it in as a bit of DIY and it was fiddly. Now I’m 64 I have to decide whether to patch and go or take on a project to completely revamp a shower over bath into a walk in shower. Thinking time is needed …
Proud that my plumbing has lasted 20 years though but I could have done with it lasting longer given that it’s not my work that has failed but a component.
Surely the main pleasure of being 64 is that you can afford to pay someone to sort it out
To be fair we had a few incidents.
Basil dived into a peat bog.
By the time we got back it had dried and he’s a fucking mess. Most of it is now brushed off but plenty left.
Then on the way down a dog joined us, growling at Basil. Followed by a woman in her 60’s. It started chasing sheep!
Jan went full Geordie but the idiot couldn’t get the dog back. Eventually we cornered it and I “explained” to the woman that if a farmer had been around it would have been shot.
“Oh dear, would it? It only usually chases them for a few minutes then comes back.”
Stayed with her until we were sure she had it on a lead and understood. Jan watched her every 100 yards for a mile.
She’s rarely that cross with anyone but me.
Still a great walk.
Then forgot the bad step at the bottom of Low Pike so had to trudge back to the bi-pass.
‘Surely the main pleasure of being 64 is that you can afford to pay someone to sort it out.’
Yeah, but I did it the first time myself as a challenge so this time around I can do it myself slowly but with all the satisfaction that being useful carries with it or get someone else to do it quickly. When do I want to be useless?
Ageing is a conumdrum.
When Charles De Gaulle was in his 70s he was interviewed by a young journalist.
She asked him “How does it feel being so old”
He replied “Better than the alternative”
Words were said. I explained quite bluntly how a ewe aborts a unborn lamb after a short chase. She honestly had no clue.
Hmmm… So off-lead dogs are bad when they’re other people’s then?
What a beautiful dog Basil is though. He wears his peat well 
Cracker of a day, morning was spent driving to Newark to meet the chap that bought the Puresound pre-amp, lovely bloke, and though we’d never met it turned out we knew a shedload of people in common via various forums. An hour nattering in Waitrose car-park in the sun.
Then this evening off to one of our slightly-less locals in Whaplode St. Catherine for a classic & bike meet - chauffered by Sam in her MX-5 meant I could get stuck-in to the 8% brewed-on-site beer while admiring an extremely eclectic range of nice motors and bikes - all without the expense of owning any of them! A nice sunny evening turned into a gently moonlit night. Perfect.
No, any off lead dogs are bad when they out of control in the environment they are in. Bit like kids in a pub.
See later post.
Glad you had a cracker of a day. 
Not me I’m afraid. My lucky strike was an Axiom 80 in a chipboard ‘party’ cabinet. The 80s are in a value league of their own as far as vintage Goodmans go. For the 201s eBay Sold Listings is, as always, your friend.
