Saturday, May 16, 2009

Feeling My Age - Plus Some!

It's been a long old week. Business has been 'brisk' to say the least. Been working 8-6 most days with just enough time to down the odd cheese and marmite sandwich - all of this work being property related; so seems things are finally moving on the market. My advice, if you want to pick up a bargain, now would seem to be a good time to buy - property prices are lower than they've been for years but there's light at the end of the tunnel.

The Wii regime is still going strong but I got a mite depressed by doing the body test every day so decided to limit that to once a week, but now getting into the yoga and muscle workouts, plus of course the hula hoop and step. Unfortunately I still can't control my feet - when I'm 'stepping'. I find myself tripping over the Wii balance board. I can't quite work out how they expect me to keep an eye on the TV screen to see what the next move is AND find the board with my feet. Same with the yoga. Connie (my Wii trainer) instructs me to follow her moves and then tells me to move my head so I'm facing in the opposite direction. I obviously need surgery to have a third eye inserted somewhere behind me (no rude comments please!). Still, despite my lack of third eye, I can now become a 'half moon', a warrior, a chair or a palm tree at will.

On Tuesday we took delivery of a new Freeview/Hard Drive/DVD player to run in tandem with our original Freeview/recorder. On opening we found that it was broken, contacted the supplier who arranged for it to be picked up on Wednesday afternoon and replace it, at the same time, with a new one.

On Wednesday morning Adam had an eye appointment at Specsavers. As Norwich isn't keen on cars we took the bus in. Living out here in the wilds our buses aren't always that reliable. Admittedly we're fortunate enough to have one every 30 mins (in theory!). Unfortunately it seems First Bus think we're all farmers out here who are, in all likelihood, going to take our chickens or pigs to market so they send us the oldest, dirtiest buses in the garage which have a tendency to break down just shy of the village. We've therefore taken to getting the previous bus to that which we should need. For once, the earlier bus was on time so we spent a leisurely half an hour wandering round the market where Adam instantly headed for the butchers section to visit Mr Pickering the Sausage Man! He's quite a celebrity in Norfolk (Mr Pickering, not Adam) and is often heard on Radio Norfolk.

We then arrived in good time for Adam's eye appointment. What an experience that was!! We normally visit a smaller practice but the guy decided to sell up and move to Lowestoft and, as Adam normally buys contact lenses online, he thought it would be better just to go for a 'quickie' check up, get the prescription and then do his own thing. We went to the main reception desk who immediately sent us upstairs to the next reception desk. That reception desk sent us to another waiting area where a petite young lady in equally petite mini skirt, beckoned a grinning Adam to join her at an open plan computer 'station' some 6 ft or so away. She then proceeded to go through all his personal details - name, age, address, telephone number, medical conditions, etc. So what's happened to privacy? Any weirdo who dropped in for a free eye test on the State could now be privy to all this information - I'm just waiting for a heavy breather to phone on our ex directory number or come knocking on the door and start talking about his medical conditions.

Adam was then taken to another open area where his eyes were tested. He then returned to me and was then taken by a guy (not wearing a mini skirt you'll be pleased to hear!) into another room to do the final eye test to determine his prescription. The only good thing about the experience was that Adam was able to pick up a pair of 'emergency' glasses for £25. Yes, he can now walk proudly down the street donning the new specs, tapping on people's shoulders and quoting "You should have gone to Specsavers"!

Following our Specsavers visit we ventured through M&S and ended up buying one of their Chinese meals (a real bargain, just like the real thing from a takeaway but half the price). Then off to the bus stop to get the charabanc home, diesel fumes and springs up the bum as we went over the speed humps at no extra cost!

On Wednesday afternoon our replacement Freeview, Hard Drive with DVD player arrived intact. Adam set it all up and found it worked fine until he tried to use it alongside the telly and our previous Freeview/HDD twin recorder. He found that the remote controls conflicted which meant we COULD use the new item - we had sound for the TV programme and could record ... but unfortunately we could only record the channel we were watching. We then discovered that we could watch a DVD but we had to listen to the programme we were recording. Useful eh? So, once again, Adam contacted the company we'd bought it from, told the nice lady all about it who was very apologetic and arranged to have it collected on Friday morning.

Thursday was pretty uneventful except for the fact that the cat decided to bring up a fur ball while I was eating my Shreddies - a bit of a turn off first thing in the morning but that's yer luck. During the morning we did notice a couple of volunteers from Hillside Animal Sanctuary out in the meadow behind the house checking the 'stock proof' fences so presumably during this coming week we'll be having some rescued horses out there. They obviously didn't do a particularly good job though as that afternoon, when I went down to make a cuppa, I looked out of the back door - did my eyes deceive me? I thought I could see highland cattle out there in the distance! My first reaction was to phone Specsavers to make an eye appointment for myself but as this seemed a little radical I grabbed the binoculars which we keep to hand in the study upstairs for bird watching and took a quick squint. They were definitely highland cattle - three of, two medium sized and one small, one with incredibly huge horns! They'd obviously come through a break in the fence somewhere between the meadow and the next door farmer's bit of 'set aside' (basically a bit of scrubland with various bushes).

Friday dawned cold and wet but I didn't have time to look out at it much as I had foot on pedal, headphones glued to earholes and hands working 90 mph on the keyboard due to an overload of details for new houses onto the market, etc, etc. Having finished work at around 6.00 I took a quick turn around Triond to find out what my mates were doing and managed to find some really interesting new friends. I then joined Connie on the Wii and turned myself into a half moon and a warrior for quarter of an hour and then watched a DVD before deciding to call it a night at around 10.00 and went to bed with John Brunning (DJ on Classic FM) and to start my new book. C J Sansom - a Tudor murder mystery.

Now, this morning, up with the lark. cup of tea, out to the local Co-op at about 9.30, back with top up bread, milk, cheese and washing powder - and freshly baked Danish pastries, of course! Seems Adam and I have now hit the 'OAP' entry zone. We found ourselves shopping with older members of our community. They obviously have the foresight to get into the Co-op before all the younger people with their unruly kids. It's far more pleasant and relaxing than later in the day so suspect we'll be doing it again.

Following that, home James, kettle on, coffee made, Danish pastry on plate and up here to blog for a bit before I start on the day's household chores.

So, that's my week so far - but there's still a good day and a half left so who knows, I still have time to become a Wii chair or palm tree or to book my surgery to have my third eye implanted!!!

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for letting us into your home again, Jackie. I can't believe that a woman can have an identical sense of humour to mine, and you like cheese and Marmite sandwiches too! We don't share the same DNA by any chance do we?

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