Who's Got The Key Of The (Creaking) Door...

...never been 51 before!

I made this rice crispie slab on Thursday to have as my cake. I realised this evening, as I was about to demolish the last piece(!), that I better take a hasty photo. So, with one of Mr B's candles and my handy mobile...voila! One really dire shot of the best thing to do with puffed rice.

Yummy, yummy,yummy and now all in my tummy!

I spoke to Mr B in Tokyo earlier - it was 2.30am his time, so it was, technically my birthday. Finished the conversation and came back to GB time and, miraculously, I' m a year younger!!

I will be doing a 'Giveaway' later on. Not sure what it will be. So far a family set of gingerbread cookie cutters, scented oil and diffuser sticks, a couple of nail varnishes and a very pretty crocheted flower brooch, made by Tilly Rose and purchased at the Fair last Saturday. The weirdest thing, that Mr B is bringing back from Japan, is gorilla bogies!! Bet you'll all be gagging to win that! (Apparently they are sweets. Yes, I said sweets, not sweet!!). Oh yes, and a pretty little jewelled bee ring from Primani. I bought 2 to make into earrings, which hasn't happened, so someone really ought to have the pleasure of wearing it!

So, my computer says 00.01, so let the festivities begin!!
Well, no actually. I'm going to sleep.
Night night,
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Modern Technology Fortnight....grrrrrr

(This is just here as adornment!)
When we first moved to Northampton holiday companies still sold 'Factory Fortnight' holidays; when, in this towns' case, the whole shoe industry would shut down for the annual 2 week summer holiday.
Well, I feel like I have been on a two week technical nightmare break!
Hurrah I have a TV picture back, not that I really missed it that much. But we don't have half the 'extra' Freeview channels that we used to. No longer can I while away too many hours watching crafting and Nail guru Leighton Denny on QVC. No more Morse on ITV3. Mind you, I could almost be word perfect on some of those they have been repeated, and watched, that many times!
Then last night, with the windy, wet weather the screen just kept on pixallating and making screeching noises.
Yeah, Digital TV, the brave new world etc etc. Bring back analogue. We never had all these problems and I really don't need any extra channels and certainly not shopping ones! (Mind you, I never have succumbed!).

(More adornment-still in their pots)
As for the laptop palaver! The only way you can remove Hitachi LifeStudio Desk Plus is to re-install the whole shebang and do it thru' the system. Yeah, great, it's a faulty external hard drive and did not install properly in the first place!!! So, just to stop the pop-up of 'we detect new hard ware' popping up every few seconds I have disabled the bloody thing!
My poor laptop is not happy...I cannot do a System Restore back to any previous date and have yet to resolve why. Cue much cussing at various websites that are supposed to be helping me!! I have had to change my Internet Browser too! On IE I couldn't stay signed in to Blogger; it would say I was but if I tried to leave comments (and I have tried a few times this week) it would just ask me to sign in again! Again much cussing until I changed to Mozilla Firefox and at the mo, all is well with my blogging world!

Here is the finished bed. Sadly, Tabby likes to think I did all this to make her a lovely 'pooping area'(!) and seems to have managed to kill off that beautiful coral azalea, so there is now a rose of some unknown, (probably Wilkos'), sort.

As for the first picture....I tweaked an old Austrian blind from our old flat so that it is static at the top of the window in the kitchen. It just cuts out the sharp sunlight in the morning that can start off a raging headache if I'm not careful. There's a little pinoleum blind that drops down behind it.

I did get to the Fair last Saturday and it did not disappoint. Lovely to see everyone again and bought some lovely things. Will be posted at some point. It will be my birthday and therefore my 'bloggiversary' tomorrow, cue an ickle giveaway, but at the moment it is a few items that have no bearing to one another. You shall see...
Have a fabulous Bank Holiday weekend! Mr B comes home late Monday, so that is going to be MY best bit, but there is a Bicycle Basket Bazaar tomorrow and M&S is doing its' 2 dine in for a tenner promo so that food and wine sorted for the weekend!

Z xx

Technical Dud Week

What a week!

TV reception disappeared. Our region went digital a while ago and all was fine. I retuned the digibox easily enough. Ha ha!

I tried all sorts of different combinations of scart leads, sockets, RF in and RF out, (which, I found out today from the lovely Aerial Men, you don't need to use with a scart!). All to no avail. I was a bit 'off' towards having anyone coming round, but yesterday, having bought a new digibox, which wouldn't work either(!), I called the company and they came this morning. How about that for service? Only problem...they had been given the wrong house number and had fixed the aerial on the house down the road. The office phoned me to ask if I was in-er, yes-because they couldn't get anyone to answer the door, so I went out the front and there was the van on the other side of the road. Cue mad woman waving her arms around!! In the end it was the little box that has to stay swiched on all the time. We have a solar panel aerial I belive, and the little power box thingy had just petered out.

The other trouble monger was an external hard drive. Do NOT but anything from Hitachi if you are hoping for any kind of Customer Service. Sheer Hell! I was offered the option by PC World to return it, so after a heated exchange with a very unobliging Frenchman, I thought 'stuff it, it's going back!'

OMG-I was close to tears after all the hassle, but the staff at PC World Customer Service, Tej and Craig, but the not the woman in the 'business section', were brilliant. Even down to removing my data from the, as it turned out, faulty hard drive, and downloading it onto my newly purchased, non-Hitachi one.

The only outstanding problem was that Mr B had paid for it using his card, so I bought the new one and it has been OK'd to return the duff one when Mr B returns from his travels.

Phew!

But, never mind, as long as I can get my act together tomorrow, I have this to look forward to...

Lucky old me, eh?

All this and I had a trip to Birmingham to see my osteopath! Feel a bit rough from that , but I know it's worth it in the long term.

And I found something I have been trawling t'internet for, for ages. Haven't done a photo yet, so I shall leave you guessing!!

Have a wonderful weekend wherever, whatever you are doing.

Z xx

Soothing The Soul Sunday

It's a beautiful Sunday morning here. I had my yummy coffee in my CK cowboy mug, taken my meds and have a magazine-fest for my perusal. Fab! It really doesn't take a lot to make me content...add in a couple of snoozing kitty-cats on the bed and now I'm in heaven! (Thanks for the heads up on the freebie CK bag with Easy Living, Mary Poppins).

Mind you, this chair in the BHS window display looks awfully inviting too!

*****

I was able to procure an hotel room for our stay in Manchester. Hurrah! What is it with some of these places? Only one animal per room, (OK if you're bringing Great Danes!), and the best one...they need to be supervised at all times, or if I leave the room they must be locked up in their travelling box! Why would I bring two cats away with me if they have to be 'secured' when I'm not there? I might as well put them into a Cattery (quelle horreur!).

So, as it is my holiday, I have bitten the bullet and pushed the boat out for a 4 poster 'executive room', (yeah, we'll see about that !! is their vision the same as mine?) at Sachas. It has had some pretty ropey reviews on Trip Advisor but we stayed there years ago and Mr B has been there more recently, and it's been OK. But it is right in the centre of town. Yipee!!

If Take That hadn't have been in Town my choice would've been the Ibis in Charles street as it is right opposite the old Factory Records building! That, sad to say, would've made my week!! I have 2 bricks, one red, one blue, from The Hacienda. (Sad g*t!). One thing I will be able to do myself, instead of instructing Mr B to do it, is take some 'International Orange' gerberas to the 'Hidden Gem' in memory of Tony Wilson.

God bless that man!

Big In Japan

Mr B and "the gang" are off on a jolly to Japan today. Flying there as I type.

Me? Nothing much to report other than I had labarynthitus again (boo). And I now have the fall-out of the packing tornado that is Mr B going on tour=a total mess!!

Mind you, once I've done that...hurrah, my time is my own, so I am going to try and get some good habits formed before he gets back. Y'know, diet, exercise and the like. Ha ha, yep, sure that is gonna happen!

I've actually spent too many hours today trying to get a hotel room in Manchester, but it is the same time as Take That are doing their 'thang', so haven't had a hope in hell. I am hoping to get to the NW Bloggers meet up, cos I want to meet all you lovely peeps 'oop North'!

Keep your fingers crossed that I get lucky!

Z xx