Ashen Faced

.

Well, here we are in Tenerife, with our flight to Gatwick booked for the coming Saturday, and this happens. A volcano erupts in Iceland, again.

So we've been busy going over our various Plan B's, just in case...

The Plan B that I really, really like involves booking into the opulent 5 star hotel just down the road and reclaiming the costs from our nice benevolent airline. Yes, I know I wouldn't get away with it, but I can dream, can't I?

But seriously, the claims procedure does seem to be very complicated nowdays. I've just read an article in today's Telegraph which tells me what to say to the airline if our flight is cancelled.

Here's the advice given by the Telegraph:

"You should tell them that under Regulation (EC) 2004/261 Article 5 you are entitled to be reimbursed or re-routed under Article 8 and also offered assistance, including accommodation, meals and transport under Article 9.

You should also state that under Article 5, airlines are able to not pay compensation in accordance with article 7 in the case of 'extraordinary circumstances', but crucially that this extraordinary circumstances clause does not apply to the entitlement to assistance under Article 9."

Blimey! I turned quite pale at the thought of saying all that. But then I realised my bigger problem.

How could I say it with a straight face?
:-)

Another book nearly finished...

.
The final page in the book I began on 9th October 2006 will soon be writ. It will be the ninth book that I’ve written.

I began writing in 1966. That was 45 years ago, so on average, I’ve managed to complete one book every five years. That’s an indication of my character; if nothing else, I’m a painstakingly methodical researcher and writer.

1966 was the year of my first marriage, to a childhood sweetheart whom I’d known since I was twelve years old. Gosh, that was a happy year. Both families were ecstatic that we’d decided to tie the knot. And there was a mood of joy and elation in the general population, although that might have been more to do with England winning the World Cup.

It was my marriage, that hugely important step forward in adult life, which prompted me to begin writing. I was acutely aware of my lack of worldly experience – I’d been in my first proper job for less than a year since leaving university - and I desperately wanted to prove myself.

Most young writers that I knew at the time (remember, this was the height of the Swinging Sixties) were writing about sex, feminism, the Vietnam War, or something called “New Wave” culture. I wanted to do something radically different. After careful thought, I decided to write a journal that reflected life as it really was for a young married couple.

So I began. And the book was a huge success, because it covered the realities, the detailed minutia of everyday life. And the book became truly great because it helped predict the future.

I’ve got a photograph of my current book, which you can see below.





Each entry in the book shows a date, a shop name or an item purchased, the cash paid, and a running balance of the cash I have in hand to last me for the rest of the month. You can see some recent entries below (a bit out of focus - sorry!).



And guess what? I've never gone into the red!
:-)

SCARAMOUCH

Here's a self-portrait of my famous Rugby scar. The scar runs down from the collar bone to just below the mole on my chest. It is majestic, isn't it?

I took the photo on my balcony, and you can see my favourite plant, a Dipladenia (or Brazilian jasmine vine), behind me. It is an energetic climber and flowers from late Spring through to the end of Autumn.

For proof positive that the scar is mine, you can click on the photo to enlarge it. And click on it again if you really, really like! Just above the balcony wall you can see the back of the sign above the infamous STARCO complex in Las Americas.

I've titled this blog Scaramouch because I'm a very boastful but cowardly person. Whenever I fear attack, I tear off my shirt to reveal the scar, and I scream. This sometimes frightens my attackers off. If that doesn't work, I start reminiscing about my time in Special Forces in Vietnam. If that doesn't work either, I launch into my pre-prepared speech about my open-heart surgery which had gone wrong because they'd operated on the wrong side of my chest. Otherwise I leg it.

But the really, really wonderful thing about my scar is that Kathy likes to run her finger along it.
:-)

Bijou Property for sale

How could I resist sharing this photo with you? It appears on the website of a North Kent estate agent, and depicts a garage that is available for sale at an advertised price of £7,500.

Did it make you smile, too?
:-)

Carwash Solution

Hello again!

After my previous blog we went back to the carwash and tried again, with great success.

See below!



And then we drove off to the local opticians...
:-(

PS Now we can see what an upside-down ticket really looks like!

Carwash

Kathy and I had a bit of bother today when we took our car to the carwash.

Just to set the scene, here's a photo that I took of the carwash in operation on another car while we were waiting our turn.


Our problem was with the green-faced box which you can see fixed to the wall on the left. It has a keyboard on its facia which enables a customer to enter a six-digit password. This starts the carwash. Simple!

We'd been given our six-digit password on a printed receipt when we had paid for the carwash.


Well, as soon as we had parked the car inside the carwash, Kathy whizzed off with the receipt to enter the password into the box on the wall, while I did mundane stuff like checking that all the windows were closed, unscrewing the car radio aerial, and pushing the wing mirrors in.

When I joined her, Kathy was still busily typing the password into the box on the wall. "It's not working!" she exclaimed,"And I've tried ten times!"

So I had a go. I entered the password. And nothing happened. And I tried again, and again, and again, with no result. A queue of cars was building up in the waiting area behind us, and some of the drivers started honking impatiently.

Time was ticking on, and we had an appointment to keep. So we decided to leave the carwash and return again tomorrow.

It was while we were waiting at the exit to turn into a busy road that I glanced into the rear view mirror. And I could see the carwash operating perfectly normally on the next car in.

I wonder why it wouldn't work for us? Have you had a similar experience? We'll try again tomorrow, but in the meantime, we'll be interested in your ideas!

:-)

Chain Gang.

I had a bit of bother today when I went to fetch a trolley at my local supermarket.

You are probably quite familiar with these trolleys, each embedded one into another, that are parked outside a modern supermarket. I call them "chain-gangs", because the back of each trolley has a dangling chain with an attachment that plugs into the lock of the trolley that is stacked behind it.



You have to push a coin into the lock of the rearmost trolley. This releases the chain from the lock, and you pull your trolley out. The chain is left dangling from the back of what is now the last trolley in the chain gang.

Simple! Then off you go into the supermarket with your trolley, with your coin visible and protruding slightly from the lock.



Afterwards, when you've finished shopping and you've loaded your car with goodies, you return your empty trolley to the chain gang. You push your trolley into the back of the rearmost trolley, then you plug the end of the chain hanging from that trolley into the lock of your trolley. This relinks your trolley to the chain gang and releases your coin from the lock. Bliss!

They are clever people, these trolley designers. I've often tried to prise my coin out, whilst wandering around the supermarket, in the hope that this would relieve me of the chore of returning my trolley to the chain gang. But no way! The trolley lock has clamped its jaw, bulldog- like, around the coin and the only way to get your coin back (short of a hammer and chisel) is to return the empty trolley to the chain gang.

But I digress. Or perhaps I should say that today the supermarket digressed from its usual policy of totalitarian control and order. The entire chain gang, fully chained together, had been pushed out of its railed enclosure to enable a cleaner to sweep the tarmac. And for the first time in my life, I found myself approaching the chain gang from the front, instead of the rear.

I admit I should have thought more deeply about this, and I should have walked to the back of the chain gang to get my trolley out in the usual way. But I didn't. Instead, I chose the easier option, which was the front trolley, which was nearer. And I inserted my coin into the lock of the trolley behind, which broke its link to the chain of the front trolley.

That's when disaster struck. Kathy was with me, and she was in a hurry. The supermarket was running a special promotion of cut-price goodies, and she was worried that these would become sold out. So she grabbed the front trolley that I had freed and disappeared into the supermarket.

I hope you can visualise the scenario: Kathy had disappeared with a trolley that had no coin in its lock. And I was left alone, at the head of the chain gang, which had my coin clamped into the lock of its foremost trolley.

What would you do?
:-(

Well, I'm sure that you can think of all sorts of solutions that I didn't consider in the heat of the moment. What I can say is this; people who had finished their shopping were arriving with empty trolleys and plugging them into the rear of my chain gang in order to retrieve their coins. And they outnumbered the fewer new arrivals who wanted a trolley from the back of my chain gang. My chain gang was growing by the minute. Something had to be done. So I panicked.

Determined as I was not to abandon my coin in the front trolley, I pushed the entire chain gang into the supermarket in order to find Kathy. I admit this caused some inconvenience to the shoppers inside, as well as some minor damage to the supermarket entrance, and to the special offer promotion display in the entrance foyer, and to several aisles. But I did find Kathy in the frozen food area, where she was examining some pork chops which were on special offer at a 30% discount from yesterday's price.

"What the hell are you doing!" she yelled, as I approached, pushing my chain gang. Somehow, I managed to bring the meandering train of trolleys to a full stop when the front trolley (the one with my coin in it) got wedged between frozen pork and frozen chicken container units.

I can't quite remember the exact detail of our subsequent conversation. But we did agree that a coin in the lock of a front trolley in a chain gang is irretrievable.

Maybe the supermarket knows this, too...

PS
Here's a photo of Kathy's coinless trolley.


PPS
I'm using this photo as a template for the production of copy chain attachments. I see an opportunity for making money in the supermarket aisles if I have some of these attachments to hand....
:-)