The weather is bleak and the days are cold but at least the clocks have gone forward. Good old British Summer Time is here. Well, at least that is what the calendar says! The reality is that the weather is awful and has prevented work being carried out on the outside of the house. The guttering that arrived just before Easter is still in its wrapping and looking forlorn. In fact the week I took off to coincide with the Easter holidays was a waste of time, except for one thing. My new shed arrived and it was installed with the help of The Beast, Bean Counters Eldest and a lot of liquid inspiration. Working in the cold and wet, old flagstones were lifted and re-laid. This is not an easy job when the rain is washing away any cement you are using to ensure the flags stay in place.
The old shed was moved with a lot of effort to the bottom of the garden and has now become a wood store. This job was not without a lot of drama and Heath Robinson cunning and invention and of course the usual liquid inspiration. Special thanks go to Roger Moor, TB (again) and the use of Little Miss Sunshine’s ladders which were used as a rail track to slide the old shed down the garden and into place. The garden has been tidied up as best as is possible with the weather conditions and the new shed now contains mine and BC’s pushbikes and the aim is to become fit and slim once more by using them.
After all this work it was agreed we needed a treat and so we retired into the house to sit down with a beer or two and watch a film on the new PS3 console. Said film was duly inserted into the PS3 and nothing happened. Well I say nothing happened in fact lots of things happened that should not have. A pink screen was followed by no sound but a picture then sound but no picture and finally nothing. Remembering the old adage that you need a young child to operate most gaming consoles, Roger Moor was despatched to fetch his 10 year old son. Even this talented child could not fix this and so after a lot of head scratching and much consternation followed by venting of spleen I contacted Commander Riker who duly put me in touch with Captain Sony (one half of the Revellers). 30 minutes of talking to CS could not cure the ailments of my pride and joy and it still sat there bleeping and flashing its little lights as if to mock me. I must admit that by this time I had taken a few drams of Milwaukee’s finest to calm my nerves but still managed to tell CS in no uncertain terms that the PS3 was a pile of junk and it was going in the bin and I was going to buy an X Box. This must have jarred something within CS who works for Sony and he promised to come down the following day and take a look at it for me.
True enough the following day (evening actually and 5 hours late, but that’s another story) CR and CS arrived and fixed the damn thing within a few minutes. Apparently when switching this heap of junk on, you only have to touch the on button and not hold it down until something happens or does not in my case. Holding down the on button merely tells the machine to reset itself. After much abuse towards Sony for not supplying a simpler on and off switch I calmed down and it was beers all around. My advice to any one contemplating buying one of these machines is, don’t. They are complicated unreliable and have a mind all of their own. This was pointed out by several X Box owning friends who merely laughed at my predicament with the resounding words of “Told You So”.
Genghis is growing fast both in stature and wisdom. He has become fussy about what he eats and he has learned how to bring mice into the house. I now have to train him to kill them before he brings them home to Daddy. He seems to have made several friends amongst the other cats who frequent my garden and has started to invite them into the kitchen to share his dinner with them. I guess like me he is going to be a really friendly and sociable kind of guy. I cannot think where he gets this from.