You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2009.
… letters from D P Hosker.
“Who”, I hear you cry, “is D P Hosker?”
He’s the poor sap who inhabits United Utilities Water PLC’s Legal Department, in fact, he may be the WHOLE of United Utilities Water PLC’s Legal Department.
In order to get a threatening letter from him, all you have to do is put your water rates bill to one side for a couple of days – you know – the way most people do. The next thing you know dear old Hosker’s going to be landing on a doormat near you.
Now, as you can imagine, this doesn’t remotely worry me. In fact, I now deliberately forget to pay their bills for a few days so that they waste time and money sending out their vacuous threatening letters. It’s exactly like those berks who rush up behind me on the A595, with their headlights up my exhaust (so to speak) letting it be known that I’m not travelling fast enough for them. The only effect is has is to make me slow down.
However – can you imagine how an elderly man or woman, living alone, would feel if they got one of those nasty little missives because they failed to drop everything and pay their water rates bill as quickly as United Utilities think they should? United Utilities being the centre of the universe, and all?
Quite.
Oh – and my collection of letters?
When I have ten, I’m going to trade them in for a picnic set.
Feverish preparations for August 22nd continue unabated.
I rang the local tea rooms this morning. They do excellent and very reasonably priced sandwiches.
I said I’d like to order sandwiches for our “do” on August 22nd, and they said that was fine.
I then said we were expecting abut 400 people …
There was a sort of bat-squeak of terror on the other end of the ‘phone and I’m fairly certain that if I could have seen her, her face would have been dead white.
I waited half a beat before I added,
“… but we only want 200 sandwiches.”
I’m a ba-a-a-d person and I’ll never go to heaven.
Well, the week’s ending a lot better than it started, fortunately.
Happily, I just happened to have another zip drive on my personage. (Well, okay – ‘happened to have’ didn’t actually come into it. My old zip drive threw a wobbly a while back, so I found a new one (or a reconditioned one, anyway – they don’t make the little b*ggers any more, do they?) on eBay. As soon as it arrived, the old drive sprung back into life, didn’t it?).
I plugged in the new one, and everything was oojah-cum-spiff again.
Currently waiting to see if enough Committee members turn up to constitute a quorum for our Committee meeting. The smart money’s on ‘No’ – but that’s okay, because we’ll just have a Centre meeting to discuss August 22nd.
My zip drive appears to have bitten the dust.
Is it a coincidence, do we think, that the little hole they give you on disk drives so that you can extract any trapped disks is EXACTLY the right diameter to take a straightened-out paperclip?
Answers on a postcard.
I don’t do Mondays. Ask anyone. Mondays and I are not compatible. Mind you, Tuesdays aren’t exactly my best buddies either … and Thursdays have always been a bit problematic …
But it’s Mondays I really have trouble with.
Especially when:
(1) Gretchen’s having computer troubles that necessitate me galloping up and down stairs,
(2) I can’t find the attachment I’m supposed to be sending off to the local printshop for a quote that’s hopefully going to be less than the eye-watering one we already have from someone else,
(3) The Royal Mail website has rejected my credit card not once but three times, and I really, really need to order 800 second class stamps in a hurry, like yesterday,
(4) Things are being added to the bottom of my “to do” list faster than I’m knocking them off the top and
(5) There’s still another 5 hours to go before I can go home.
When I rule the world, I’m going to ban Mondays. In fact, when the revolution comes, they’re going to the first to the wall. After the Sellafield boy racers.
Better late than never, that’s what I always say …
~~~: oOo :~~~
The Great 20 & 10 Birthday Party …
When Gretchen and I first came up with the idea of the joint celebration for our 20th Anniversary and the Cumbria Community Foundation’s 10th (at least I THINK I was partially culpable – although it’s all a bit of blur now) we had in mind something quiet, and low-key. When and how it all started to snowball we’re not too sure. All we do know is that before we could say ‘fish slice’ we had a full-scale bun-fight on our hands. We believe we’re looking at catering for about 400 people – and if it’s a glorious summer’s day, it might be more.
We’ve sent out RSVP invitations to just a few of the people who have, over the years, done something special for us in some way – Friends of the Centre, donors, people who have baked for us, people who have volunteered, ex-staff, fundraisers (although we will inevitably have overlooked many people – 20 years is a long time) – and saying we’ve been a bit taken aback by the response is like saying Moses was mildly surprised when the Red Sea parted. The Chase is rapidly turning into THE place to be on August 22nd. We’re having to address the questions of car parking, gazebos, catering, signage, timings, musical entertainment – I mean, sheesh – what happened to ‘quiet’ and ‘low-key’?
The timetable is currently that the Mayor and Mayoress of Copeland, The Mayor and Mayoress of Allerdale and the Mayor of Millom (locally known as The Chain Gang) will be arriving at 10.30am. The Right Reverend George Hacker (former Bishop of Penrith) will be leading a service of Thanksgiving at 11.00am. A specially-baked and decorated birthday cake will be cut at about 11.30am. There’ll be garden tours at 12.00 and 2.00 and a superb 20th Anniversary raffle is running all day, to be drawn at 3.30pm. Clock THESE prizes:
- An original portrait of the subject of your choice by artist Maggie Messenger.
- ‘Muncaster’ pattern tea service by Dave Aspden of the now-defunct Waberthwaite pottery.
- Autographed copy of Rosie Swale’s latest book “Just a Little Run Around the World” .
- Double DVD set – Series 1 and 2 of the BAFTA-winning Harry and Paul autographed by Harry Enfield.
- DVD of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1980’s production of Nicholas Nickleby, autographed by Edward Petherbridge (who played Newman Noggs), plus an as-yet unspecified ‘little trophy’ being kindly donated him.
- DVD set of Series 5 of Foyle’s War, autographed by Jay Benedict (who played US Army Captain John Kieffer in the episodes ‘Invasion’ and ‘All Clear’).
- Prestige 18-piece table mat set by Royal Doulton.
- Bottle of Chivas Regal Premium Scotch whisky.
Good, eh? Tickets on sale now at £1.00 each, or buy them on the day. There’ll also be a really posh tombola, cakes, refreshments, information, live music, gifts, cards, jewellery …
EVERYONE is welcome … it’s NOT an invitation-only event. So do come and join us … it’s shaping up to be a day to remember and we want to share it with everyone.
~~~: oOo :~~~
I’m quite sure that somewhere around the A66 turn-off to Newton Rigg I slipped through a wormhole into an parallel universe … where all the conference attendees wore name badges with more than one name on them and there were carthorses in the car park.
This is what happens when the Romantic Novelists’ Association holds its annual conference at an agricultural college.
Betty Entwistle (see Note 1 below) writes as both Lucinda le Vaillant (see Note 2 below) and Amelia Flowerfairy (see Note 3 below), so she has all three names on her badge and looks like she could soundly box you on the ears if she gets any more of your lip young woman …
The unlikeliest person told me a filthy joke about the Jolly Green Giant and someone else gave me a handy hint on how to break into expensive cars … (Kate Lace, you have been named and shamed!).
Meanwhile, out in the almost-but-not-quite real world of the car park, the life of the agricultural college goes on, and two students are taking Dobbin out to pasture.
Had a bit of an agricultural moment myself this morning … I heard some basic Anglo-Saxon issuing forth from the back garden, and when I stuck my head out of the window, saw a cow in the garden, hotly pursued by a farmhand waving his arms and bellowing “F*cking ‘ell lass … get back in’t f*cking field!”
Sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to have a normal life.
Note 1: I made this name up.
Note 2: And this one.
Note 3: And this one.
.
PS: I had an absolutely WONDERFUL time at Penrith with the RNA … they’re a really friendly bunch of people who made me very welcome and looked after me like royalty (which made a nice change from the way I’m treated around here … pearls before swine it is most of the time … ) – but my naughty gene just gallops out of control sometimes.
PPS: No-one threw things, so I think I did okay …
I’m off to Penrith tomorrow to give a talk to the Romantic Novelists’ Association at their annual conference at Newton Rigg College. Honestly. Cross my heart and hope to die. I am. No, I don’t know how it happened either.
I’m talking to them about Vulpes Libris … the book site I help to run. The talk is called “Crazy Like a Fox” – and the title is likely to be the best thing about it.
When I originally said “Yes”, it all seemed a very long way off and like a really wizard wheeze. That was before I found out they wanted me to speak for 40 minutes and then answer questions. That was before July the 11th became TOMORROW instead of some hazy point in the distant future. That was before my feet went cold and my hands went numb and my throat started to tighten at the mere thought of talking to ANYONE – let alone a covey of of Romantic Novelists – for 40 minutes.
I’m not even totally sure whether the 8,200 odd words I’ve bashed out on my laptop will LAST 40 minutes. On the other hand, we could all still be there at sunset as I plough on with my embarrassingly unfunny reminiscences and pedestrian observations.
I think I’m going to be sick.
If you’re on Twitter – even if you’re not – you can following the conference courtesy of a hundred or so Blackberries … by going to Twitter and typing #RNA09 into the search box.
You might be able to pinpoint the exact moment I throw up in terror … as in:
“Oh dear, the Book Fox woman’s looking a bit peeky … Oh dear … Oh yuk …”
Mummy …
#RNA09
I’m having a ‘bitty’ day. I hate ‘bitty’ days. My desk is piled up with a stack of little jobs that need doing – none of them difficult or demanding – just messy.
I’d much rather get my teeth into something major that I can concentrate on … but ‘housekeeping’ just drains the will to live …
On a profoundly trivial note (if you CAN be ‘profoundly trivial’ …) I decided it was time I behaved like a Real Woman and did something about the lipstick issue … just to show willing.
I checked in my dressing table drawer and found that I DID own a lipstick – just one, and a very old one at that. It was still useable but I thought things had probably moved on, colour-wise, in the intervening 15 years. So – girding up my loins – I ventured into the local chemists and shuffled self-consciously over to the foreign country of the cosmetics counter (they do things differently there …).
I tried out a few testers when I thought no-one was looking and finally decided on a colour that seemed to do the biz without making me look like an aging slapper.
I bore it home in triumph and placed it beside its lonely companion on the dressing table. And that’s when I noticed. The label on the end of both lipsticks was facing me. They both said:
“Rimmel Cosmetics. Heather Shimmer.”
*HEAD* -> *DESK*
Well, here it is … all seven feet of it.
I apologize for the quality of the photo, but I had to get it silhouetted against the sky, otherwise you couldn’t have seen it … If any of the local deliverymen had come along at the critical moment, my reputation (what little remains of it that is) would have been in tatters. Me, flat on my stomach on the driveway, clutching my trusty digital camera and wondering if I’d ever get back on my feet again without the aid of a block and tackle. (I’m neither as young nor as svelte as I used to be, you know …).
Actually – looking at that photo, it’s a bit like one of those tricksy let-us-tie-your-eyes-in-knots pictures, isn’t it? The kind Max Escher used to produce. You can’t quite make out which is back and which is front. Sorry. You’ll just have to trust me on this. It’s … magnificent.
