*whimper*

Sorry for the silence … but I fell prey to one of those twisted little cybernetic geniuses who choose to waste their undoubted talents in devising viruses to topple unsuspecting computers.   I won’t tell you WHICH virus, because I won’t give the oik the pleasure … but it resulted in my PC completely seizing up, and not even the most heroic efforts of my Inestimable Brother could save it.

We toyed with the idea of buying a completely new computer (yes, the damage was THAT bad) but then said Inestimable Brother volunteered to build me a new computer in the old chassis … which is what has been done.

I have returned.

Now all I need to do is trackdown all the data I transferred onto my USB sticky thingy …

PS:  The picture of The Chase is being turned into a Christmas card.  Details of how to buy them will be appearing on here and the website (just as soon as I work out how to access the website — which involves reloading the website-tweaking program, which involves me locating it in this rummage sale I call an office).

Whaddya think?

I’m supposed to be designing the 2010 Calendar, but while I was looking at the pictures,  I sort of got distracted (as one does …) by this one of The Chase in the February snow.

What do you think?  Marketable as a Christmas card?

It’s all a conspiracy …

Bureaucrats.  Who invented them?

For some time now I’ve been wrestling, on and off, (although frankly more ‘off’ than ‘on’) with the Criminal Records Bureau’s ‘Disclosure Application Forms’.

We’re now legally obliged to do this if we work with children and/or vulnerable adults.  All well and good.  We all appreciate that there is, unfortunately, a need for it.  What I want to know is why the system appears to have been invented by somebody with the IQ of a brain-damaged woodlouse.

First off, it avails you nothing to say “I’ve just been CRB-checked for  my Scout Group/Red Cross duty/hospital job.”  You see,  every separate occupation/activity/past-time has to have a separate CRB check.  Really.

So – gritting my teeth – I gathered together all the information needed, sent all the forms off – and fairly promptly – got them all back again because:

Some of the date formats are wrong.  You see, some dates have to be given as a Month and Year and other as a Day, Month and Year – and woe betide you if you give them Day, Month and Year when they only want Month and Year.

Back it comes …

Then there’s the “Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Other” thing.

You initially think “Wow, how very on-message of the CRB to recognize ‘Ms’ …”, duly tick it and then fill out the rest of the form.

Back it comes …

It turns out that if you tick ‘Ms’, the CRB automatically assumes that you’re divorced or – possibly – widowed.  You aren’t allowed to be single.  So if you tick ‘Ms’,  they expect you to fill out the ‘Previous Surnames’ section.  If you DON’T fill out the ‘Previous Surnames’ the form comes back, because in the CRB version of the universe you can’t be single and want to be referred to as ‘Ms’ … it isn’t allowed.  I haven’t had the courage to try putting in the SAME surname as the PREVIOUS surname … but I can guess what would happen if you did.

The form would come back …

Then there are all the hoops you have to go through to actually prove who you are.  The CRB plainly wants to believe that we inhabit a nice, cosy, middle-class universe centred somewhere in the Home Counties wherein we can all produce passports, driver’s licences, utility bills and bank statements (originals mind, not prints from the internet, or photocopies …).  They can’t cope with any form of eccentricity – which leaves me rather despairing of any hope of getting our new gardener cleared.  He lived for 15 years in a Buddhist monastery in India.

The CRB are going to LOVE that.

Filofaxes have their uses.

Many years ago, I swore that if I ever found myself in a job that required me to use a Filofax, I’d end it all forthwith.

I always associated them with hard-faced over-achieving urbanites juggling job, gym and perfect sex lives -  all lip gloss and power dressing and – oh, you know … stuff.

Well.  What can I say?  Here I am, in the back end of nowhere without a pair of high heels to my name and only hundreds of sheep, a castle and a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant for company … and yet, several years ago, I had to give in and buy a Filofax.  What’s more,  as I’m plainly still here to tell the tale, it’s self-evident that I wimped out on the ‘ending it all’ promise.

Not that owning a Filofax necessarily saves me from myself.  They are, after all, only as efficient as the person using them and are heavily reliant on said owner actually CHECKING them occasionally.

If I’d checked mine recently, for instance, I wouldn’t have been on the receiving end of the thoroughly nasty shock I had this morning.

There I was, sitting at my desk, tea in one hand and plain digestive biscuit in the other, looking forward to a nice, productive day with the Herself out of the office for the morning and no-one else around.  Out of what can only be described as idle curiosity I flipped open my Filofax and was very startled to read:

11.45:  Dentist.
12.10:  Hygienist.

Most normal people, of course, have dentists who are just down the road … maybe 20 minutes away  tops.  Not being normal, and this being the aforementioned back end of nowhere, my dentist is an hour’s drive away down hellishly tortuous roads – and that’s assuming you don’t get stuck behind a milk tanker/caravan/tractor/herd of cows/funeral cortege.

I made it by the skin of my teeth … (which were in great nick, thank you for asking …).

Well it was like this …

Considering how many things COULD have gone wrong on August 22nd, up to and including gale force winds, collapsing gazebos, flood, storm and mosquito attack – it actually all went extraodinarily smoothly.

In fact, our only major glitch was the ice cream – and even that was only a near-glitch.  True, it did result in the silencing of poor Fiona, who was supposed to be playing the electric piano for us in the morning … and the after-service speakers had to rely on lung-power alone … but hell, it was a sacrifice for the greater good that is Ice Cream.

You see, the generator packed up.  So there we were, in the middle of the Thanksgiving Service on what was promising to turn into the hottest day of the year, with an in situ ice cream van and no refrigeration.

Now I ask you … given the choice between amplifying the voice of the former Bishop of Penrith and keeping the ice cream frozen – which would you have chosen?  I mean, it’s a no-brainer really, innit?

So as soon as the service finished, we whipped the heavy-duty power cable from the marquee and ran it across the drive to the ice cream kiosk.  Problem solved.

Except.

Somewhere along the line we managed NOT to put Part B of the plan into action, which was to run another cable out to poor Fiona and her piano.

However – she’s promised to come back and play at our Christmas Fair (mark it in your diaries folk – November 14th) so she plainly doesn’t hold a grudge.

Which is pretty much a prerequisite for anyone who hangs around with us too much.