Glow in the dark cat

I found this on MSNBC today, it amused me. The cat "Mr Green Genes" looks a bit like Nala.

Prizes and meeting

Did I mention that I received an email a few weeks back telling me that I'd won a prize in an on-line competition?

Well the goody bag arrived today. It was all connected with the film "How to lose Friends and Alienate People". I'd read the book a couple of years ago. They sent me a poster featuring Kirsten Dunst, Gillian Anderson and Simon Pegg (I'm a fan of all of these!), a copy of the book, the soundtrack CD and a very rude t-shirt. The t-shirt words read "Young, Dumb and Full of C*m" which is very subtle. I'm not allowed to wear it out of the house and have to keep it away from the kids. See the picture.

In the afternoon I went up to London to meet a recruitment agent. Nightmare: I checked the on-line departure for the train running status at 14:30. It was "on-time". When I got to the station I spent 2 minutes getting a car park ticket (£2) after the first machine wouldn't take my money. I then went and queued for the travel ticket machine and bought my ticket. When I went inside the screens showed that my train (the 15:09) was "cancelled". So I then had to get a refund on my travel ticket (but I couldn't get one on my car park ticket). I then had to drive to Haslemere which is the next station up the line. I drove round their on-site car park which was full and had to go to the off-site car park and park. I then paid another £4 for another ticket. It was only £3.50 but I now had no change other than 2 £2 coins so I am now out-of-pocket by £2.50 extra on car parking. The train ticket was a bit less £15.50 rather than £16.40 so I'm now out-of-pocket by £1.60 plus my fuel costs. I got a train to London that arrived at 16:23. My meeting was at 16:30 in a cafe at the station. The meeting took 20 minutes and I got the 17:00 train back to Haslemere. The guy I met got me a cup of coffee which I really needed, but potentially if that meeting doesn't "pay back" it has cost me £15.50 on the train fare, plus £6.00 in parking and 20 miles driving (say 1/2 a litre of fuel at £1 a litre) so all in £24 for a load of stress and a medium latte. I'm not impressed with south west trains on-line "how is my train running" service either. I'll send them a complaint I think.

Bankers! part 2

Maria went to NatWest in Southampton today. Changed her name quickly and easily on production of the marriage certificate. No other ID was needed at all even though she was no more known at this branch than at Guildford. Which just proves that the manager in Guildford was being an idiot.

Deer

I received this by email today from Ron. Interesting ring that the vet is wearing.

This is what Ron wrote:

I thought that you'd like to see this as it is from the St Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire, very where to where we (Ron and family) lived in Chesham.

This tiny deer was delivered by Caesarean section at a wildlife hospital after his mother was killed by a car.

More info and pictures at the St Tiggywinkles website...

I mailed Ron back about this, as St Tiggywinkles web site says that the baby deer died after a couple of days. It doesn't look like he knew/checked before he forwarded the message to me.

Using Word 2007

I am trying out the "blogging" capabilities of Word 2007 today.

I told it about my blogger.com account and am now typing this post using MS Word rather than the blogger dashboard.

I have had a couple of job opportunities today, one in Farnborough (Hants), and the other in Crawley (Sussex). It is interesting how the agencies try to keep the hiring company names confidential but then send out job descriptions that include the hiring company name in the document properties. Office 2007 allows for checking of and removal of personal data before documents are sent out but they don't bother with anything except a quick "find" of "XYZ Company" and "replace" with "The Company".

Blackmoor Apple Tasting

We went to the Blackmoor Estate Apple Tasting on Sunday. Apparently they have been doing it for nearly 40 years now. We think that it is just the right sort of community event, not over-pretentious or trying to do anything else like carry a political agenda. Local stall holders, craft fair, community groups and activities for children. What more could you ask for?
It was a lovely day. We walked through the woods behind the church to the estate and then joined in the tasting. We'd waited until about 3 pm so the queues for tasting weren't too bad. Maria's favourite was the Reubens variety which I liked too, but I preferred the pears.
We bought some earrings for Maria at a craft stall, some local honey and some (Lyme Bay) fruit wine too.
We sampled the other English wine, which wasn't that good really.
They had sold out of Reubens in the shop, but we got some other apples and pears

Bankers!

We went to change the name on Maria's Halifax bank account last week, and decided to open a new account there rather than change her name on her NatWest account as well as Halifax offered to do the transfer of all the direct debits and standing orders.
Today (Saturday) we got a letter from the Halifax saying they could not do the transfer as the NatWest account was in Maria's maiden name...Great!
So Maria rang NatWest to ask what she needed to bring in. All the Halifax had asked for was the marriage certificate and her debit card. NatWest said she needed the certificate and some form of ID.
So we drove over to Guildford, which is not quite the closest NatWest, but did mean we could go to a decent bookshop as well.
Turned out they meant "photo ID" with proof of address....or they were just being difficult as she was closing the account.
Typical of them and justifies why Maria is closing the account with them. So on Monday Maria is heading into Southampton with driving licence and passport as well as marriage certificate.

Inner Bandage off

So now we can see the actual scar...
I took the inner bandage off today for the first time. The scar is really neat - looks like they glued it together rather than stiching it.

The area is a bit tender - as it dries. It hurts if it rubs on clothing so I'm wearing a tee shirt despite the chill.

Fixed the light switch: swapped it for a new one (non-dimming). As predicted one of the blubs had blown too. We decided not to get a new dimmer as the old dimmer hasn't worked for years and we hadn't worried about it.

New Milton

New Milton Station

Visited New Milton station in the rain today (Wednesday 1st October). My arm is hurting after leaving home at lunchtime by taxi and getting here by train at 2:45. Had an interview for an I T Operations Manager job not far from the station. I had a nice walk there but got a taxi back. Enjoyed the walk so much I missed the turning and had to walk back, so arrived a bit warmer than I intended.

Got the train back to Southampton and met Maria for coffee.

Things have calmed down in Florida. Daughter is back home and all is quiet again.