WHY? why? why?

Isn’t that just typical of the British Summer! Weeks of lovely sunshine, then as soon as we’re due to get visitors who would really enjoy being near the coast, it absolutely chucks it down all day! I know it’s only been three weeks since I last saw my grandchildren but it’s still very pleasing knowing they will be here tomorrow, shame it’s only for three days but that’s better than none. Let’s hope it changes in the morning. Another visitor I was supposed to get didn’t turn up for the third time so now I’m just not worried if he gets here or not at anytime.

Work has been chugging along fine, we’ve started new duties yet again, that must be the fourth or fifth time in the last year. Of course each change brings it’s fair share of ridiculous duties and this set has not let me down. More and more long Friday, Saturday and Sunday duties which are designed supposedly to give us more long weekends off but it never happens, we get four long weekends and 3 three day weekends in 34 weeks.

The car is running okay, I actually gave it a wash and wax last week, must’ve been feeling ill at the time, that’s only the second time in almost five years! It has now covered just over 50k since Sept 2008, so less than 10k a year, which means since leaving NIAL my annual mileage has dropped 4k a year to just over 8k. Arranged some more ‘GAP’ insurance on it so I now get at least £5800 if it’s stolen, written off or vandalised!

Great time!

Well the weekend has come and gone, my son and his family has also come and gone! It was great to see them up here even if it was ‘difficult’ to put up with two young excitable, curious, tired and young children in a strange house. Yes BOTH the grandchildren were excited and happy to see ‘Pop & Gran’, so much so they didn’t want to go home but once back to ‘normality’ they settled back into their usual routine. 300 miles is a long way for youngsters to travel and takes it’s toll in different ways, Thomas was a little moody on Saturday and Isabel on Sunday. Hopefully the visit will be repeated not too far into the future.

On Saturday we went for a walk along the harbour wall out to Roker lighthouse, the kids were disappointed we weren’t able to go inside. Sunday was a little more exciting with a visit to The Metro-centre, once inside we bumped into an old boss of mine and had a little chat, then we spotted the Apple Store which meant we HAD to go inside. As I had sold my 2nd Gen Apple TV on e bay the previous day, I decided to purchase a new SuperDrive so I could ‘rip’ DVDs and CDs onto my Mac. I was going to buy a 3rd gen Apple TV as well but we decided they were a bit too expensive ‘in-store’ and would order one later from Amazon. Kris had a problem with the new cover on Thom’s iPod, it was fraying around the edge. It was quite busy but we managed to find two members of staff just stood around chatting, when questioned they seemed not to have the foggiest idea about what to do and tried several different methods of finding (unsuccessfully) an on-line copy of Kris’ receipt for the iPod cover. Looking blankly at the shelf something was muttered about the exact cover not being on sale any more and one girl walked off for a short while, returning with a beaming smile on her face. She had found one in the store room and gave it to Kris, who had problems fitting it to the iPod but apparently this was quite usual. On a roll the assistant decided to take my payment for the SuperDrive, she was now getting into ‘the swing’ of things. Processing my payment, asking if I would like an e receipt, taking my e mail address and putting my purchase in an Apple logo’d bag like a true pro! After a slight problem finding ‘the girls’ we caught up with them looking around a household goods store, Izzy was proudly holding onto a plastic spatula Nikki wanted. Pauline mention she needed a couple of items and the two of us went off to browse, after purchasing a twelve hole muffin tin, a set of plastic measuring cups and a 7 inch cake tin we decided it was time for some lunch and went to look for a suitable establishment. As Pizza seemed to be the preferred dish we ended up in Pizza Express, this had it’s problem too, the ‘background’ music was so loud we could hardly make out what the softly spoken member of staff was asking us. I personally am not a great fan of the Pizza Express chain of restaurants, preferring Pizza Hut, the opposite of Kris. Whilst the Calzone we had looked nice the taste was something different, the ‘sauce’ completely obliterated the taste of the other ingredients which was a shame as the dough was excellent and the puddings were to die for. Pauline almost had an instant heart attack when she saw the bill and quickly offered Kris our share.

On our way back to the cars Pauline had finally made up her mind to buy an E cigarette kit from the stand in the Central Mall, it wasn’t that expensive given the number of cigarettes it was equivalent to, glad to say she is getting on quite well with it at the present, hopefully by the middle of the year she should be ‘off’ the real things altogether and saving herself a small fortune in the process as well as improving her general health. We worked it out that in the time we have known each other she has spent over £20k on cigarettes!

Kris brought up my new 3TB Porsche Design LaCie External Hard Drive with him. It was a little more expensive than the original one I had decided on but it was in stock and could be bought there and then and I would not have to wait seven to ten days for delivery. I’m glad to say that it has been installed and is working well.

I’m glad to say for once the North East weather didn’t disappoint, though not being much above freezing the whole weekend it was mostly sunny and dry.