Saturday 19 October 2013

19th October 2013 - Rats and Royal Scotland

And early start today to get ready to head off for Cardiff for a meeting of the Royal Order of Scotland - a meeting which celebrates the Hereditary Ruler of Scotland and which has a throne set aside, Banquo style, with Scarlet Robe and Crown awaiting the return of the True King..

And I chose, of course, to wear my kilt and full Bonnie Prince Charlie for the occasion. So early start with bacon and egg in the belly and a few pounds for drinkies set aside in the sporran.. and a drive up to Hendy where the M4 crosses the local lands and a convenient parking place appears under the bridge...

So 9.30am and there I was in my full Scottish regalia waiting in the damp and the slight drizzle for a lift at the junction of the slip road...  As luck would have it my lift arrived before I could be accosted by a strange driver and off to Cardiff for the festivities.  Once there I found myself as the only one properly dressed. Normally a few turn up ion trews and some form of decent clothing, but  sadly not today..  So I sported my kilt and regalia in style...   Luckily - no speaking parts - just the carrying of the ceremonial cushions as new members were invested, but got the opportunity to dispense the Gin and Tonic and Scotch with full Vollsanger aplomb....

And a lift back as well .. Decided that too many meals had been partaken on this week so a working lunch pouring the wines worked quite well - though the smell of roast beef does get the saliva running .....

Somehow managed to lose Cardiff to Swansea and roused in time to come off the motorway at Hendy and find the car...  Of course, walking the last 100 yards down the motorway slipway is a scary thing to do in a kilt in the middle of October...

And back home, for a lovely chicken and lemon dinner with home grown Butternut Squash - yum....

So, yesterday the neighbours decided to erect scaffolding to sort their roof out.. I understand their need, and also understand that in times gone by it would not be an issue as satellite dishes would not be in place.... Strangely, on these more recent days of technology, the fact that we have no ordinary ariel at all, and therefore without a satellite dish we are cut off from the world - no free view, no terrestrial, no radio,
We have the broadband as that comes in on the telephone - though to be honest we have a very iffy reliability in the telephone line...

So the scaffolding placed on the back wall is a lot more impactive than we would normally expect. And we don't really watch much TV - but when it is not there it suddenly becomes more important. Having complained about the repetitive  nature of the news over the last 3 months - not having access to it at all is something else!!!

So calls to Sky actually seem to be quite useful ( shame on me for speaking good of an organisation like sky - but actually I am quite impressed   - only quite as you will see)
So they agree that the fact that we have no service means that I can claim back the cost of the service... yay
- I will wait to see if my negotiation after the fact actually gives me money back 

So they can get a n engineer out to re-site the dish.. ( not sure they can I say but they are sure )
Only cost me £65 - the standard fee....
No as a customer over 3 years - then we can have it at £40
No as a new HD receiver we are under warranty - so we can have it free....
And we can have our costs returned if they don't manage to move the dish !!!  zero cost  - urr it wasn't going to cost anyway ???

Of course there is a down side - we can't get it done until Thursday !!
So we are without main services until Thursday..

But now we start to examine the options available through the internet - online and broadband ...
watching a film this evening - how cool is that ?? Can't pause it or stop - but I seem to remember that was how it used to be...

And the rats ???
Oh yes - down in the basement they/ It  has ignored the traps and no real sign of existence - except that we looked into the corner and found all the rat droppings.. Oh dear....
New traps out - seems this one is cautious ... need to clear the cellar again ....

But for tonight ... seems Grouse is £16 in Tesco for a litre  - cheers..





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