Lost kit, footpaths and a honeymoon

12 August 2012

Here we are almost half way through the month.  Doesn't time just fly by?  To make it even worse I suppose is that we really haven't had a summer yet have we?  Perhaps we will get one over September/October instead.  We can only hope eh?

I thought the sale of the house was going to come to a crashing halt earlier this week.  The buyers surveyor claims he's found damp in the house.  If he has I don't know where it is, neither does the estate agent who came out to have look and give us a price.  The result is that the price has been dropped by £2500.  The buyer then tried to get the house at an even lower figure.  That was just not acceptable and he's now going ahead on the price the surveyor has set.  My main worry was that he had got a friend to come in do the survey but the agent has seen the report and told me that it was the bank who asked for it to be done and that they had seen reports by that particular surveyor before.  Whatever, the sale is still on as of now.

I watched that programme on telly about the hungry families within the UK.  It's incredible that this is happening here in the UK in the 21st Century!  How can a government refuse to see the damage that its policies are causing and still be able to sleep at night.  Even working families are affected by it.  How can that be?  But you know what?  It's going to get a lot worse before we see any change of mind and change of direction, you can be sure of that!

The other day I posted about losing a camera bag.  We've been looking around and found that our Sony 30mm Macro lens, a couple of SD cards and a couple of Nikon batteries are also missing.  Anyway, I've informed the insurance company and they are replacing it all for us seeing as Jan had the sense to make sure we are covered for valuables away from home.  On Friday we had a phone call from Jessops who have been asked to provide a quote for everything we are claiming for.  What I can't understand is that the guy who phoned us didn't seem to know what he was doing or what I was talking about half the time.  I also don't understand why it should take a phone of over 16 minutes to work out a cost for the replacement.  My next concern is where I will need to go to collect the items at when it's all sorted.  The Jessops here in Dorktown is very small so can't hold a large stock level.  The chances are that they will not have some of the items in stock and from past experience with them it could take as much as month to get it all.   It's no wonder then that Jessops are struggling out on the high street.

Jan and I went off down town yesterday and had a ride around.  The market was on but apart from some strawberries, grapes and apples, we didn't buy anything at all.  I didn't even take any photos.  I did have a nice pint of Stella and an all day brunch in the Willie White.  We decided on the way home that we would have a look at some of the walk-ways that seem to be a all over the place here in Weddington.  We tried three but they all petered out in local housing estates.  I shall get me a larger scale Dorktown map and see if I can find out where the go to after the estates. 

Photo time ... 

This is a passionflower that we had growing in our back garden in Bed'th.  According to the info on it I took this on 28 October 2003.  It looks pretty good for late October really.  But I tell you what, that part of the garden was so sheltered that it was still flowering on Christmas Day that year!

And today's funny ...

Jack was going to be married to Jill, so his father sat him down for a little fireside chat...... He says, "Jack, let me tell you something."
"On my wedding night in our honeymoon suite, I took off my pants and handed them to your mother, and said, 'Here -try these on.' So, she did and said, 'These are too big, I can't wear them.'
So I replied, 'Exactly. I wear the pants in this family and I always will.' Ever since that night we have never had any problems."
"Hmmm," says Jack.  He thinks that might be a good thing to try.
So, on his honeymoon, Jack takes off his pants and says to Jill, "Here try these on."
So she does and says, "These are too large they don't fit me."
So Jack says, "Exactly. I wear the pants in this family and I always will, and I don't want you to ever forget that."
Then Jill takes off her pants, hands them to Jack and says, "Here you try on mine."
So he does and says, "I can't get into your pants."
Then Jill says, "Exactly. And if you don't change your smart ass attitude, you never will."