My husband was almost late for our wedding. Apparently someone was standing at the front door to wave the bridal car with me in it past to do another circuit. Happily the North East Man got there just ahead of me, and so I had no idea that people had been starting to fret.
I think I've told this tale of almost -lateness before.
I knitted his kilt socks. It was a labour of love, the first time I'd knitted on five needles and it took a long time. When he was getting dressed on the morning of our wedding, he put on the socks and was horrified to see "ends" of wool sticking out. He then spent 20 minutes hunting down a pair of nail scissors to trim the "ends" off, and a further 20 minutes carefully trimming them. He arrived at the church as my wedding car appeared at the end of the street and was hustled inside. The minister asked why he was a) late and b) wearing his socks inside out.
During the first prayer of the service, I bowed my head and spotted the socks! I didn't realise that he was wearing the socks I'd so lovingly knitted inside out, but thought he was wearing a different, bizarrely ugly pair.
And that, dear reader, is why half way through our marriage service, the main thought in my head was "I'm going to kill him!"
Oh, I come into my own when it rains, weaving around for hours on themes like Flanagan & Allen's Any Umbrellas and the obvious Pennies from Heaven and Singin' in the Rain 🌨☂️
I used to love it when David did that sort of thing - it was fun watching the grins as realisation dawned on the choir. His speciality was apposite bits of Gilbert & Sullivan.
Today I CTH somebody somewhere who has messed up my son's vaccination registration. He and his family were supposed to be coming over from the UK to visit the Netherlands for a week. You need to be fully vaccinated which he is. However it hasn't been recorded. Instead someone else at the other end of the country with the same first name, middle initial, last name and date of birth is recorded as having had four shots.
I don't understand how it is possible for them to know what went wrong and not know how to fix it. The system has been purposely built so that it is impossible for him to speak to anyone who knows what they are talking about.
They've re-booked the ferry for Christmas, so I hope they can get it sorted by then.
I like that - it should go in that alternative meanings game in the Circus.
Be my guest, please! I've just updated it the other day with a biblical leader. I hope someone might feel inspired! - The last word was up there for 2 weeks, before I crowbarred in a definition for that one!
TICTH, not for the first time, Canadian bureaucracy.
My employers require a criminal record check for the time I lived in Canada, for which I had to (a) get fingerprints taken and (b) send them (at considerable expense) to one of many addresses listed on the Canadian website that deals with such things. I decided to send them to the address in Fredericton, as that was the last place I lived in Canada, but of course that was wrong - they don't deal with criminal record requests there, and they should be directed to Ottawa.
So why the actual f**k do they list all these other places on their website? Why not just say "post to PC Plod, The Nick, Ottawa" (or whatever the address is)?
And of course they couldn't forward it to Ottawa themselves - they had to send the whole f****** lot back to me so that I have to post it again.
I love Canada and its people, but their bureaucracy would try the patience of a saint.
When we moved into our new home we found a number of things not working. New but remodeler clearly did not in the know about what he was doing or did not care, drunk or all three. So I forked out $300.00 to get frig., dishwasher and microwave working.. These repairs were guaranteed for 3 months. On 3 months and 2 days, the refrigerator is again freezing my vegetables, and not making ice, the microwave is again coming on by itself, and today day 7 past guarantee, the dishwasher did not drain. I took the dishwasher apart as much as I could find to remove and put it back and it is again working. I changed nothing but it seems to have fixed it. The other two are still not working.
My fridge has a tendency to run too cold, so much so that a block of ice forms inside. A good defrost (and removal of said ice) usually does the trick for a few more months.
Hotels which do not answer phones and promise to call back if number is left and don't. To which I add plumbers whose phones, both of them, go dead after ringing for a while.
I am due to arrive at a hotel in Winchester on Thursday, so I can attend a cousins' wedding there on Friday. I phoned to check the booking. Succession of ringing, then a voice which sounded real, but explained how busy they were, and if I left my number they would call back. still waiting after over 30 mins.
In the interim, using my mobile, (I'm not silly), I rang the plumber to arrange the annual gas service and starting up of the heating, also the loosening up of my seized stopcock. Mobile number, stored, rang then went dead. Went to web page and retrieved landline number. Rang, heard tone, then went dead. No voicemail on either, no transfer of call. Found email on website, went into email program. While there checked what I had put down from the wedding menu. Emailed plumber.
Still no answer from the hotel.
Having read accounts in the paper of people who find their bookings have evaporated, I want to be sure I have a room. Somewhere. If I have to find an alternative, I want to have time to do it.
My brain is producing a parody of a song about the cathedral - if only the hotel would start now ringing my bells.
This week my paper is not being delivered. When I went to the shop to get it yesterday, there was only one copy left. I can't go and find a copy until the phone rings.
I am stuck.
We had been trying to get hold of our plumber to book the annual boiler service without success: landline and mobile unanswered, messages left and not responded to. Eventually Mr Puzzler said he would text him on Saturday evening. I protested, thinking the chap has a right to relax and not be pestered on a Saturday night, but he replied straightaway with a suitable date! Of course, he might still cancel, if another job overruns or he gets called to an emergency, but it is a start.
I hope you get sorted with your various issues, Penny S
I think the plumber's landline calls his mobile if out, and he has his mobile off if his physical position is critical.
Plenty of papers today. (Once there was someone else to answer the phone I could go out.)
Still waiting on the hotel. Funny way to do business.
I used to love it when David did that sort of thing - it was fun watching the grins as realisation dawned on the choir. His speciality was apposite bits of Gilbert & Sullivan.
Arriving to ring for service the weekend before last, the choir were practicing something that I couldn't make out the words of, but we could all join in to ourselves "Goooooo West! Where the skies are blue, goooooo West! etc
I used to love it when David did that sort of thing - it was fun watching the grins as realisation dawned on the choir. His speciality was apposite bits of Gilbert & Sullivan.
Arriving to ring for service the weekend before last, the choir were practicing something that I couldn't make out the words of, but we could all join in to ourselves "Goooooo West! Where the skies are blue, goooooo West! etc
That "give thanks with a greatful heart" thing goes to much the same tune so perchance that?
@TheOrganist I didn't say I liked it either, it's just that when I've encountered that delight in church I have wanted to sing Go West too. (There are reasons I am not attending church.)
'Oh I will praise the name of Jesus...' if I recall correctly! The LLM at our last place - a truly lovely lady, but with b*gger-all sense of appropriateness in music - used to love things sung to popular tunes, and her particular favourite was 'Praise the Lord, mighty God...' sung to Edelweiss. This was during the time when we used an overhead projector and acetates, and she had a habit of springing this on you at the end of a service - so if I was doing overheads, I would scrabble around in the file and then announce that I was terribly sorry, but I couldn't find it - must have been misfiled?
Eventually an edict went out that for copyright reasons we couldn't use it at all <cue mopping of brows>.
However, the worst ever instance was when Mr S and I went to Communion at The Dowager's church. Now Mr S was a relatively new Christian and had only ever sung the Gloria to the tune our very musical vicar had written for it; so as he drew breath, I elbowed him swiftly in the ribs, in time for the vicar to announce that we would sing the Gloria to the tune of 'In an English Country Garden'.
Go on, you try it. It cannot be done - so they had butchered the words of the Gloria to make them fit. Insult upon injury...
I have come across a "Gloria" to the tune of "Eastenders" but have never seen the music. It seemed to fit quite well (at least, the first two or three lines).
I have come across a "Gloria" to the tune of "Eastenders" but have never seen the music. It seemed to fit quite well (at least, the first two or three lines).
But the East End is flat (topologically if not musically).
Shame, cos it's actually not a bad tune - just Not Suitable for the Gloria IMHO.
FatherInCharge has a penchant for metrical versions of the Gloria and the Lord's Prayer. The Gloria (amended so that the words fit!) to Cwm Rhondda is one thing, but ICTH the ghastly Cliff Richard version of the Lord's Prayer sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne...
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
I have just tried to pay our TV licence online, from our joint account. Unfortunately after I'd entered my card details, it said that it was going to send a security code to my husband's mobile. I tried to stop it at that point as I knew I wouldn't be able to get the code till he came home from work, by which time the code would have expired.
Well, it transpires that trying to stop it is "suspicious activity." I got a message to phone the bank. I had to answer ten security questions and my answers weren't good enough. I got my full name and age right (hurrah!) I don't know what our overdraft limit is, because we don't use our overdraft facility. I guessed that the last purchase on my card was "roughly £10, at the Post Office approx mid afternoon on Monday" but actually I'd bought milk at the Co-op after that. I got our mortgage provider right, but the amount of our monthly mortgage payment wrong by about £20. "It's usually the last Friday of the month" wasn't a good enough answer to the date we last had money come into our account.
So my card is frozen until I can mug up on our finances enough to retake the security questions.
And I can't log into our account to print off a statement to mug up on the correct answers because ... my account is frozen. (I think my husband will be able to do that when he gets home, because it's just my card that is frozen).
I fail those kind of situations too. What the hell do they expect when they want us to put everything on autopay? I don't KNOW the amount of my damned house payment, thank you, because it's auto and we always overpay on account of wanting to take down the mortgage a little faster.
And in a horrific parallel, my mail order pharmacy has decided that it's not enough for my doctor to send them a prescription for my meds--ANY meds--they must now "contact your doctor to see if he approves this medication for you." If a legal prescription doesn't constitute approval I don't know what does. I'm sure the doctor's office LOVES the extra work involved. And in the meantime, here I sit, waiting for the damn meds to run out before this entirely unnecessary bullshit gets finalized.
TICTH Life the Universe and Everything. Yesterday I rang the Care home up north where my brother lives to book a half hour appointment to see him. Breaking news today is that two people from Auckland have moved to Christchurch bring COVID with them. Even Christchurch doesn't go into lockdown visiting a place full of vulnerable people, even ones that are double jabbed would not be a Good Idea.
Selfishly, I sort of hope we are locked down because then I might get a refund on my tickets this time. (and yes, the world does revolve around me).
At potlucks we sometimes sing the doxology to the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway" In a church service that would be terrible, bu at other parish events, it's fun.
TITCH the daughter-in-law who is making it impossible for us to see a certain grandchild. We have not seen them since before the pandemic began, though Mr Puzzler did manage to meet up with his son ( i.e. the grandchild’s father) recently. It is complicated, and both my husband and his son seem to be opting for avoidance of conflict. As it is not my relative I am keeping out if it, though I had made the shopping list and half spring cleaned the house in preparation for our first visitors.
I fail those kind of situations too. What the hell do they expect when they want us to put everything on autopay? I don't KNOW the amount of my damned house payment, thank you, because it's auto and we always overpay on account of wanting to take down the mortgage a little faster.
And in a horrific parallel, my mail order pharmacy has decided that it's not enough for my doctor to send them a prescription for my meds--ANY meds--they must now "contact your doctor to see if he approves this medication for you." If a legal prescription doesn't constitute approval I don't know what does. I'm sure the doctor's office LOVES the extra work involved. And in the meantime, here I sit, waiting for the damn meds to run out before this entirely unnecessary bullshit gets finalized.
Comments
I think I've told this tale of almost -lateness before.
I knitted his kilt socks. It was a labour of love, the first time I'd knitted on five needles and it took a long time. When he was getting dressed on the morning of our wedding, he put on the socks and was horrified to see "ends" of wool sticking out. He then spent 20 minutes hunting down a pair of nail scissors to trim the "ends" off, and a further 20 minutes carefully trimming them. He arrived at the church as my wedding car appeared at the end of the street and was hustled inside. The minister asked why he was a) late and b) wearing his socks inside out.
During the first prayer of the service, I bowed my head and spotted the socks! I didn't realise that he was wearing the socks I'd so lovingly knitted inside out, but thought he was wearing a different, bizarrely ugly pair.
And that, dear reader, is why half way through our marriage service, the main thought in my head was "I'm going to kill him!"
Then there's always "Here we sit like birds in the wilderness."
I don't understand how it is possible for them to know what went wrong and not know how to fix it. The system has been purposely built so that it is impossible for him to speak to anyone who knows what they are talking about.
They've re-booked the ferry for Christmas, so I hope they can get it sorted by then.
causing chaos
Be my guest, please!
My employers require a criminal record check for the time I lived in Canada, for which I had to (a) get fingerprints taken and (b) send them (at considerable expense) to one of many addresses listed on the Canadian website that deals with such things. I decided to send them to the address in Fredericton, as that was the last place I lived in Canada, but of course that was wrong - they don't deal with criminal record requests there, and they should be directed to Ottawa.
So why the actual f**k do they list all these other places on their website? Why not just say "post to PC Plod, The Nick, Ottawa" (or whatever the address is)?
And of course they couldn't forward it to Ottawa themselves - they had to send the whole f****** lot back to me so that I have to post it again.
I love Canada and its people, but their bureaucracy would try the patience of a saint.
I am due to arrive at a hotel in Winchester on Thursday, so I can attend a cousins' wedding there on Friday. I phoned to check the booking. Succession of ringing, then a voice which sounded real, but explained how busy they were, and if I left my number they would call back. still waiting after over 30 mins.
In the interim, using my mobile, (I'm not silly), I rang the plumber to arrange the annual gas service and starting up of the heating, also the loosening up of my seized stopcock. Mobile number, stored, rang then went dead. Went to web page and retrieved landline number. Rang, heard tone, then went dead. No voicemail on either, no transfer of call. Found email on website, went into email program. While there checked what I had put down from the wedding menu. Emailed plumber.
Still no answer from the hotel.
Having read accounts in the paper of people who find their bookings have evaporated, I want to be sure I have a room. Somewhere. If I have to find an alternative, I want to have time to do it.
My brain is producing a parody of a song about the cathedral - if only the hotel would start now ringing my bells.
This week my paper is not being delivered. When I went to the shop to get it yesterday, there was only one copy left. I can't go and find a copy until the phone rings.
I am stuck.
I hope you get sorted with your various issues, Penny S
Plenty of papers today. (Once there was someone else to answer the phone I could go out.)
Still waiting on the hotel. Funny way to do business.
Arriving to ring for service the weekend before last, the choir were practicing something that I couldn't make out the words of, but we could all join in to ourselves "Goooooo West! Where the skies are blue, goooooo West! etc
That "give thanks with a greatful heart" thing goes to much the same tune so perchance that?
David always used to render it as in an Ambrosia advert:
Go West, where they say, ooh-arr!
Sounds like a 4th rate Osmonds tribute act.
In other news, TICTH ScotRail - my train is apparently going to be five minutes late again, so I'll probably miss the bus again.
They shouldn't get away scot-free with this! Although, if they persist, they might end up Scot-free.
In which case you certainly wouldn't appreciate the chorus we sang at Treasure Seekers to the tune of the Match of the Day theme!
Eventually an edict went out that for copyright reasons we couldn't use it at all <cue mopping of brows>.
However, the worst ever instance was when Mr S and I went to Communion at The Dowager's church. Now Mr S was a relatively new Christian and had only ever sung the Gloria to the tune our very musical vicar had written for it; so as he drew breath, I elbowed him swiftly in the ribs, in time for the vicar to announce that we would sing the Gloria to the tune of 'In an English Country Garden'.
Go on, you try it. It cannot be done - so they had butchered the words of the Gloria to make them fit. Insult upon injury...
Yes, it went downhill rapidly after line 3...
🤮
Shame, cos it's actually not a bad tune - just Not Suitable for the Gloria IMHO.
FatherInCharge has a penchant for metrical versions of the Gloria and the Lord's Prayer. The Gloria (amended so that the words fit!) to Cwm Rhondda is one thing, but ICTH the ghastly Cliff Richard version of the Lord's Prayer sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne...
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
I have just tried to pay our TV licence online, from our joint account. Unfortunately after I'd entered my card details, it said that it was going to send a security code to my husband's mobile. I tried to stop it at that point as I knew I wouldn't be able to get the code till he came home from work, by which time the code would have expired.
Well, it transpires that trying to stop it is "suspicious activity." I got a message to phone the bank. I had to answer ten security questions and my answers weren't good enough. I got my full name and age right (hurrah!) I don't know what our overdraft limit is, because we don't use our overdraft facility. I guessed that the last purchase on my card was "roughly £10, at the Post Office approx mid afternoon on Monday" but actually I'd bought milk at the Co-op after that. I got our mortgage provider right, but the amount of our monthly mortgage payment wrong by about £20. "It's usually the last Friday of the month" wasn't a good enough answer to the date we last had money come into our account.
So my card is frozen until I can mug up on our finances enough to retake the security questions.
And I can't log into our account to print off a statement to mug up on the correct answers because ... my account is frozen. (I think my husband will be able to do that when he gets home, because it's just my card that is frozen).
Aaaarrrgh.
I fail those kind of situations too. What the hell do they expect when they want us to put everything on autopay? I don't KNOW the amount of my damned house payment, thank you, because it's auto and we always overpay on account of wanting to take down the mortgage a little faster.
And in a horrific parallel, my mail order pharmacy has decided that it's not enough for my doctor to send them a prescription for my meds--ANY meds--they must now "contact your doctor to see if he approves this medication for you." If a legal prescription doesn't constitute approval I don't know what does. I'm sure the doctor's office LOVES the extra work involved. And in the meantime, here I sit, waiting for the damn meds to run out before this entirely unnecessary bullshit gets finalized.
I suppose one ought to be glad, in a way, that the bank is being so careful, but...
If he did, then he deserves another million years in Purgatory.
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
At least I got on the bus early enough to get a seat.
Selfishly, I sort of hope we are locked down because then I might get a refund on my tickets this time. (and yes, the world does revolve around me).