And We're Back

In fact we’ve been back for over a week but it’s taken that long to recover from being in the Red Zone of the heatwave, catch up with the washing, potting on all the cucurbits and I’ve been generally busy with other things that have come up.

Anyway, back to mining the Archives – in fact some of these go a long way back to my very first Facebook year

6 July 2009 at 12:57

Have just delivered 10 banana boxes full of books left over from Woodlawn Fayre to Amnesty for Books on the West Road, a shop raising funds for Amnesty International.

6 July 2009 at 16:16 

Have just spent over 2 hours cleaning the top of the kitchen cupboards, the wall behind and all the teapots, kettles and containers kept up there - and am feeling very virtuous. 

It's the first time that's been done since I moved here in 1987.  Domestic goddess *

The Squireen  About time too

Ms Exlibris Reminds me of a recent endeavour at my mother’s...

Bentonbag   Tomorrow it's trying to get rid of the boys' wee smell from the downstairs loo ...

6 July 2010 at 08.57

If you're a Virgin broadband customer and you get an email purporting to be from Virgin that says "Hello" rather a proper salutation (eg Dear Fred) then ignore it as it is a phishing email. I've just wasted ages attempting to update settings before 'phoning and speaking to a human who told me this.

6 July 2010 at 15:02

At 9.15 this morning saw a fox run across the road at the Wideopen end of Sandy Lane - probably on its way to the races at Gosforth Park

6 July 2010 at 17:07

I’m having a really good day: a generous gift; a little win; and Fester has asked his GP to arrange for him to go to a sleep clinic about his snoring. YYYEEEESSS

So should I ride my luck and buy a lottery ticket or have my 3 good things happened

StBernard  Buy it!😀

Bentonbag  Did - no joy

6 July 2012 at 13:13

The good news is Thunderthighs goes back to school on Monday.  

His class and 6th form will be at Longbenton Community College, so he'll be able to walk all the way to school.   

The bad news is it's a few hundred yards away from a stream - so watch the weather this weekend!**

The Squireen  It survived last week

*Nothing similar has happened since.

** Thunderthighs’ school was flooded during Thunder Thursday.  

A minor blip compared to everything else that happened during that Annus Horribilis.

 

Cold Caller Baiting #35 Old School Mobile

Tomorrow we are off on our travels so there will be no more Tales until July.

Meanwhile ...

From Facebook Archives

18 June 2019 at 14:13

Just found a new way of getting rid of satellite cold calls.

Phone rings, I pick it up and say 

“Hello?”

"Hello, Miss Benton Bag?"

“Who is that?”

"I'm Alex, I'm calling you from Aviva ..."

“Alex what?”

"My name is Alex."

“I know that, but you know both my first and second names, I want to know both your first and second names.”

And with that, there he was gone!

Presumably the script hadn't thought to give him a suitably Anglophone surname to work with.

18 June 2019 at 14:24

Second cold call, this time on the mobile from Mark of O2 (I'm sure they rang last week as well).

"Hello, are you looking to upgrade your phone or tariff at all?"

I laughed and explained that my mobile is a little Nokia held together with sellotape and when it finally dies I shall go to a shop and buy another that will cost me all of nineteen quid, but I would quite like to reduce my tariff.

"Are we giving you enough data?"

“Data!  What's data?  Let me explain Mark.  My phone is so old the game is Snake, and if friends with a smartphone send me a photo all I get is a couple of little squares at the bottom of the text.”

"Oh real old school!"

“Yes.  Would it cost less if I went onto pay-as-you-go rather than monthly?”

"To be honest, no, and you'd have the hassle of having to go in and top up."

“Well, yes, when the text with the bill comes in I say 'bugger' and then forget about it for the next 28 days.”

We decided for convenience sake just to leave things as they are.