4,002 Page views of this blog

Today sees the 4,002nd page view of this blog! I find it difficult to believe that so many people have come to this blog to read my blog, for whatever reason. If you are reading this, do, please, leave a comment, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. I'm curious to discover why people come to this site and read my ramblings, so, as I say, do write something!

Asda commerical made in Bletchley store

Went to Asda this morning. There was a film crew in there, making, as we discovered, a new Asda television commercial. It's not the first time the Bletchley store has been the location for a commercial for Asda. I can't believe it takes so many people to shoot something that will be on screen for no more than a minute. Well, I suppose I should know, considering I've done a fair amount of film and television work as a supporting artiste. They'd blocked off one aisle, which meant if you wanted to buy anything in that particular aisle, one of the runners or assistants could get it for you. The aisle was full of cameras, lighting equipment and all the other film-making paraphinalia. We seemed to be in the store forever, and the film-making was quite an attraction, not only to ourselves but the other shoppers also.

Car Starts!

Someone came out from the Milton Keynes Academy and managed to jump start the car. We ran it for a while, then drove off along the A5 for several miles to get the battery charged up. We have covered the battery up with newspaper to keep the frost out overnight, so let's hope it starts first-time tomorrow morning. We may need to replace the battery.

Really Cold . . . Looks Like Snow!

It's a cold and chilly morning. There is ice again on the car's windscreen (although it is still sitting on the drive. It hasn't started for a while now. We need someone with a set of jump leads to at least get the thing started.) It was quite slippery on the walk with Carol to the Academy. According to the weather forecast this morning we can expect snow. It is coming into the north of England and Scotland, so no doubt we'll be under a foot or so of the white stuff, if not by the weekend, then at least Monday or Tuesday.

Bomb Hoax in Bletchley

Thursday 26 January 2012, 1:19pm

Thames Valley Police has arrested two men in connection with a bomb hoax in Bletchley yesterday (25/1).

Police were called at 1.20pm, to reports that a suspicious package had been left in the middle of the Brunel Centre in Bletchley. Shortly afterwards, there was also a report that a similar package had been left outside Sainsbury's in the same shopping centre.

Officers were dispatched, the centre was evacuated and sealed off and army bomb disposal experts were called.

The suspect bags were confirmed safe at 3.15pm and the area was reopened.

Two men, aged 20 and 24 from Bletchley, have been arrested on suspicion of placing or dispatching articles to cause a bomb hoax.

Det Insp Kelly Glister, investigating, said: "We are taking this incident extremely seriously. It caused a considerable amount of disruption and local businesses lost earnings while the area was closed off.

"We have reviewed the CCTV of the area and have arrested two suspects who are currently in custody and being interviewed by detectives."

Supt Nikki Ross, Milton Keynes LPA Commander, said: "We have established protocols and procedures which have to be followed in the event of a suspicious package being found in a shopping centre.

"As a result, a considerable amount of police resources were called upon to deal with this hoax and anyone who thinks about carrying one out can expect to be dealt with robustly.

"However, I was extremely pleased by the way in which all the emergency services involved in the incident worked efficiently and quickly together to ensure everyone in Bletchley remained safe."

Signs Of Spring!

As the old saying goes: 'when winter comes, can spring be far behind?' As much as I enjoy Christmas, I think it's the dark, dreary days of January and February that comes hard on it's heels that makes things difficult. The waking up in the dark and having to come home from work in the dark that makes this time of the year so awful. I might not be working but I do recall having to go off to do an early shift wherever and having to scrape the ice off the car before driving away, the freezing fog to drive through and the icy road surface that you were liable to slide into the car in front if you applied your brakes too quickly or end up in a ditch somewhere or other.

We are still without the use of the car, and it still sits silent and still on the front drive. No doubt we'll be able to get it going again soon. Being so close to Milton Keynes Academy means that Carol can walk to and from work. The mornings are beginning to get a little lighter as the month progresses. Without the use of the car it does mean that we can't get to the nearest supermarket to do our weekly shop. We would either go to Asda or Tesco for this, but we did do an on-line shop from Tesco, curtesy of Daniel, and this arrived on Monday afternoon around 3.30 and I was able to unload it and put it all away before Carol got home. I have also done a few shops locally, walking to and from the Co-Op at Netherfield, which is a 15-minute walk along the Redway, or to the little shop the other      side of Eaglestone. We also walked to the Brothers Fish and Chips shop over there for our evening meal on Saturday, with me having fish and Carol chicken and a large portion of chips which we shared. We took Alfie and Poppy who waited with Carol whilst I ordered, and then Carol came inside the shop, leaving the dogs tied up outside. Alfie complained bitterly at being left outside on his own and made an awful noise. I can't think what the neighbours thought! There are no end of cats lurking around on the estate and it's as well they didn't appear as Poppy will go wild if she sees them and will chase them if given half a chance! Since I've walked over again a couple of more times to the shop during we week I notice that there are snowdrops in the front garden of some of the houses. I had to get a repeat prescription done as my medication supply is nearing it's end, so I managed to sign up to the Ashlands Medical Centre website and do the repeat prescription on-line and then sent it. I'm not all that trusting of these things, so I rang the surgery to check that they'd got the order, which was fine. This was on Monday, and it takes two days for repeat prescriptions to be ready, so I went back yesterday afternoon around 2 o'clock, but unfortunately the surgery was closed. I believe it was for staff training, 'protected time' as it's called. So my walk there was in vain, but I went to the Co-Op to do a bit of shopping (a short walk from our old surgery, Grove Surgery) and then walked home. I have been to get the repeat prescription this morning and had it made up at the pharmacy which is next door to Ashlands Medical Centre and I was surprised how quickly they managed to get the order completed, and without anything missing. Sometimes you can take a repeat prescription in and they don't always have all the medications in stock so you have to go back to collect the rest of the order


Another sign of spring: there are trees budding along the Redway. No doubt they will be put back if there is a sharp frost or temperatures fall considerably as they might do. No sign of any other spring plants as yet, such as crocuses.

I am shocked and surprised at the amount of litter along the Redway, and particulaly around the Milton Keynes Academy. As I was walking along the Redway I saw  Council workmen (and women)  in bright orange flurescent jackets, with black bin bags and tongs on long handles picking up litter. There were around six of these people and as I walked back towards the bridge over Saxon Street and approaching the Academy, I spoke to them and asked them how much litter they picked up. They said they got around 15 bags of litter from just around the Academy. It seems the children just fling their rubbish anywhere and don't care that somewhat will have to come along and pick it up. The children don't have to do it (as we would when I was at school.) which seems crazy. It might teach them to care more for the environment. I expect it will go against their 'Human Rights.' No such thing when I was a child.

Free Tickets for television show "Pointless"

We have got tickets to see the gameshow "Pointless" being recorded at B.B.C. Television Centre on 16th February. We applied a few weeks ago, and I was wondering if we'd been successful. We have seen "Dead Ringers" recorded at Television Centre and went to see a couple of BBC radio shows recorded at the Drill Hall in London, one was called "The Write Stuff" a literary panel game which had Sebastian Faulks, author of "Birdsong" as a contestant. The other was a sitcom called "Clement Doesn't Live Here Anymore." No, I don't think it has survived much beyond one series. Not particularly funny, but it was interesting to see how they did the sound effects and how the actors performed for the microphone. I have seen quite a few television shows recorded over the years, going back to around the time I left school in the late '60s, a sitcom with Derek Nimmo, set in a monestry (I forget the title of it now.) an episode of "The Dick Emery Show" and something at London Weekend Television, the name of which totally escapes me now. It was when I was building up an interest in television as a career and working in theatre as an A.S.M. and it was useful to be able to see how a television show was put together and produced. The tickets are free so it makes a good evening's entertainment, although you must never treat it like a theatre performance, as you don't always see all the sets as you would in a theatre, some of the scenes are shot of sets that are not seen by the audience (you watch these scenes on a monitor) and the show may take a good deal longer than the running time of the broadcast, as there are breaks for scene changes, or whenever there is a technical problem. "Dead Ringers" took around two hours to record, as there were quite a few technical hitches, the actors fluffed their lines etc etc.

Cryptic Message?

I was attempting to sign up to something or other on the internet (Vimeo, as it happens) and I attempted to get the thing to accept my new password, when the following error came up '403 Forbidden: The server understands the request but is refusing to fulfill it.' Sounds like a stubborn child, who knows it has done something wrong, but will not obey. I think it was the wording that made me smile; the fact that the server knew it won't work, and won't do as it's asked.

Blog- Back to Normal (or as near as possible!)

For the past week or so this blog has not been 'viewing' normally. I would say 'working', but I don't mean that. The body of the blog has been O.K. but parts of it have not been what I'd call 'normal' and I had no idea how to resolve the problem. Which would explain why I haven't managed to post anything new here. I have got my stepson, Daniel, who knows a thing or two about computers and I.T. has now managed to re-configure the blog and got it back to normal. For some unaccountable reason parts of it were being resolved in Bengal. As this computer is not set up to accept Bengali text it was coming out as gibberish.  As a result I wasn't sure how to 'save' and 'publish' what I had written. Fortunately it is restored to normal and I can continue with my ramblings.

Car Frozen Up- Wouldn't start

On Saturday morning we woke up to find a hard frost and the car covered in a layer of ice. It took some time to get even the doors to open, having to pour hot water onto the locks. Once inside, the next problem was getting the thing to start. It didn't- even after several attempts. Carol had a tutoring session at 10, so she had to ring the lady whose daughter she tutors,for an hour. The lady had to come and pick Carol up. We rang someone at M.K.C.C. who is a motor mechanic, Laverne. His wife answered and she said she'd pass on the message. When Carol returned home, we decided to get a bus into Milton Keynes Sopping Centre, so we caught a bus near the Academy and went to pay a cheque into my Nationwide account which had come in the post during the morning. We went to shop at Iceland and then came home on the bus. Actually we found it quite straighforward. The bus ride is no more than 10 minutes, if that, and isn't that expensive.

Laverne rang in reply to our call about the car. He came at around 2.30, ready to put jump leads on the car to get it started. He got in the car and it started first time. It was somewhat embarrassing, and I was annoyed that we'd wasted his time. Perhaps just sitting with the sun on it allowed it to start. 

On Sunday we were on duty with the welcome team at M.K.C.C. so we walked there, having to arrive for 9.30. It's no more than a twenty-minute walk along the Redway.

This morning (Monday) it's again a freezing cold morning. We didn't attempt to start the car. We walked to the Academy and I may try the car later today, so hopefully the sun will rise and warm up the car. Carol has a parents' evening at the Academy and won't be finished until at least 7 p.m.

Milton Keynes Spectacular Sunrise

After the storms of yesterday, the deluge and the high winds, this morning it is calm and peaceful. I opened the lounge curtains to find a really spectacular red sunrise over Milton Keynes, over the hospital and towards Woburn and the distant horizon. As a result, I decided to take my digital camera and attempt to capture this sight and then, hopefully, upload it onto this blog. The sky was changing rapidly, so I had to be quick in order to get the shots I wanted. I had to check that the batteries in the camera were fully charged. It often happens that we take the Fuji digital camera out with us whenever we go out for the day, and it is important to make sure that the batteries are kept fully charged, and it can happen that you think you are going to get a really good shot and then discover the batteries run out at the crucial moment you go to click the shutter. I got outside and then went out onto the Redway behind our house. There were children walking towards the Academy, and they must have wondered what on earth I was up to with the camera. I managed to get some of the shots  (as you will see above) over the top of the hospital complex, but in order to get something better I knew I would have to get up a good deal higher and got to the footbridge over Saxon Street (one of the Milton Keynes grid roads.) and this allowed me to get a much better view of the horizon towards the woods towards Woburn. You can see the traffic moving along the road and to the right in one, a street lamp. These photographs were taken at around 8.15 a.m. so I think I've done well to get them taken and then up-loaded  so quicky onto the iMac and then transferred onto this blog!

A new vacuum cleaner and back to work for Carol

It's raining hard and very windy here at the moment. Carol has gone back to work this morning. A day of staff training. She tells me it's usually very boring. I have some idea, as the training I used to have to endure when I worked in care was not always that interesting, generally in one ear and out the other and handed a certificate just to show you'd been there and done the course.

We purchased a new vacuum cleaner on Monday. The old one had seen better days. The cleaning head wouldn't fit back on the hose, so I had an idea it wasn't worth repairing. We went to Asda and spent some time comparing different models and came away with a Hoover with hepa filter and a special filter for pet hairs. We have tried it and it's extremely powerful. Almost sucked up the rug in the lounge and made short work of Poppy's hair. I have been round the house with it and I am somewhat impressed by it.

I gave Carol a wild-bird feeding station for Christmas. It is set up in the garden and we can see the birds feeding on it. It seems really successful.

Happy New Year

This is to wish all those who read my blog, and also those who just 'drop in' occasionally to read my posts a fantastic 2012.