Warm Weather

Well, it seems that summer has finally arrived. Yesterday was supposed to have been the warmest day of the year (so far) according to the weather forecast on BBC Breakfast this morning. It seems that it's likely to last for a few days more. I just hope it stays warm into next week as Carol is on Half Term and we're planning the usual days out, most likely visiting National Trust and H.H.A. properties (that's the Historic Houses Association.) We got new membership cards for both organisations and we want to explore some new places we haven't been to before.

Gary (our neighbour) came round yesterday evening. He had to nail a piece of timber onto the fence on our side. I'm not entirely sure what it was for, so I must go and have a look. Apparently the sections of what we imagined was another shed turns out to be a summerhouse, although we can't see where on earth it's going to fit in their garden as it's about the same size as ours so by the time it's constructed they'll have very little space left. He came to collect the loppers he lent me some while ago which I used to cut back the annoying branches which grow along the fence. Actually the same trees (for want of a better word) have come back so I'll have to have another go at cutting them with loppers I have since bought from B and Q. Gary has now managed to cut back the brambles from the roof of the shed. Carol was concerned that he was going to stand on the roof of the shed to do this work, but it wouldn't have been a good idea because the shed is in a very poor state of repair and I doubt it would take his weight. 

I have managed to cut the grass. I did around half of it yesterday morning as it was sunny and finished it off early this morning. Done well before 8 o'clock. I didn't want to spend any time next week mowing so that is why I did it this week.

Carol is doing visits to the pupils on work experience. I occasionally go with her. I can't believe it's a year ago since she was visiting pupils doing their out-of-school placements. There's one she has to visit this afternoon at Hobbycraft, which is across the city at Rooksley.

Alfie doesn't particularly like it when it's hot. He can never find a spot which is cool enough for him to lay down. I'm glad we had him clipped last week. He keeps moving around the house to find the coolest spot. I'm really glad I finished mowing the grass when I did because now it's far too hot (10.15 a.m.) .

Some confusion when we drove to Tesco in Oldbrook Boulevarde earlier this morning. There were traffic cones blocking off part of the road going towards Four Bridges Roundabout near Eaglestone and Saxon Street going into the city centre was closed. Lots of workmen in those luminous orange high-visability jackets and a large digital screen with the words 'Closed for 2 Days' on it. It would appear that the road surface along that stretch of Saxon Street is being re-surfaced. I can't say I'm annoyed that we had to take a detour to avoid this work, as the road surface has become really bad with potholes the entire length. I'm wondering which section will be next for the work.

Baptisms and Sunshine

It's a perfectly beautiful sunny September day. It's just amazing that it's so warm and sunny. We went to church at Milton Keynes Christian Centre, going to the first of the three Sunday services, at 9 a.m. Thee were to be around 40 people being baptised during the service. It's always busy so it is advisable to arrive early in order to get a seat and we always like to get as close to the front as possible to be able to watch.

During the sermon, George Ridley said that £600 was needed to replace the roof of a church somewhere in India. As a result we went to the cashpoint at Tesco's in Oldbrook Boulevarde and returned to give it to George. When we returned, having had to park in the road opposite the entrance to M.K.C.C. which was actually coned off with yellow 'no parking cones' (because people aren't supposed to park in the neighbouring roads as part of the agreement which was made with the local council when planning permission was given to build the church.) we walked back towards the church building and as we got to the front door Carol saw one of her former pupils who was going to be baptised during the second service. We handed over the £10 to George Ridley who was with his wife Pam sitting in the coffee shop at the entrance of M.K.C.C. Carol said she wanted to stay and watch the baptisms during the next service (which was due to start in a little under 15 minutes.) I had to go back to the car and drive to the carpark at Milton Keynes College (where we had parked originally earlier in the morning before the first service at 9 o'clock.) I then drove over to the college car park through the busy traffic which was heading into the church carpark as well as out onto Chaffron Way. When I got to the carpark I had to walk back along the Redway and back to M.K.C.C. By the time I got there the service had started but I managed to walk in and found Carol. She had found us two seats near to the baptistry so we could watch the baptisms and I took some photographs with my mobile phone. It actually turned out that two of Carol's students from Milton Keynes Academy were baptised during the service.

We returned home, having left immediately after the baptisms. We then drove to Woburn Sands to visit the Wyevale Garden Centre there to have a break and something to eat in their restaurant for a lunch break. We were somewhat surprised to see Christmas stock being set up in the garden centre.It seemed far, far too early to be thinking about Christmas this early in September. Especially as it was so sunny this afternoon. It seems some people will buy the general tat that is considered acceptable Christmas fare, and usually very over-priced. It gives us a good laugh, looking at this sort of stuff. Now that B.H.S. has gone, affording us some considerable pleasure in the run-up to Christmas, when we had to visit the B.H.S. Christmas department to look at the offerings they sold, but, alas, this year, now they have closed down, our entertainment of this sort will have to be elsewhere. Singing Christmas trees and tacky tinsel, over-coloured tree ornaments and One Direction knick-necks will have to now be diverted elsewhere.

Rain, Rain! Go Away!

Storm Desmond has been raging across the north of England and into Scotland. We've been seeing some awful footage on the television news of homes being flooded, the misery caused by water damage, cars up to their roofs in water, people being rescued by boat from their front windows, boats being rowed down mains streets. It's quite awful. Luckily for us in Milton Keynes and most of the south of England we seemed to have escaped from this flooding. But overnight we've had heavy rain. We drove to Tesco at Oldbrook Boulevarde early this morning because Carol needed to get cash out of the A.T.M. as we're going to a restaurant with other  staff members of her department at Milton Keynes Academy for a Christmas meal and we have to pay a deposit. It should be a good evening out. It was raining heavily as we drove there. Whenever it rains we get a torrent or water running down the road in front of our house. The dogs are a little reluctant to go out in the garden when it rains. Alfie comes back in looking like a bedraggled rat. As his coat is long and naturally curly, whenever it gets wet it starts to get even curlier, making it look as if he's had a perm! He is in need of another grooming session so I will have to book another early in the New Year.

Another Cold and Frosty Morning

The water wasn't warm this morning. I was somewhat annoyed as I have only just put credit on our meter (one of those jobs you have to top up with a key. We usually go to the local shop in Eaglestone.) You then have to get the step-stool and go outside to the bin cupboard, open the door and climb up on the step-stool and stretch your arm in to the back of the cupboard and put the yellow plastic card into the meter. You have to press one of the two buttons and hold it and the meter should make a sort of whirring sound which denotes that the credit is on the meter. In theory at least the digital display should now show the credit. You have to remember to turn off the gas near the boiler in the kitchen. But this morning it didn't work and the little red light on the boiler continued to blink. It was something to do with the water pressure in the boiler which had to be adjusted and the central heating burst into life.  The electric meter is inside the house which isn't so difficult to reach, and you can see the amount left on the digital read-out as you walk upstairs. This meter is actually behind the bin cupboard and i'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to have both meters on the inside of the house and so avoid this sort of situation, having the electric and gas meters side by side. It was something to do with the fact that it was very frosty and cold first thing this morning, a considerable drop in temperature from what it has been over the past week or two. There was frost on the car windscreen and I had to spray de-icer on it before we could drive out of the estate. It may be cold but as I write this it is sunny and another of those days which are deceptive as it looks very warm but once you go outside it's quite chilly.
Later in the day I drove to Oldbrook Boulevarde to go to Lidl's. I parked the car outside the Tesco Express store but walked over to Lidl's which is only a short walk away. I have been noticing the building work going on outside Lidl's and it is now well underway. They had put up a sort of temporary fence a few weeks ago and the work progresses on building what is obviously an extension. One end of the carpark where I generally park when I shop around there is cordoned off and has a sign for construction use only. There was a large crane on the site the other day when I went there but it seems to have gone and there were quite a few workmen in yellow hard hats walking about. The other morning when I went into Lidl's there were several men in suits walking around with one lady amongst them with clipboards and they were looking at the carpark immediately outside the store and I noticed them walking around the store so perhaps they are planning more work both inside and out. Ironic that Tesco's are experiencing problems at the moment, not hitting profit margins they were expecting to together with their share price falling considerably while Lidl and Aldi's fortunes are rising sharply. This might explain why they are extending the store. I don't know whether this is happening to all their stores across the country, but I expect it is.
On the way back home I saw an old lady pushing her shopping trolley along the road. I've seen her several times before, but it does seem to me somewhat dangerous to be pushing a trolley along the road when she could just as easily walk along the Redway and prevent being run into.

Side-Effects of Flu Jab and Strictly Saturdays

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, Carol had her 'flu jab in Sainsbury's on Thursday evening. Mine was yesterday morning at Ashfield Medical Centre. I was beginning to think that I was getting a slight reaction to the jab with some muscle and joint pain as we sat down to eat our evening meal whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing. (I'll mention that a little later in this blog.) Carol, though, has had quite a bad reaction this morning (Sunday) and as a result we didn't go to church. I went to Lidl on Oldbrook Boulevard. I was really surprised by how busy it was in there. The first Christmas products are beginning to appear on the shelves and as a result you can't always find exactly what you want. In this case, stuffing to go with this evening's roast chicken. I then went into the Tesco just over the road, one of those 'mini' or 'convenience' branches. I was surprised how few people were in there. I'm not surprised as Lidl is so much cheaper and I could not find any Paxo (stuffing) for the chicken. I looked up and down the aisles but not a single packet could I see. I purchased a Sunday Times, using a self-service till and then walked out. I drove to the shop in Eaglestone, and sure enough, I found a packet of Paxo immediately. This must say quite a lot about the current retail situation in Britain, with Tesco once upon a time being the strongest supermarket chain, and since the financial crash of 2008 such 'discounters' as Aldi and Lidl have changed the way most people shop for groceries, being around 15% cheaper than the four major supermarkets, Asda, Morrison, Sainsbury and Tesco.

As for Strictly Come Dancing . . .  as far as I'm concerned the novelty of seeing celebrities making fools of themselves on the dance floor is beginning to wear a bit thin. The show is over-hyped and it's all over the tabloids and Facebook. You can't seem to get away from it from early September until Christmas. There's nothing at all wrong with the dancing, it's the over-heated audience that gets me. They cheer and clap at the slightest thing, cheering and making stupid noises. And why do they insist on putting people in the front row of the audience who you can see clearly behind the presenters when they are talking, a woman was on there last night who was dreadfully over made-up and kept staring at the camera. A real distraction.  Can they not just fade them into the background? Do we really need to see these non-entities so clearly? Bruce Forsyte, who didn't actually do a great deal when he was on, is sorely missed. I don't know what it is but he did add a certain élan to the proceedings, even though his jokes were somewhat tired.  Those two women, Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly really don't add a great deal. Never have, since this show began. How did the B.B.C. think that Tess Daly was a replacement for good old Sir Bruce Forsythe I can't think. She has all the talent of a shopping trolley. Though, in all honesty, there wasnt a lot for Brucie to get his teeth into in the first place, nothing to be 'hands on' as he would have been in the 'Generation Game' or 'Play Your Cards Right.' Lets be honest, an hour and a half of this is really far too much and Craig Revel-Horwood's miserable face is enough to put you off your rice pudding. Can he never say anything nice to anyone? I know he's been cast as the pantomime villain but it is wearing a bit thin by now.

The lighting and set design are really brilliant. When you compare it to the travesty of the revived Sunday Night At The Palladium, which has been done on the cheap and has all the atmosphere of a Sunday night at the local village hall, no expense has been spared. The way they can transform the set for each couple who dance is amazing. All done with lighting and digital effects. The moving digital  lighting which is used around the staircases is spectacular.

Greg Wallace got booted off the show. He deserved it. His dancing was like a flat-footed Teletubby. Judy Murray was not much better.  It must be very difficult when you are, in effect, in the shadow of a far more famous son or daughter, as she is. You can forgive her nerves, as most of the rest of the celebs should be used to the cameras, the audience and so on. But she wasn't much better. At least Tim Wonnacott made a brave stab at it, even though he wasn't a particularly brilliant. I don't expect he'll last much longer. Just have to wait and see.