The Return of the MacBook!

(Friday) I was informed by both email and text message, that the microwave oven I'd ordered through the Currys website would be arriving between 12.20 and 1.20 this morning. It arrived more or less dead on time and I had to sign using one of these crazy digital devices where it's virtually impossible to sign your signature properly. The parcel came via DPD, the courier company, who very kindly kept me informed of my microwave's journey from the warehouse. Very crafty to be able to keep a track of a delivery and to give fairy accurate information as to when a parcel is going to arrive. I had also ordered a box from Bilbliophile books a couple of weeks ago, a paperback of Gyles Brandreth's diaries of his time as an MP and, to make it even more worthwhile, it has been signed by him. I've always liked his style and erudite manner whenever he appears on The One Show and such radio programmes such as Just A Minute. I had wondered where this book had got to, but it arrived in the post, earlier in the morning, along with a DVD of 'The Favourite' which I got from Sky as part of my subscription, so I have that to enjoy at some not-too distant point in time.

At last! The telephone call I've been waiting for came at around 12 midday today (Friday) to inform me that the MacBook was ready for collection from Currys. They had found a couple of viruses on it and they were removed. So I went off to Curry's no sooner had the microwave been delivered. One lest thing to wait around for, but it's fixed and I feel a good deal happier that that rather nasty incident over the scam had been resolved. Although I got a telephone call earlier, one of those strange computerised calls, saying it was from BT, but after what happened exactly a week ago, I have my serious doubts that it was actually from BT. As a consequence of this I have now rung the real BT (well, I do hope that it was the REAL BT.) and informed them of the call last week. Apparently they are attempting to stop these malicious and false calls. You can get your provider to put some sort of software in their system to stop these sorts of calls, so I might call Sky, who provide my landline telephone and see if they can stop these calls and hopefully prevent a repetition of last Friday's incident.

Saturday morning. I've been out early with Alfie. Any idea that I might get some sort of lie-in because it's the weekend has completely gone out of the window. Alfie doesn't realise it's the weekend and that either of us could do with a rest. I did get up a bit later than usual, but not much. It would have been around 6.40 but the time we set paw and foot on the path outside the front door and the set off towards Eaglestone Park. Alfie came across a young bird as soon as I let him off his lead. I think it was a newly fledged starling. It was fluttering around in the long grass. Alfie, being a Yorkshire Terrier, showed his terrier instincts, and wanted to catch it. I had to prevent him from picking it up. I'm not sure what he would have done with it if he had, and I wasn't going to find out, so I had to pick him up, but when I put him down again, he tried to follow the little bird. No doubt the fledgling was being watched by it's parents from the safety of a nearby tree. But I managed to distract Alfie long enough for him to not follow the birdie. Then, in a tree at the rear of a garden which backs onto the park, we saw several squirrels playing in a tree. I thought they would make a really great photo and got out my iPhone in an attempt to get a shot or two, but it's not easy trying to get a decent shot with a Yorkshire Terrier in tow and pulling on his lead and barking. The squirrels were running up and down the trunk of the tree and then leaping from branch to branch above my head. They move very quickly and are extremely adept at hanging on to the very thin and bendy branches. But in the end I lost sight of them and we walked on along the path.

My car needed fuelling. The gauge in the car was showing low. I could have gone on for a few more days, but I didn't want to put diesel in until it was really necessary. The Renault Captur is a very economical car to run and I can go for several weeks on one tankful. I have been going to the BP station on Childs Way, behind he Xscape building, basically because it's convenient and I get Nectar points. When I got there it now seems they are going to give up on Nectar and set up their own points system. Annoying, because it means if you join it you have to have another card or app on your phone if you intend collecting them. At least with Nectar there are several places that give them if you shop with them. I also go to fuel there early because there's less traffic and it's easier to get out onto the road afterwards.

Another Sunny Day!

The warm weather continues. Milton Keynes in the sun is a great place.

I've been doing on-line surveys for a good number of years now. It's turned out to be quite a lucrative activity. I can't say you can make a living at it, but if you find the right survey sites that offer either vouchers or cash, then the points or cash can soon add up. One such site is called Consumer Pulse, which you have to be invited to join, as I was, some 10 years or so ago. This company wants you to record what you buy, not grocery items, things like clothing, CDs and DVDs, books and so on. I have already managed to purchase quite a few items using the points that I have a accrued and these can be converted into  variety of vouchers for well known stores, such as W.H. Smith, Waterstones, Argos and Currys. We purchased a steam iron, electric kettle as well as put a large amount to the cost of our Hitachi HD television set. I had got quite a good balance of points on Consumer Pulse. Well over £140 and decided that I could use them to purchase a new microwave. I got rid of the old model we had a few months ago because it wasn't in a fit state to use. It had gone rusty and it hadn't been looked after very well. If food is spilt inside when something is cooked and isn't wiped clean, then eventually it will fester and this is exactly what had happened to this model. It just wasn't hygienic, so I took it to the tidy-tip. For a replacement I intened getting one that, hopefully, would be better constructed, and wouldn't rust as quickly. Let's be honest here, many products aren't made to last. They have a sort of built-in obsilescence because the manufacturers want you to buy the latest model. This seems the case with such things as computers and mobile phones. You have to up-grade the software they run on frequently and then, when there are no further up-grades, you will want to change the model for a newer one. I had to decide which model I wanted and within the budget I had set and to then decide which retailer I would order the vouchers for, up to a value of £140. I chose Currys and duly went on the Consumer Pulse website and ordered them. You can only have them in blocks of £10, and I knew, once ordered, it would take around a week before they arrived at my door.

I was pleased when I got the delivery of the Currys vouchers in yesterday's post (Wednesday) because I was expecting them to come by Friday at the latest. I had to sign because the postie knocked on the door and I was expected to sign on a sort of digital device that it's difficult to write on and produce an at least half-respectable and legible signature.

I was hoping to use the vouchers in the nearest branch of Currys, but when I went to their branch and found the model microwave I wanted, I was told that they didn't have it in stock. I discovered that it was in stock at the Bedford branch, but when I asked if the required item could be bought to the Milton Keynes branch for me to collect I was informed that this was not possible. I could purchase the item on-line and use my vouchers to buy it and have it delivered to my home. So, this is what I attempted to do. You have to scratch off the back of the voucher and then put the long code into the website along with the P.I.N., which is the number on the back of the voucher and under the scratch-off area of the voucher. Having done this for five of the vouchers (each vouchers was worth £10, so there were 14 in total, making a total of £140.) But after the fifth voucher, the software told me that no more than 5 vouchers could be used per transaction! As you can imagine I was somewhat annoyed, but I went into the Currys branch in Milton Keynes and they transferred the 14 vouchers onto one voucher and this I eventually managed to put into the Currys website and order the microwave, to have it delivered next Friday.  Thank goodness thats over,

Meanwhile . . . I was told that my MacBook would be ready on Thursday, and that someone would telephone me to tell me if there was a probem, possibly after 12 noon. Nothing. No call, or anything. Just annoying. I forgot to take the charging cable when I took the computer in for them to look at it, so I took it yesterday when I was attempting to get the microwave sorted out. I just hope I get a call tomorrow and that it's ready for me to collect later in the day.

At the beginning of this blog post I wrote that it was sunny and warm. As I write this, looking out of the lounge window I can see that it is definitely not sunny. The wind is quite strong and it's moving the trees about. That's all I need to tell you at this moment in time.

When Kitchen Gadgets Go Bad

Our toaster is playing up. It's been awkward for some time. You put a piece of bread in it and it takes ages to actually brown the bread sufficiently. You turn up the thing up so it makes a darker colour of the bread, but then it burns. You await the popping of the toast, and it takes what seems an eternity. Sometimes the slices of bread you put in get stuck, which also leads to more incineration. You have to make sure the kitchen door is closed into the hallway, where the smoke detector is (is it a smoke detector? I'm not sure.) If you forget to close the door and you accidentally allow the toaster to burn the bread within it, the alarm goes off with an ear-piercing shriek. I know it's not much use if it's not loud, for example, in the middle of the night, when you are deep in the land of nod, it has to be loud to waken you. But during the day? Alfie will bark. Is it to tell you to sort the gadget out, to stop it shrieking? To stop it, you wave a teatowel or a newspaper under it, to cause a draught which will stop the thing making a noise. Or press the button in the centre of the thing, which is impossible to reach unless you stand on a stool or a chair to reach it. More inconvenience. The toaster will only really work properly if you use slices from a nicely pre-sliced loaf, such as Sunblest. Or Hovis. I prefer the multi-seeded variety. Sliced white is just too processed and mush. If you buy a proper loaf, from a bakers, and then slice it yourself, you have to ensure that the slices are not to thick otherwise they stick in the toaster, leading to more smoke and chaos from the smoke detector thingy in the hall.

We had a microwave oven, which sat on the kitchen work-surface, but it took up a lot of space. It didn't wear very well. It wasn't that old, but it got very rusty inside. I took it to the tidy-tip to be (hopefully) recycled. We didn't use it so much, and to be honest, we don't miss it. The space is more important. If you have a microwave you have to keep it clean. When you get spills it's important to deal with them otherwise it just adds to the decaying process. Also, if you use them to cook meals which have a strong smell, such as curry, this smell tends to linger. You just can't get rid of it. Not pleasant. I think the problem with this particular model was, because it was quite cheap, it wasn't made of very durable materials, hence the fact it rusted quickly, leading to it's demise.

We live in a rented property. There were various electrical items in situ when we moved in, a washing machine, a fridge/freezer and an electric cooker. When it came to replacing the cooker the landlord was reluctant to replace it, but it eventually buy a new one. Unfortunately it didn't last long. The new one wasn't much better. I came down to make tea early one morning and was almost electrocuted by the thing. There were sparks coming out of the electric point where it was wired in. We bought the next one ourselves, when the landlord refused. It didn't wear very well. It rusted badly and the oven gave up so we couldn't cook anything in it. So we bought the latest one through our Very account. It is reasonably good, has a ceramic hob, which the old one had. They are a good deal easier to keep clean than a conventional one as it's a totally flat surface to keep wiped. It does it's job well enough.

The fridge/freezer gave up when it just didn't freeze anymore. We'd been out for the day and came home to find it had defrosted and we lost a lot of food which was in the freezer compartment. We replaced this with one from Very. It has more freezer capacity, an extra drawer than the previous model.

Then we had to replace the washing machine. The old model was a cheap Bush, from Argos. I think I've described in a lot of detail how the landlord got someone he knew, who had absolutely no knowledge about installing washing machines, to fit it in for us. They didn't remove the restraining bolts which held the drum in transit, so when I put it on, when the machine got to 'spin' the machine nearly took off across the kitchen floor. Well, it would, wouldn't it? The drum would have been fixed with those bolts, so no wonder it caused so much damage, not just to the floor, but pulled the pipes out of the wall where it was plumbed in. This caused a lot of water damage, which we had to get repaired. We bought the current washing machine, a Kenwood, which we got from Curry's. A much better machine, which has an economy setting which means you can have a load of laundry done in around 45 minutes. The old machine seemed to take forever to wash a load.

We had an electric kettle which we'd bought in Argos. It went wrong. The lid was opened by pressing a sort of lever, but it stopped functioning, so it made the kettle virtually impossible to use properly. So it became somewhat impossible to use. We took it back and got a replacement, a Russell Hobbs model which has a Brita water filter inside it. You top the kettle up as you would normally, but, because it has a filter in it, the water is purified as it would be in a standard Brita water filter. The kettle has a device on the top which shows how long the filter has been in the kettle (four weeks.). It has a series of four 'bars' which represent the weeks, and when you insert a new filter, you press this device and as the weeks go by, each of the four 'bars' disappears until the last one disappears and you then replace the filer with a new one. The kettle is fine, except it's wearing badly, particularly around the lid. The body of the kettle is made of a plastic substance and it has a blue light within the kettle which shows when the kettle is boiling. This is very useful but really serves no real purpose. It doesn't make the kettle any more efficient. Also, the Maxtra filters are quite expensive and if you forget to replace them, then the filter capability is of no use. I suppose if it does have a purpose it is that it prevents the kettle from furring up with limescale because the water in this area is quite hard and without some sort of treatment things like kettles are soon full of limescale.

We have a coffee machine. One that takes pods. It's a Dolce Gusto. It has worked very well and you can make a range of drinks, mostly coffee. You put a milk pod in first, let the hot water filter through, then a coffee pod, to make latte or cappuccino. The only problem is, the water container is very difficult to clean. It has developed some green algae in it and there's no way you can get a brush in it to clean this gunk off. The plastic tank is just an awkward shape and there seems no way you can clean this out. A poor design fault. A lot of kitchen gadgets seem extremely difficult to clean. I had a food processor. It did it's job well enough, but it was a real fiddle to clean properly. Also, you have the problem with storage. With more and more kitchen appliances, mixers, blenders, processors, coffee makers, where do you store them when they're not in use? Most can obviously be left on the work-surface of your kitchen, but the rest? We have limited space.

My conclusion of all this discussion is that, generally, household appliances are not made to be very robust, and to not have a very long life and need replacing very frequently. Probably we use our kitchen gadgets a fair amount. The microwave wasn't used a great deal, but it soon got extremely rusty which is why it had to be recycled. 

More of Life's Little Irritations

It's that issue again, those irritations that make life a misery. Like the difficult wrappings on such things as CDs and DVDs. I think I've mentioned this before elsewhere on this blog. These things are supposed to have a tag on them which you're supposed to pull and it allows the cellophane to tear and then release the wrapping. Not just those items, but the packet that teabags come in, particularly P.G. Tips. Then I have to ask, why is there cellophane on these packets in the first place? Is it a security thing, or what? But if you must have it, why make it so annoyingly difficult to remove?

Tops on bottles and jars: why do some have to be so difficult to open? Not every one you ever buy, but the occasional one which needs all your brute force to get it to twist open. Jars of marmalade, jam, and those ready-made sauces for pasta, bolognaise or whatever. You can put the car into a door jamb or something similar and that can often help, but usually if you use a sharp object like a knife to prick the cap it often releases the vacuum that keeps the product fresh and then the cap comes of easily. But what an ordeal to get the thing open! Does it really have to be that difficult to get into the product? They put a safety seal on these products, a central circle that you can see if it's been tampered with. Then there's those pump action bottles which hand-washing soap comes in. They are locked and your have to push the mechanism down and twist to get it to open. No always successfully.

In a lot of ways they are attempting to make packaging less wasteful. Why does toothpaste have to come in a box? Is it to protect the tube inside? Those ready meals that come in a nice little aluminium tray ready to pop in the oven or microwave might be convenient, but the clear cellophane that it's covered in can be another annoying thing to have to deal with. When the product is cooked, for example, a lasagne, you take it out of the oven carefully, making sure you don't burn yourself in the process, but then you have to peel back the cellophane. Not always easy because it's hot, there's never a nice little tab to pull to draw it back, so you have to use a knife to cut the cellophane and then tear off this covering, which never comes off in one nice clean piece, you always get several bits that get left on the container and are difficult to remove completely.

What about those drinks that come in little cardboard packets and with a straw attached? Usually sold for children, no doubt for school packed lunches. They can be a real problem to open. You need a pair of sharp scissors to penetrate the cardboard package, they give you a little tab which you have to cut, and impossible to tear with your fingers and then you have to stab the little hole with the straw, which never works, so the straw ends up bent and useless. Usually the straw is attached to the package with sticky tape and it's virtually impossible to remove. Just plain crazy pack design.