Another Day Older . . .

 Friday. 1.50 p.m. I took my car to Anglo Motors to have its MoT. I had booked it via phone last week. I knew the old one would run out yesterday because I went online to check. I drove over to Mount Farm, the home of Anglo, at 11.45. I handed over the keys and then sat in the waiting area. After around 45 minutes, I learnt that it had passed! I'm so pleased, it's another thing to not have to stress about.

Sunday. 8.05 a.m. I woke a good deal later than normal. 

Yesterday evening, I lost Alfie. No, don't laugh. How on earth can you lose a small Yorkshire terrier in a flat this size? I think he was under my bed.

3.30 p.m. We have had extremely loud music emanating from the National Bowl, here in sunny Milton Keynes, both yesterday and today. Our ears were bombarded by the heavy beat of reggae music. Not my sort of music, but the whole area around the Bowl had been cordoned off with traffic cones and those plastic fences you see when there is some sort of incident. On my way to church, I found that Chaffron Way was closed off at the Grafton Street roundabout, which meant I had to make a rather circuitous route around Milton Keynes before I could get to Shenley Brook End.

Wednesday. 10.45 a.m. Where have I been? Why haven't I been writing stuff on here? Simples! Not much is happening around here. Well, this is Dexter House, centre of the universe, full of excitement- not. We need a resident artist here, say, David Hockney or Andrew Lloyd-Webber, doing art, writing music and getting things going. It would certainly liven things up. We should have an Olympic-size swimming pool in the communal garden, along with a gym and cinema complex. I have to say, as you will have noticed, if you read my posts regularly, that I can get carried away with my musings.

I went to Sainsbury's earlier. It was like a version of the Marie Celeste, virtually empty. I didn't get a trolley with a wonky wheel, which drives me nuts. It refuses to push without squeaking or just not moving at all. I think they should spend some time getting them maintained. So the wheels run freely and don't squeak.

Thursday. 8.45 a.m. It's another mild and relatively pleasant morning. I just hope it stays that way.

Yesterday evening, I was part of a Zoom meeting, which was for market research. I won't go into too much detail, just suffice to say, it was very interesting. I've done quite a few of these, some really boring, but this was fascinating, and what made it more interesting was hearing other people's opinions. I will get £60 for doing it, so that's great, and I want to get more of these, particularly when they're on Zoom, as it means you don't have to go anywhere, just sit and chat in the comfort of your own home. It ended relatively late, which means I slept well and didn't wake up until around 7 a.m. Until we had the coronavirus pandemic, I had never even heard of Zoom. I quickly got the hang of using it, and it has paid off to have the ability to use it. My various bits of technology, such as my MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone, can be used to earn more cash. I have two apps on my iPhone, which I use to scan the barcodes of what I buy, using the phone's camera. I build up points which can be built up and then redeemed for various vouchers, such as Amazon, Argos, Sainsbury's, Tesco, etc. Well worth the effort. Another site I'm signed up to is called Consumer Pulse, which I've been with for years. When you buy clothes and other items, you record each on the site and, again, receive points which can be redeemed for vouchers. 

MoT, Swimming and House Inspection

As mentioned in my last post, the car had to go for it's MoT last Wednesday. It wasn't quite so straightforward in order for it to pass as the garage (D and A Autos in Mount Farm), rang during Wednesday to tell us that it had failed on one or two minor points, one being that it would need a couple of new tyres. I have mentioned the rather strange running of the car's engine, the times it has cut out and the juddering we have experienced as we'd driven along in it. They told us it would need to stay in their workshop overnight to have the work completed, and the total bill would cost around £400. A bit of a shock, to say the least, but we had some idea that it was going to need quite a bit of work done in order for it to pass it's MoT. Also, the car needed it's Road Fund Licence and we weren't going to get this done without an MoT certificate and the licence had run out on 31st March. As Carol was on Easter holiday we were planning to go back to collect the car on Thursday evening after the garage telephoned to tell us it was ready to collect.  We said we'd collect the car on Friday morning as the garage would be closed at around 5.30 when they rang. The next morning at around 8.30 I rang for a taxi on my mobile and we soon got our lift over to Mount Farm. The taxi company has a 'text-back' system, provided you phone them from your mobile, which tells you the registration number and time the taxi will arrive, quite  good idea if you are unsure which is the right vehicle coming to give you a lift to wherever, particularly for late night taxi rides. An added security for all concerned. The taxi was very quick to arrive and we soon got to the garage in Mount Farm. Having paid the bill for the work on the car we then had to drive to Swinton's office in Bletchley to get the replacement insurance certificate (having looked in vain for this document in our usual places for such documents and not finding it.) We had rung on Thursday to say that they would be able to print off a copy for us to collect. Having managed to collect the insurance document we then went into the Central Post Office in Milton Keynes (it has moved from it's original place in the Central Shopping Centre to the Theatre District recently, meaning we could park the car nearby in a free parking space. We were then told that we wouldn't need the insurance certificate after all, so all that running about was actually for nothing. We got the licence disc and managed to fix it to the car windscreen. Apparently you will no longer need to buy a licence disc as the Government has said that this is no longer a necessity. So, if that is the case, how will the Police be able to check which cars are licenced or not? Presumably using some sort of check on car registration numbers or something, and no doubt using number recognition software. No doubt they will have a list of car's registration numbers which aren't licences or at least, up to date with their licence payments. Perhaps it's a good thing as it will mean less paperwork, but I have to say it will be odd not having that little disc of paper stuck to the inside of the car's windscreen. Although it will be great not having to run about from pillar to post whenever it runs out. Although we have bought the licence on-line and it makes me wonder how they check the documentation, although it is done from data stored somewhere 'in the cloud.' Another area of technology which I just don't actually understand but I have to say, having paid for this on-line, it is the most efficient and easiest way to buy this.

Yesterday, early,Monday morning. Carol has a further week off for Easter. We haven't been for a swim for a couple of weeks so we decided to go to D.W. early. We were there a little before 8 and it was great that the place was virtually empty except for a couple of people. One of the jacuzzis was ou of action for repair but apart from that it was really relaxing and I did around 25 lengths of the pool. We were in there for a good hour and a half. It was strange coming out and it was sunny and bright as we usually go in the evening which means we come out when it is quite dark outside. We had to go to Sainsbury's as Carol had a repeat prescription which needed collecting and at the same time we needed some shopping for the evening's meal. We noticed that in Sainsbury's they have been altering the homewards department and so we had a look around before buying things for our meal as well as picking up the prescription.

I have mentioned the creative writing course at Milton Keynes Art Centre I did in November and that I had been signed up to do a ten-week course which was cancelled when the lady who was leading was taken ill. I am somewhat disappointed as I was really looking forward to this and still await it being re-sheduled but at the moment there seems that this isn't going to happen. I have been looking around to find something elsewhere but with no success but I have now signed up to an on-line daily writing email which sends me a daily 'prompt' so that I can do a ten-minute writing exercise. This I have been doing for around the past three weeks. The idea is that you get the 'prompt' by email each morning and you have to use that for a piece of writing which you mustn't spend too much time thinking about and not stop writing until the ten minutes is up. I now have quite a few of these ten-minute pieces, some good and some not so good but it does at least mean I get into the habit of writing something, very much in the same way writing this blog is a writing exercise.

Having got the car sorted we now have to contend with a house inspection. Smart Move, the rental agency, rang yesterday morning (Monday) to say they wanted to do an inspection on Wednesday. They said they would come at 2, then rang back to say could it be 3, and then rang again to say they'd come on Thursday at 3. I jut hope they do arrive as the landlord was supposed to come for an inspection several weeks ago (more like months) one Saturday but they never turned up, after we'd made a lot of effort cleaning he house and having it ready. So we're going to have to spend the next couple of days cleaning and tidying the place.

Easter Hols

Carol is currently on holiday from Milton Keynes Academy. That doesn't mean she is sitting around drinking cups of coffee and doing nothing much. She has no end of marking to do. I drove over last Friday afternoon in the car to pick her up and she came out with a load of stuff on a trolley which we loaded into the car. Several large printer paper boxes with test papers to be marked. She has been doing this marking every day since and has now, on Wednesday evening, got a few sets still to mark. Those people who think a teacher's life is easy should think again. Yes, they do get quite a lot of holidays, meaning, time away from teaching, but Carol spends a lot of time planning lessons as well as marking and then there's a lot of paperwork to be done, assessments and so on. And having to go to meetings and having observations. Just don't mention the name Michael Gove as he's not the most popular man around any school at the moment (he is Secretary of State for Education.) Not a great deal of time left for other things such as going out, meaning, time away from work.

We had the car booked in for it's MoT, at a garage in Mount Farm, Milton Keynes. We were given the name by Laverne Robb, who is a friend of ours at Milton Keynes Christian Centre. It was he who came to our aid the other Saturday when the car wouldn't start in Tesco's carpark in Kingston. We were ripped off good and proper when we took the car to a rather suspect garage in Bleak Hall and so we were determined not to be treated the same this year. The car had to be at the garage at 8.30. Having dropped it off we phoned using my mobile for a taxi and waited most of the morning to hear the result of the MoT. The car failed, unfortunately. Nothing too much wrong. It needs new tyres and one or two fairly minor things to get it through it's test and they rang to tell me and that they could do the required work on it and it would be ready. So we will await the phone call tomorrow late afternoon and then get another taxi to go and collect it.