Nandos Meal , Electric Daisy Carnival Noise and Conking Hoover

The weather has been warm and pleasant today. It's as if summer has decided to arrive at last. I know it's somewhat mundane to mention it, but the Hoover decided to pack up yesterday. I'm in charge of keeping things spick and span while Carol is at work and I was attempting to vacuum the lounge and I was using the Hoover and it just would not pick up properly. I had noticed that it had been playing up for the past few weeks but thought no more about it. I spent some time unblocking it. It soon gets full of fluff and dog hair (Poppy has a particularly long coat which sheds and there is quite a lot of this hair about the house.) The machine was also giving of a rather nasty smell, sort of hot. So, after mentioning this to Carol when she got home from work she thought it might need replacing. Not such an efficient machine as it might have been so we ordered a new cleaner from Very, the on-line company which we have bought quite a few items from over the years. The new vacuum was delivered promptly on Friday morning, barely 24 hours after being ordered. It is a Vax model.

One of Carol's work colleagues was leaving Milton Keynes Academy and returning to Canada, so a table was booked at Nando's in The Hub. We drove there at 6.45. It was a pleasant enough meal but it was so noisy in the restaurant that you couldn't hear anybody talking which really spoilt the evening. I cannot understand why they have loud music playing, which means you have to shout to be heard. As a result we didn't stay long. I was nice to get out for the evening. I'm not sure I'd recommend the place if someone else wanted to go out for a meal. It seems a problem in most of these places. People seem so obsessed by mobile phones, texting and so on, that the art of decent communication seems to have gone out of the window.

We've had to endure another weekend of the most awful din from the National Bowl. The Electric Daisy Carnival were on. I don't personally know why we have to have so much loud noise (not in the slightest can it be described as 'music.' Just bang, bang, bang, thump, thump for must of the afternoon on Saturday and didn't finish until 11 p.m.) A bit difficult when it's so warm and you want to get to sleep, have the window closed because if you don't our two dogs bark when they hear odd noises outside. I know, sorry, I'm not of the age which is supposed to like this sort of thing, but it's so intrusive and unpleasant. I just hope they leave the site of the National Bowl clean and tidy because last year when this event was on and we drove past the following morning, the amount of litter left along the Grid Road near the site was disgraceful.

Sunny But Cold

It's a bright and sunny day, but it is actually bitterly cold outside. We have been warned of some really bad weather coming in from the Atlantic, high winds and rain. They have called it a 'Weather Bomb.' Not entirely sure what this expression means, but I think they are just warning people that we can expect a really bad storm to hit the British Isles over the next day or two. So, if we get high winds, that will mean that the remaining part of our garden fence will not survive. What does remain is in such a poor state it can hardly be described as 'fence.' 

I have been a volunteer at the Milton Keynes Christian Centre for the past three months or so as we've been running an Alpha course. The course finished last week, as every Monday it was running. Last night we were all treated to a meal at Nandos. All paid for by M.K.C.C. which was very enjoyable. About 15 of us were there. This restaurant is one of a group in a sort of parade of units recently built near the stadium. There is another similar 'parade' near Kingston Tesco's. Carol and I went there for my birthday in October and we had a meal at Frankie and Benny's.