Noisy, Aimless Pigeons!

Friday 17th July. 10.25 a.m. It's another mild and relatively sunny, but the heat has finished, for the moment. I just hope it doesn't come back as roastingly hot. I don't mind the sun- infact, I love it, but when it's so hot, I can't cope with it. When it's cold, at least you can put anothr layer on, a jumper, fleece, puton the heating, turn up the heating a couple of notches, but when it's so hot, it's difficult to get away from it, apart from sitting in a pool of water, drinking plenty of fluids, have a shower or whatever, but there's never any relief from it.

Currenly, the digital thermometer reads 27ºc.

My fridge/freezer needs cleaning out. One job that I don't exactly enjoy, but must be done. I found two packs of tomatoes, so I decided to make them into soup and use the soup maker. I chopped the tomatoes, along with onions, put them in a glass dish, sprinkled balsamic vinegar and olive oil all over them and put them into the oven to roast for half an hour and then, once they were tender and soft, put them into the soup maker and switched it on and barely 20 minutes ir was done. I'm amazed at how good it tasted, and it's far better than Heinz or any other bought, tinned soup. And there's enough for around 6 bowls or mugs, as I prefer to use a mug to consume it. Actually the best soup I've managed to make in it since I got it.

Saturday 18th July. 4.40 p.m. I should, of course, mentioned the noisy aimless pigeons, who gave me inspiration for the title of this post. Well, they are always outside my window, making that awful repetitive noise they make, you know, cooing aimlseely, possibly the most boring bird sound on the planet. They should at least change it once in a while. Then, when you see them on the ground they move around, nodding their heads. If I was to spend all day nodding, I would get a severe headache. I have to say, they aren't exactly the most intelligent birds on this planet.

Sunday 26th July. 5.15 a.m. Here we go again! Wide awake and unable to get back to sleep, I'm here on my laptop.

I mentioned about the sound system I had ordered from Amazon, which had a Bluetooth-connected microphone? Well, if I didn't, let me just say, the wretched thing lasted all of two weeks or maybe less, when it packed up completely and  it wouldn't do a thing. I knew it would have to be returned and that would be difficult, as I had thrown out the packaging it came in. I scrambled about my flat, searching for any suitable cardboard box into which the sound system would fit and found one, chopped it down with scissors and, after a bit of improvisation, parcel tape and ingenuity, I got it wrapped up. But, parcel tape is useful, but trying to find a loose end, which keeps on re-sticking itself to the roll is really frustrating. 

Having got the parcel wrapped, I had to find the business who would take it and get it returned to Amazon. It turned out to be Parcel Force and I got  tet message telling me someone would collect it on Thursday, between 10.25 and 2.25. All very well giving me a window, but nothing closer to the actual time of collection, so I didn't go to my usual Thrsday life group ar the OTC.

The window for collection closed and I was thinking, have I been forgotten? Did I get the times wrong or something? Then the intercom thing buzzed and a voice spoke and the Parcel Force employee arrived on my doorstep. I didn't even have to print a label for the parcel, all now done with barcodes and a barcode reader (just don't ask me how it works.) and the parcel was whisked away. So, I decided to choose the replacement sound system and next day, the refund was in my Amazon account, so I ordered the replacement and that arrived next morning. So, the packing, sending and collecting of the parcel was relatively stress-free and I now got the new system working.

Disappointments and Frustrations

Sunday. 5.55 p.m. Yesterday the men's breakfast group met at the  Harvester  Fountain inn in Loughton. It's just off Watling Street and just along the road from where Carol and I lived when we were first married, in Crownhill. 

Just a matter of interest. It intrigues me that Loughton is pronounced as it sounds (Low-ton) while Woughton-On-The-Green, the next village going out of Milton Keynes (both being villages now swallowed up by the new town of Milton Keynes), is pronounced Woof-ton. Just makes things difficult for anyone new to the area. Probably one of the quirks of the English language. Try explaining that to an American, or any other foreign visitor!

Thursday. 7.25 p.m. I haven't been keeping up with things in these blog posts. On Thursday I drove to Camphill with the hope of meeting the drama workshop guys and the new drama team. I went to the office and was told that I could do my Disclosure online. But then when I got home I had an email from Camphill to say that there had been another change of plan. Due to the disruption of the pantomime which is being performed in the Chrysalis Theatre over the Christmas period, I would not be able to meet the team, so I will have to arrange another day to visit and do a taster day (which is what I did originally when I first went to Camphill as a volunteer in around April 2019.) After that, I can do the disclosure and hopefully get back to working in the drama workshop.

I had an email on Wednesday morning saying that I had been 'put forward' for walk-on work at Pinewood Studios on a Disney production. No name or anything much. I needed to upload several photos to the Pop website, the casting site. I got Barbara to take these shots on my iPhone and then managed to upload them successfully. I would have to go to Pinewood on Friday for a costume fitting and the filming day would be on Monday. As usual, a wait to get a response, and then today I got another email telling me I had been released (i.e.; not selected.) Ho Hum! It was what I expected, but one always hopes one will eventually get selected. Just one day on something or other would be great. Such is life!

Saturday. 11.35 p.m. I have been interested in something called 'Portal,' which has been created by Facebook. It's a technology that allows you to video chat with people, your family, friends, and others by using a screen with a camera attached. OK, you can do all this on your PC or laptop and I have used Zoom during the various lockdowns we've had during the past eighteen months or more, especially for church meetings and bits of market research I have done.  It is connected to Facebook live video. Except I wouldn't want to have another gadget as I already have enough gadgets. I had imagined it would be great to be able to video chat through my television set if I was able to have a camera attached to my set so that I could use Zoom or other similar video conferencing software on my MacBook and that connected somehow to my television set.  The only problem with Zoom on a laptop is that staring at a small screen and then the tiny postage stamp-sized images of the other people in the meeting can be quite a strain. So, what amazement was it to find that Facebook had released such a piece of technology and called Portal TV? Zoom will work on it and as it's on a large television screen it would be far more comfortable to use looking at a larger image. Not only that, but you can video call family and friends using this technology. Then I found that this gadget was going to be available at half price for Black Friday. (Why does Black Friday last for several weeks? Not just one particular Friday? And could someone explain why it's Black? No, please, don't. I don't want to get into such a discussion on here. . . ) I could buy one at this low price via BT. Which is what I did. Paid for, and it would be delivered by Mailforce, part of Royal Mail. Simple. Or so I imagined. It wasn't the ordering that was difficult. Just the delivering. The thing was ordered on Wednesday, and it was scheduled to be delivered on Friday, between around 12.30-1.30 p.m. Which I learned via email and text message.

I waited in expectation of the delivery of the parcel. At around 12.30 I got a buzz on the intercom from the front door of Dexter House to say the aforementioned parcel had been delivered but to the wrong address.     Not my flat number, but the house opposite. This is constantly being a problem. The gentleman from the house opposite had a card with my address on it, and it said I could collect my parcel after 24 hours! Looking at the card it had my correct address, so why didn't the delivery driver merely turn round and see that Dexter House was opposite? Well, it was merely a matter of reading the address correctly. No real excuse. So, I was annoyed that I would have to wait a full 24 hours before I could collect the parcel.

The next day I drove into the Centre MK to meet up with my friend Nick who came to Milton Keynes on a bus from Northampton. I intended to park in the Secklow car park next to The Point and normally have no issues using the RingGo app on my phone. But for some reason, it would not work because you have to put in more identity before you pay. So it was fortunate I had sufficient coins in my jacket pocket to put in one of the ticket machines. Yet another of life's frustrations. When technology works, it's fine, but when it doesn't or is changed for whatever reason, it can be annoying.

Having met up with Nick I then drove to the mail delivery office in Brinklow. I have had to collect several parcels from here, so I was hoping that I could pick up the parcel and then return to my flat to set up the Portal TV on my television set. But no. Having taken the card which was left when the drive was going to deliver the parcel to the wrong house, I then learnt that I would need to collect the parcel fro the Parcelforce unit in Tongwell. So I got back in the car and drove across Milton Keynes to Tongwell, to just opposite Willen village. But, lo and behold! I was told by the rather disinterested girl on the reception desk that my parcel was at the Post Office in the centre of Milton Keynes! This was beginning to get somewhat repetitive. Why on earth wasn't I given this information in the first place?  I could easily have collected it when I was with Nick earlier in the day. Another car journey into the centre. But where to park? I had no change on me, thanks to having to use the payment machine in the Secklow car park when the RingGo app didn't work as it should, so I drove around aimlessly hoping there might be a free spot to park whilst I went into the Post Office to collect the parcel. No luck! Then I found myself driving into the newly-opened multi-storey car park next to John Lewis. There was no alternative but to drive in and park. I first had to negotiate the barrier, having to put my debit card into the machine. I later found that I should have taken a ticket from the machine and once I'd collected the parcel I then realized I had to put this ticket (which I didn't have.) in one of the payment machines to then pay with my card. Oh, what an adventure the entire afternoon had been. But I did manage to get out eventually, managing to get a ticket from the exit and then putting it into another machine to lift the barrier, so I could get out!

On arriving back at Dexter House I then found that some kind person had parked their car across the entrance to my parking space, which was so nice of them, but later in the evening, I went down to move my car onto my space once the car had driven away. Just a wonderful end to a long, and difficult afternoon.