View from the shower 

Car dashboard. The fitting on the window is for my PDA. Impressed??? 

Furniture part deux

Just in case you all thought the furniture saga was at an end, it isn't. we are still waiting.....
Last week we had a phone call one afternoon saying that the suite would be with us in an hour. "Oh, no it won't," I said, " There's no-one there, we haven't had any notice and the old furniture is still there so there's no room."
"Oh, no it isn't," they said, after further checks. "That was a mistake. Ha, ha!"
So, EDA is the day after tomorrow, but we were promised a text message again to inform us of the time. That should have arrived today. It didn't so I rang the store. They didn't know so they said they would ring the warehouse and call me back.
They didn't, so I rang them myself, or tried to. After listening to a disembodied voice telling me everyone was busy for 10 minutes .... twice, I gave up.

So tomorrow, I'll start again........... and just wait for them to tell me they will be delivering on Thursday afternoon, when, as I have told them repeatedly, there won't be anyone there!
How these people manage to run a business, I'll never know.

Dixon of Dock Green or The Bill?

We had what we thought was a good idea today. Our first school software fair is on Thursday and we decided it would be a good idea to take some leaflets about staying safe on the internet which the local police had left in the shop a few weeks ago. I rang the police to see if they had any other related leaflets or posters that we could also use. The officer who got returned my call was very pleasant but not particularly pro-active. "Well, there is a leaflet you can download from the internet, he suggested. In other words, if we want to use it, we will have to print copies ourselves, with the attendant costs.
It reminded me, for some reason, of a phone conversation I had with a police officer a few years ago when I was acting Head of my school and we had ongoing problems with local youths on the school roof every evening. The roof was gradually being more and more vandalised and was leaking in places. I must mention that the grounds were surrounded by a four and a half foot hedge and gates of the same height - so not exactly the Berlin wall. However, when I asked the policeman about the possibility of actually coming into the grounds to investigate when there were obviously intruders present, I was reminded that the gates were locked.
"Surely your officers could climb over the gates?" I boldly suggested.
There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the phone, followed by....
"Ooh no, they can't do that. They might have an accident."
I put the phone down with an increasing sense of disbelief, followed by regret that I had not thought to say,
"Well, that's not how they do things in 'The Bill.'"
Don't suppose it would have done any good though........

Anyone for conkers?

Do you remember playing conkers in your youth? Is there anyone who didn't? Do you have any recollection of anyone being carried off to hospital either because they had been blinded or were allergic to the things?
No, neither do I - either as a pupil or a teacher.
But looking here and here will show you two examples of health and safety gone mad. All a result, no doubt of the current 'claim culture' gone mad. It seems that nothing is allowed to be recognised and accepted as an accident any more. Someone must always be to blame and so someone must always be made to pay in one way or another - usually in the form of substantial amounts of money. And so, the range of activities accessible to our children today is being insidiously eroded.
A couple of weeks ago, OFSTED issued a report claiming to be concerned at the unwillingness of teachers to take their pupils on adventure activities or even the traditional days out. Look at Gemmak's blog for an excellent piece of writing on that.
Oh, and then talk to teachers to see if they believe the claim that if everything has been done correctly, the staff involved will not be answerable!

Wales doesn't exist! Official!

A few days ago, I commented on my temporary new blog here about the fact that those wonderful people in Brussels had somehow managed to 'lose' Wales from the map of Britain. If you read this, you will see how we have all been deluding outselves here in Wales.
And all you people in Yorkshire, please read it extra carefully! You are next!

Back home!

Sincere apologies to all those friends to whom I have sent details of my new blog over on Xanga. I'm back home again, a sadder and wiser woman! I decided to spread my wings because the template I had chosen seemed to be unstable on other people's computers and also because I was having such a problem uploading posts and template changes. However, although Xanga is good in many aspects, I found it rather controlling as to what you can and cannot put on the template. And then there was the tendency for things to appear only to disappear later - extremely frustrating! Also, there don't seem to be any adults with blogs on Xanga! They're all American teenagers!
So, on the swearing level, Xanga won hands down! Even Keith got a bit worried that I was getting 'naggy' (Who? Moi????)
So, sorry for the incovenience, folks, Jenny is back on Blogger!

P.S. The most important reason for returning is that it felt a bit lonely over there - I missed my Blogger friends! :)