Customer service

This is a guide for all postal delivery services and in particular, good old Royal Mail and Parcel Force:

1.  When delivering a parcel, ensure that you don't actually make contact with the door knocker or bell and that you manage to post a 'you were out' card before the householder has any chance of spotting your presence. It is even better if you can arrange for this to happen on two consecutive days.
2. Ensure that information on the  card states that the parcel cannot be picked up within the next twenty four hours   (no need to say the postman is taking it home to bed with him.) 
3. Even better, state that the householder cannot arrange for re-delivery but must traipse all the way to whichever post office the delivery man has decided to take it to, to pick it up in person.
4. If you are going to allow the householder to ring up and arrange for re-delivery, ensure that it is impossible to get through on the 0845 number you provide and play an annoying message every few seconds suggesting that arrangements can be made online.
5. When the householder finally gives up and goes online, as suggested, it is vital that you make sure that the website is 'experiencing problems' and that it is thus impossible to use.
6. Finally, if you have required the householder to go to collect the parcel, probably at some inconvenience, make sure you have a bright yellow sticker plastered all over it with the logo 

CONVENIENT DELIVERY

Oh, and next time you appear at that address, make sure you are wearing your hard hat.

We do not forget!

Hi speed train?

"Birmingham to London - 45 minutes!" announced the newsreader proudly on this evening's news.

Wrexham to Mold (by bus) - 45 minutes.

Chez Jennyta to Wrexham (provided you manage to find a bus) 45 minutes.

Main road through mid Wales - practically a country lane.

You get the idea?

Of course, it makes complete sense to chuck so many millions at one, single route just to shave about 20 minutes off the journey time. Oh, and they will be extending that to Manchester and Leeds in due course, when they get round to it.

For the rest of us, back to pony and cart, I guess...

The new boy

Jake is back. He's been to visit before, of course, but this time, it looks as if he's here to stay. Not that I was consulted, of course, oh no! It's lucky we get on so well, that's all I can say. Mind you, he doesn't look quite the handsome chappie he did before. His coat has been clipped so short that Jenny decided she's better buy him a coat to wear outside till it grows again and he's put on some weight too - more like a sausage dog than a bichon frise these days. So Jenny's put him on a diet but I don't think he's realised  it yet. Mind you, he's not stupid. She tried to slip the worming tablets into our food this morning, but he saw that coming, just like I did and we both managed to eat everything except the tablets. Jenny didn't seem to notice that though and she gave us each a nice piece of rolled up ham a bit later. 

Other than that, the daily routine hasn't changed much. I still get taken for my walk on my own and then it's Jake's turn when I get back. Of course, I do the old weeping and wailing routine to make Jenny feel guilty about leaving me behind but it doesn't work, AND I have heard a few comments about how much better behaved Jake is on the lead than me. That MUST be a mistake!

Anyway, as long as the little mutt remembers his place and doesn't forget that I'm the boss around here, I think we should get on OK.

I'll let you know...

And here he is again!

Look who Father Christmas brought us this year!

Well, Giles actually, but we're not splitting hairs. And it looks as if he is staying.

(NB If you are of a sensitive disposition, you may prefer to watch this video clip with the sound turned down.)

Is it time to go back to bed yet?

No doubt you will have looked at the title of this post and assumed that alcohol was flowing freely last night chez Jennyta and that I am now suffering the inevitable results. In fact, that is not the case. Yes, we enjoyed a couple of glasses of 'rouge' but were in bed by eleven, the reason being that, as in November, the neighbourhood was populated by idiots with nothing better to do with their time and money than waste it on extremely noisy fireworks, starting at 6.30pm and ending at around 2.30am. The inevitable result of this was that Paddy got progressively more disturbed as the night went on and he didn't stop barking until three o'clock this morning, by which time, we were so wound up that it took us a further hour to get to sleep. Well, I say 'us' but Keith was evidently asleep long before me because he was snoring!

So this morning, having finally surfaced at ten o'clock, I dragged myself out on dog-walking duties in the pouring rain and now I'm back at home seeking refuge in a mug of strong coffee and wondering how many hours before I can decently go back to bed.

Now, what would make this day even more brilliant than it already is? Ah yes, Keith watching wall to wall 'Scrapheap Challenge' on TV -  which he is already doing! Fantastic!

I am just hoping that the day so far is not in any way a taste of the rest of the year!

Happy New Year, everyone.

The monitor

A few months ago, Elder Daughter bought Dad a new, flat screen monitor for his desktop computer as she thought he could do with a better and clearer image. When they got it home, hey presto, it was faulty and had to go back. The shop didn't have another in stock so she got her money back and bought one online instead. Unfortunately, it was delivered to her house in Sheffield instead of Dad's house in Bristol so it has taken until now to get it in the right location and it was down to me to set it up.

So far, so good, except that Dad needs the dimmest setting to suit his eyes.

On this monitor, there were about four choices, one setting for gaming, another for video-viewing etc and then an economy one, which, as it provided the dimmest setting of all, was the one I chose.

Fast forward to last evening, when I reminded Dad that he needed to try it out and make sure it suited him, which he went off to do, coming back fifteen minutes later to say that it was hurting his eyes.

Off I went into the dining room to see what I could do...

Two hours later, I was still fiddling about with it and getting increasingly exasperated. Dad backed rapidly out of the room, wearing his hard hat and left me to it, just after I had expressed a wish to hurl the thing out of the window.  Then Keith rang,

"Why didn't you ring me to help?" he asked when I explained my difficulty.

So, there followed a further half hour of me explaining the settings and menus available on the monitor and bemoaning the fact that, for some reason, I couldn't access the brightness and contrast options to change them and Keith flatly contradicting me and telling me that I MUST be able to, maybe I wasn't doing it properly. 

Unsurprisingly, we made no progress and I spent the night wondering how to break the news to Kathy that Granddad was not going to be able to use the monitor.

Up at the crack of dawn this morning, I spent a further hour doing battle and then, having run out of options, I decided to restore the default settings and, guess what! I was suddenly able to reset the brightness and contrast, It seems that option is not available if the monitor is on economy setting.

Of course, they didn't bother to mention that in the instructions.

Well, that would make it too easy, wouldn't it?

Decorated dog

Paddy's only concession to Christmas...