Week of 28th April, 2003

Last Week

Monday, 28th April

The agency person is late - it's 14:15 as I type this, and he (or is it she? I don't know) is half an hour late, compared to three-quarters of an hour early on Saturday. What gives? They told me the only time available was 13:45, and that, while later than I'd have liked, is acceptable. But it's got to be consistent, so we can plan around it. We can't do this at the moment.

I've got to move some money around, so that Jane can pay for the car servicing. I'll go out and do this as soon as I'm sure the agency person isn't going to turn up. I can't wait around all day.

Later: And it's all a misunderstanding about times, or miscommunication... The carers were told 13:00, we were told 13:45. Never ascribe to malice... We'll see on Wednesday.

Of course, when I came down on Friday, I wasn't planning on staying for a week - so I only brought two changes of clothes, which means I had to do a laundry run today.

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Tuesday, 29th April

Mum has her assessment today, to see what should be done to get her back somewhere near normal. This is the main reason I'm staying down for the extra days, since the 'girls' are away on their Women's Institute trip. But it does let me try to sort out the miscommunication snafus as well. Lunch is provided at the hospital, so I've cancelled today's Meals-on-Wheels delivery - no point in having a hot meal left outside the flat, where it will get cold (and maybe stolen!)


Perusal of the Radio Society of Great Britain's magazine RadCom, suggests that most of the major Amateur Radio rallies  in the South-East of the UK this year fall on my non-working weekends, which means that I won't be able to go (all same this last weekend, which was Kempton Park). The only exception is the relocated (again!) former Pickett's Lock show, which is now to be celebrated in Stevenage, north of London, in June. I haven't measured the distance, but it may be a move too far for me.

Online activities in Wales are limited to penny-a-minute dialup, since the local BT exchange is not yet ADSL-enabled. BT have said, in their infinite wisdom, that 350 requests for ADSL service will result in the exhange being equipped. Last time I checked, they'd got 187 pre-registrations.


Later: The assessment was routine, although Mum confesses to boredom. She has an appointment for an X-Ray tomorrow at the local hospital. I've also made an appointment for a blood test to check her thyroid activity.

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Wednesday, 30th April

Well, the agency people seem to have got things sorted, at least by today's experience. The lady visitor is a very nice person, very efficient, and very talkative - probably goes with the job, keep the customer occupied. Many elderly people can be almost housebound, and a friendly, talkative visitor is likely a godsend. This one will call regularly on Wednesdays. There will be another for the Monday and Saturday. And now they tell me that Sundays are possible as well. So I've requested that this be put in train as soon as possible. That'll mean Mum will have a meal provided every day. Whether she eats it when there's no-one there (Meals-on-Wheels days) is moot.

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Thursday, 1st May

Back to London this afternoon, after the Meals-on-Wheels people deliver. And Jane tells me that the garage have managed, despite non-availablity of parts, to get Hopalong through his MOT, and cheaper than I expected, too. Now all he needs is serviced, and we can apply for the new licence disc - only a couple of days late.

That service will include a second tranche of work, once I've located the required parts. This will involve research among second-hand parts dealers on the Internet, and in the public prints. Exchange and Mart is one such.

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Friday, 2nd May

Back to work today, on earlies - the 6 a.m. shift. And there's a couple of shelves of work waiting, including one job we did 6 weeks ago... now there's a new master, and they want it checked against the existing TX tapes.

So I did - and the only visible difference is that the new copy is full-frame, pan-and-scanned, rather than the letterbox presentation of the first tape. Even the film blemishes are identical. The policy is to accept either letterbox or pan-and-scan, but to prefer panned presentation. So I redid the transfer, matching the new material to the old. And it fitted, frame-for-frame, which means less work for the subtitlers, since the existing subtitle files should match exactly.

In the evening, I caught up on mail and news, plus my cartoon strips. And I've started collecting Bristow and Patto by Frank Dickens. The new e-mail regime seems to work - at least the 'spurious user' spam has gone. I could see that in the activity log - several successive messages from the same sender, and all rejected by rule, which is a result. Now I have to craft some more rules to reject the spam (30-odd of 39) addressed to me.

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Saturday, 3rd May

Jane's car, Hopalong, is now taxed for another year - 3 days late. Want to make something of it, DVLA? But seriously, the next such task is my car, Peanut, followed by Jane's Mum's car, BLC, that Sarah is using. They will both required MOT and tax in June. And I suspect that, since Jane's Mum is now resigned to never driving again (her arm still hasn't recovered, despite the operation) she will give BLC to Sarah, probably as a birthday present.

Meanwhile, Katy has her Provisional licence, which will become valid on her 17th birthday, also in June. As you were - that's May... And she wants lessons (obviously) and is vocal in her demands for a car to drive, once she passes her driving test. Some hope - I can't afford more than 3 cars in this family.

Surprisingly, considering the premiums, Hopalong is insured for any driver, even a newly-qualified one, as standard - no need to request it, unlike Peanut, where I had to spring extra money for cover for Sarah as a named driver. Maybe I should move my car insurance to the same company as Jane uses - although that's a special deal for childminders. Mem: must get Katy added as another named driver for Peanut - that's another UKP60 or so per year.

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Sunday, 4th May

I've just been cranking away at the shelves of work these last two days - not much else to report.

I visited the local branch of Maplin Electronics today, to get some more rechargeable batteries. They've got a Spring sale on, and NiMH rechargeables are available as a "twofer" offer - buy two, get one free. At least, that's what I read the offer as... And when I bought 2 packs of 4 AA NiMH and 2 packs of 4 AAA NiMH, I was charged for 2 packs of AAs. Wait a half - "You've charged me UKP19.98. It should be UKP16.98".

Unfortunately, no. The offer leaflet is ambiguous - it should have said, "Buy any 2 packs, get the cheaper one free." 4-packs of AAs are UKP9.99 per each, AAAs are UKP6.99 each. So I got 2 packs of AAAs free, as the till receipt said. Mind you that was difficult to work out - the till chit listed VAT-exclusive prices, and added aggregate VAT on at the end, the leaflet quoted VAT-inclusive prices. So caveat emptor, or should that be caveat lector?

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