Julie's Boggle

Tom is no fan of shopping, so we tend to go only when we *really* need stuff. And even then, as close to the last minute as possible.

So today, I put on some bread, to be ready around 14h00, and with about half an hour to spare we headed out to *Tesco* with our substantial shopping list which now included buying lunch goodies to go with the bread.

It was going to be a very quick trip. That was right up until we tried to start the car (now 2 weeks since its last drive) and [groan] it wouldn’t start. Fortunately, it didn’t take quite so much effort to get it going this time; and with Tom chugging away behind, and me at the wheel, we got it running about halfway down Westwick Gardens.

Early in the proceedings, Tom concluded that the car’s battery had reached the end of its lifespan, so our shopping list got amended to include item 1: new car battery. Our area doesn’t have too much in the way of car-maintenance type places, so we headed over to the neighbouring suburb of Chiswick where many of the big car companies have garages, and other non-branded places have sprung up around them.

The first place we tried didn’t stock an appropriate battery. They pointed us at *Halfords* (which is the equivalent of the South African *Midas* chain). There we found a battery and made enquiries about their installation service. They were quite busy and invited us to leave the keys with them and they’d have it ready by 16h00. Huh?

Since that wasn’t really an option, and the guy at the battery place had said it was quite an easy operation, Tom bought a set of cheap spanners as well (£5) and we set off to the carpark with our new battery. It wasn’t super-easy, but Tom got it done, and then we just needed a pack of special wipes to deal with the grease and dirt all over his fingers (£4). So a £9.00 installation which wasn’t bad, and the shop was also happy to take the dead battery back off us for disposal when we were done.

Then, finally we were off to *Tesco*. And that got us back home, with the makings of our lunch, by 16h00. Whew!

If you’re a Terry Pratchett fan, then his latest paperback release should definitely please. I’d been savouring this one each evening as my pre-bedtime read for a couple of weeks now. But this morning it finally got the better of me – I had to finish it.

Having all the Pratchett background makes it a richer experience, but I think it would stand alone as a read that’s great fun – full of satire and wit and a wonderful collection of Discworld’s finest.

Apologies to those of you who have visited recently only to find that the page is unreachable! (Feel free to shoot me a mail if this is the case – we might miss that it’s down if we don’t try to go online.)

The source of our difficulties seems to be our service provider which has disconnected us a number of times in the last few weeks. We had an automatic re-connection mechanism working before but since we’ve upgraded our server, it hasn’t been working properly and Tom hasn’t had a chance to have a good look at it.

It’s a major bonus being on a course that finishes at 16h30. Especially when it takes only 30 minutes to get home (or 45 if you’re going via *Morrisons* with the terrible queues for a few essentials).

On the downside, by mid-afternoon, I had definitely reached the slightly uneasy state of feeling that I was saturated with biscuits.

Some of the companies that run courses put bowls of sweets and chocolates on every table. *Learning Tree* just have a substantial plate of biscuits on the table by the door, and lots of short tea breaks. And if the biscuits aren’t going down fast enough, the instructor passes them round as well. So all in all, far too many of those crunchy little raisin shortbread biscuits which got rather cloying later in the day.

Not that I feel obliged to make excuses (well not too many anyway), but I do put *some* of the lack of will-power down to post-lunch munchies. I had a conservative lunch today because I’ve got a social tonight with the St Simons music crowd (I qualify because I’m on the sound desk rota). It’s at the vicarage and the vicar’s wife is cooking dinner for us.

I was feeling a bit bad for deserting Tom but it turned out that this evening is the counterpart to the expensive party a few weeks back. Tonight is the night when he and all the other new VPs gets treated to drinks by Goldman Sachs. So no reason to feel guilty there!

Still – a long time to kill before I have to leave though, and it’s taking ages for the heating to get a grip on the 17°C environment that I walked into an hour ago. Might have to go and do some of the much-needed ironing to see if that helps my frozen fingers – ironing in SA was always a good way to work up a sweat!