Just join the human race and queue fairly you silly cow!

On Saturday both Anne and I went to London on the train for a friend's 30th birthday. We needed to get a railcard so we queued at the "advanced tickets and railcard" booths. We were near the front when Anne realised she'd need to fill a form in, so we left the queue, filled the form in and joined the queue at the back.

When we were two people from the front of the queue a girl sidled up to the front of the queue and just stood there. She didn't say anything to the person at the front, and it was odd. When the next booth came available, the girl who was rightfully next was having none of it and made sure she got to the booth first. The rude blonde who'd pushed in then went to the next available booth, and another booth came available at the same time, so the girl in front of us just went there.

Well, I'm not putting up with this.

"Excuse me", I said to the rude girl, "There's a queue here."
"I have been queuing", she said abruptly and turned back to the ticket man.
"Not here you haven't", I pointed out, helpfully.
"Yes I have. I was queuing and then went outside to make a phone call" she snapped.
"Erm, I'm sorry but you leave the queue you lose your place" I said, explaining the universally-understood rules. I had no idea if she was telling the truth or not.
"Shut up!" she shouted.

I was getting nowhere with her, so I told the ticket seller she'd pushed in and, get this, HE REFUSED TO SERVE HER. Get in! A member of staff who enforces queue order - wonderful! Eventually the nasty young lady went to the back of the queue whilst shouting at me. I was dead impressed with the member of staff - so often they just wouldn't care.

We got on the train with Anne embarrassed by the confrontation and me with a renewed faith in humanity, chuffed that the guy was willing to "maintain the integrity of the queue" as I put it.

In her prime

Happy Birthday Anne!

I've been warned to ask Anne to keep tonight free, so now I have to find something to do. One thing I do know is she won't be cooking (she told me this), so it's lucky we got the Breville out of storage at the weekend. It's Birthday Cheese Toasties time!

Anne's not sure about turning 29 today. She liked being 28 because 28 is even, and divisible by four and seven. She told me this morning that 29 didn't seem as good, though it IS prime so I said that should be some compensation.

I'm not kidding here. Anne get's a little stressed if we're watching TV and the volume on the amp is set to 41. If I change it to 42 she's happier, though would much rather it be on 40 or 45.

You may think it harsh that I take the mickey out of my wife on this blog, but I say this: Anne has a Blogger account too, and has every right of reply.

Being stranger on a train

We both miss living in London, but made the decision to move to Cambridge and, so far, don't regret it. Sometimes Anne thinks she'd like to live there again, but I don't. We're near enough to get in and see friends, but don't have to put up with the disadvantages. Working there once or twice a month reminds me how bad the commuting aspect can be.

I went to London last Tuesday for a day in my firm's head office. I had to be up early and trudge down on the train from Cambridge. I got on the train and sat next to a bloke who was about my age. Embarrassingly, we each got our iPods out at the same time. On-lookers would have thought we were twins, I expect. However, I then trumped him with my Train Picnic Breakfast!

First I got my bagel out. Before now I've paid top-whack for breakfast at the station, but no more. Oh no mister - I'm paying two mortgages at the moment and therefore not wasting cash on over-priced pastries. I'd buttered the bagel the night before, and was feeling the other passengers' jealous eyes on me as I tucked in. Then I got my Thermos Flask out, full of piping hot coffee. The previous night I'd set up a timer plug to turn our new coffee machine (wedding present!) on at 6am and that morning I filled the Thermos Flask (another wedding present!) up before I left the house. I was on fire - things were coming together like never before and there I was with a bagel AND a piping hot coffee and I hadn't had to part with the usual £3. Get me!

Of course, the bubble bursts - it always does. Soon the bagel was no more than a memory and a few crumbs on my lap. So...I got out the second pre-buttered bagel! I could hear the other passengers audibly taking sharp intakes of breath (or at least I imagined I could - I was listening to my iPod and therefore couldn't quite hear them).

What a picnic! All I needed was a blanket and some ants and I'd be sorted. Given that I was sitting on a train with a Thermos Flask, I could probably have also added to the image if I had a cardigan and pipe.

The joy was only diminished by the "lady" sitting nearby who insisted on shouting her plans for the day into her mobile for most of the journey. Stupid cow. (I could hear HER over the sound from my iPod no problem.) She was probably just jealous she didn't have a buttered bagel and a hot coffee.

I'm sorry, but I don't have any photos of this for the blog. I hope I've managed to paint you a picture so you can close your eyes and imagine the scene.

Bye bye The Mouse,and Stephen is ill (poor soul)

After our car trouble last weekend, we knew The Mouse (our little red Fiesta) needed replacing. We'd been looking forward to a relaxing weekend, so decided to take Friday off work to go car hunting. Neither of us have much interest in cars, so were pleased to have found and ordered a new(ish) car by 1pm that day. Again, job done! I drove two cars before deciding on the one we wanted - another Fiesta, but this time a "Ghia". I think power steering is going to take some getting used to! We should pick the new one up on Thursday. We were a bit sad when the salesmen (two - one from each of the dealers we went to) looked at The Mouse to asses trade-in value and each told us that the car was not long for this Earth. I think it will be sad to say goodbye to it. Old cars that don't work very well seem to have more personality than new ones. It's ridiculous given that we don't like cars that we're getting sentimental over a dodgy one.

We were chuffed to have got the car-buying out of the way as it left our weekend free for us to start a bit of Christmas shopping, relax in town and do a bit around the house. We even managed to get a man in on Friday to upgrade our TV aerial and fix some botched connections so we can now receive digital TV - hurrah: true anamorphic picture!!

So, on Friday night we decided to celebrate a job well done by going for a meal at an Algerian restaurant nearby. I phone up to book:

Me: "Hello, I'd like to book a table for two tonight."
Him: "GET DOWN HERE. IT'S WET. CLEAN THAT UP!"
Me: "Sorry?"
Him: "Sorry sir, carry on."
Me: "I'd like to book a table for two tonight."
Him: "CLEAN THAT UP! NOT THERE, THERE!"
Me: "Hello?"
Him: "Sorry sir, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to my mother."

What a charming son!

The restaurant was cosy and the meal was very nice. The downside was I was up at 4am the next morning throwing up. Oh dear. I continued doing this until 6am, and then had a bit more kip. One more sick at 8.30am (is this too much detail?) and then I started to get better and was feeling OK by midday. Well so much for my relaxing Saturday in town - grrr! We did manage to have a big bonfire in our garden on Saturday night and burn the huge pile of cuttings we'd built up. It was good fun (and I hope it didn't upset the neighbours too much).




We spent the rest of the evening relaxing with good food and School of Rock on DVD. Quite a fun movie.

Then, on Sunday, we cut down loads more of the overgrown garden and had another fire that night (our neighbours will hate us!) The garden now looks a confillion times better and we have much more light coming into the house (during the day). Brilliant!

Our three day weekend is now over, and we're more exhausted than ever. Back to work to rest tomorrow.

Woof!

It's been great having my surround sound system set up in the house, but it was missing a subwoofer. I never really felt it was right to have one while we were living in a flat, out of respect for the neighbours, so I'd promised myself one when we got a house. I didn't want to spend much (i.e. couldn't afford to), so was quite frustrated when I read lots of advice saying that a cheap one would be no good at all and may actually detract from the system. I was determined though, and couldn't afford to to increase my budget so went searching on Ebay. I found one and waitied until the last moment to bid - saved £30 or £40. Job done! A large box was delivered to my office a few days later (a bit too large - I think Anne's a bit annoyed as our lounge isn't very big) and we spent Thrursday evening watching Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (as it's now called). Loverly!