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2013 — 1 February: Friday — rabbits!

I expect I shall be able to relax a little when I hear about my friend's surgery yesterday.¹ The morning is dull grey and rather too damp for my taste.

People do...

... the oddest things. I bet Mrs Marple never had to contend with this sort of thing...

Though I've never read a single story featuring her, I feel sure arsenic sprinkled on the cornflakes is more her sort of case.

As is increasingly...

... often the case, these days, the more-detailed bits of Corporate Communication leave me no wiser but considerably better-informed:

Is this a lot? It seems like quite a lot, though that's a one-bar electric fire for half a day and I certainly don't run one of those. And, given that the sun is now shining and it's a toasty 20.5C here in the living room, I've just turned the heating down. More layers, David, you need more layers. And another hot cuppa, of course.

Exhausted pause

Another low-cost way of keeping warm is to strip the bed, jiggle bits of the mattress out of the way, Dyson everything underneath it within reach through the gaps in the slats it rests on, rotate the mattress before replacing it, and stagger downstairs with a much-heavier Dyson to contemplate the terrifying amount of dust scooped up by the bagless sucker. (This was the heavy-duty one, not the cute little one.) I also had managed to forget the hi-tech mattress that replaced the second of our two waterbeds (reason here) about a decade ago was so damnably heavy. Yet another reason — not that I need any more, ever — for missing Christa's ever-helpful pair of willing hands.

Surely it's time for lemonses? :-)

The Wodehouse book of letters I ordered yesterday may well now be on the way, but this isn't going to help much, is it?

Your item(s) is (are) being sent by Other.
Your tracking number is 'whatever'.
You can track your package directly on the carrier's website.

Remind me of the URL for "Other".

I'm delighted to learn...

... that the post-surgery bulletin on my friend that I've just received from her husband is about as good as you can hope for in the wake of an unwelcome Stage 2 cancer diagnosis. I certainly think it merits a post-lunch celebratory cuppa on my part. Then I could do with nipping out for a few fresh supplies.

First, I shall resume cleaning the Dyson. [Pause] Running hot water through it until it exited clear seemed to do the trick, methinks. A bit like that ghastly radiator power-flushing trick, in fact. Then allow a week or so for it to drain and dry, re-assemble it, and it will be ready for its next annual outing in no time.

How extremely irritating it is to receive my first call on my mobile (whose number is known to about three² people) about false PPI mis-selling compensation claims.

Building on my theme — such as it was — of package tracking info from my favourite online shop. When you buy from Amazon.de you can request some cool automatic translations...

Good day,
We hereby wish to inform you that we have shipped your order.
Your mission is now in transit and will be amended by you or
our service is no longer possible.

Well, I know what they mean :-)

My admiration...

... for William Shatner continues to climb, even if he is a Twitter user:

But was it intelligent?

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Footnotes

¹  Meanwhile, there's always the prospect of another soothing cuppa.
²  Plus, evidently, the greedy bastard at Vodafone UK who has sold my number, without my permission, to a criminal who wants to tell me urgently about my Payment Protection Insurance which I do not have and have never had. I read a piece recently in "Private Eye" about a lawyer who succeeded in suing these miscreants by keeping careful tabs on who called when, and tracing the offshore organisations involved. Life is too short, but I applaud his approach.