Post office stupidity

You juts could not make it up. Two days ago I had a bill from the Post office credit card I had. I don't use the card and had cut it up some time ago. I thought that I had cancelled the account, but it appears not. I owed a whole 0.08p on the account! 

So I phoned the Post office to cancel the card once and for all. The young man I spoke to assured me that he would cancel it, as soon as I had paid the eight pence! Well I went online to my bank and sorted that out a few minutes later, and that was it, the account was closed. 

But of course it is never that easy with cards is it? In the mail this morning, a brand new shiny credit card from the Post office renewed for the next three years! As I have said, you just could not make it up! Now I will write a nice letter to them with the card cut in half, (or more) and tell them what they can do with it, Piece by piece if they like. 

The sage of the mobile phone is still ongoing, and once again I am waiting for Yodel to turn up, this time with the SIM for my new phone. As I write this, it is 11.00 am, and two days ago he turned up at 3.00 pm, so I guess I am due for a long wait.

My brother and I are trying to buy a car or two by auction and sell them on for a profit. I say try, and we are either getting outbid, or the cars are not going to turn a profit, so it is not worth it. So far we have lost out on three, but he still gets these links and we still are going to try. 

We went over to his place yesterday for a nice afternoon lunch outside in his garden. On a nice sunny afternoon, it was a very pleasant way to spend the day just sitting and chatting. Retirement can be boring, but on days like this, not quite so much.,  Below my brother Martin and his wife Mandy, and then me and Denise.

A mobile mess

As I wrote yesterday, I have decided that my present mobile phone is not suitable, and had ordered a new one.I was told that it would be delivered today and of course waited most of the day for it. It finally turned up at about three this afternoon.

I got unpacking it to get it going, and of course the first thing you do is to transfer your SIM and memory card into it. (Or at least I do as I want to keep the same number) But no, it is not that easy. I was told that I could transfer my old SIM and that would be no problem. 

It turned out that it would be a problem after all as the bloody SIM would not go in. I managed to get the memory card in after some fiddling, (and actually checking the instructions properly!) but the SIM this phone takes is a nano or micro SIM. And of course this happened to be the only bloody phone that did not come with one! 

So on to Virgin mobile to explain the situation, and the nice young lady there said yes we can send one out, but it will not come for another 24 hrs. A complete waste of a day again. Why cannot they get these things right in the first place? 

So, what else did I do today? Apart from some housework, nothing. A boring waste of a day again, all for a bloody phone.

Phone upgrade day

Today I decided to upgrade my phone. Nothing special about that, but I have only had my present phone for less than six months.

I use Virgin mobile for my phones, and on the whole have had no problems with them. I changed my phone just under two years ago for a Samsung mini S4. As a phone it worked well, but of course these days we all use our phones for so much more don't we? I soon found that using Facebook or checking out the web, reading emails was a bit to much for my eyes, and as I am a bit hard of hearing, the sound was not that good.

So a few months ago I bought my own phone just changed over the SIM card and used that. I bought a Doro Liberto 820. This in particular because it was supposed to have a clear sound and as a largish phone would suit my needs. As around £200, it was not the most pricey either. If you need a simple to use phone, this is not to bad, but check out below.

At first I was pleased with the phone. The sound is certainly very clear and the icons are easy to use. But as the months went on, certain things began to niggle. For one thing it has a small internal memory, so it quickly became full and I had to delete a few apps. Not what you expect on a modern phone.And it is quite slow. When you have finished with an app and want to get back to the menu, it takes ages to do it. And it also does not have a 'call blocker'. With the amount of nuisance calls we all get these days, I would say that is vital. In the end I had to download a security app to block calls.

So as the contract was up in just a short time, I called Virgin to see what they could come up with. After looking through the options, I decided on a Sony Experia M5.With a 5" screen, 16gb of internal memory, and a 21mpx camera, I decided that would do for me. I still have to see what the sound is like and when it comes tomorrow it will get checked out. But these days I seem to use them on loudspeaker anyway, so it should be OK. If you are interested click on the link for a review. I will be paying a similar amount to my old phone, so I hope it suits me.

 So what else have I been up to today? Denise had to go home as she was not feeling well, so caught a bus to town with my son. A bus you say! Well he has a prepaid card, and I have a free bus pass, so what the heck, why not. I bought a new fleece jacket as mine had gone home, and then we went for a bite to eat. We chose somewhere that neither of us had been before, the Cozy Club in the Hays area of Cardiff. And very nice it was as well. With a 'retro' look, the food was delicious and not badly priced either. And that really has been that. Not to busy a day, and now I am going to sit down and catch up with some TV.

Late birthday treat

Both myself and Denise have our birthdays in March, mine exactly one month ago, and Denise ten days after me. So we were on our cruise when we celebrated our birthdays.

My brother and his wife decided to treat us for a special Sunday lunch when we got back and today was the first time we had been able to get together to arrange it. We were taken to a lovely pub and restaurant called the 'Ye Old Ferrie Inn' in Symonds Yat in the Wye valley,  about fifty miles from Cardiff.

This really is a remote place, down a small country lane. If a car is coming the other way one has to move over.

The food there however is delicious. Most of us chose a Farmers plate, which was a kind of 'Ploughmans lunch' with Ham, Cheese, Terrine, pickles, salad. Really filling and worth every penny. Denise chose the Chicken Sunday lunch, which she said was wonderful.

And then on to desserts, where two had home made ice cream in three different flavours and the other two had sticky toffee pudding, which they said was wonderful. All in all a great lunch and a place to go back to again.

 Below is myself and Denise, my brother Martin and his wife Mandy, and just a photo of the river next to the pub.

Flower show

Today we went to the RHS show in Cardiff's Bute Park. It was very nice day out, with plenty of colour and huge amounts to look at. We took a nieghbour of Denise, Brenda, who is 88 years old. She maybe getting on in years, but she can still walk around well! Better than me I think. My back was aching after a couple of hours, but she seemed to be fine! 

Plenty of photos taken of course and you can see just a few of them here, or on my Facebook link or on my Flickr link here. 

As can be expected, the prices for food were above board, but that is always the case in these places were they have you trapped. For instance £3 for a small latte and £2.50 for a tea. It cost £8 to park the bloody car nearby. Not the fault of the RHS, but it was for a cancer charity, so you don't mind quite so much.

We managed to go around until about one o'clock, and my that time, I at least needed to sit down and have some food. More the sit down than the food! Fish and chips was the order of the day, and very nice it was as well. Fighting for a seat was the main problem, but we did manage to get one eventually.

After dinner we wandered around the bits we had not seen, and the shops etc. I bought some cheeses from one of the stalls with some unusual flavours. Now I have to get some cheese biscuits to go with them! 

The show gardens were splendid but there were only a few of them. They do cost a fortune in money and time to put together I guess, and perhaps Cardiff is not one of the biggest like Chelsea. 

And now for a few photos, I hope you like them.

Make of the last one what you will!

Welsh Cakes

This morning I decided to make some Welsh cakes. I had not done this in some time, but I was at a loose end and they are lovely for a small bite.

In the end I made about thirty in two batches. I use an 'American griddle' to cook them. You can put eight to ten Welsh cakes on at one time, and they cook evenly.If you are interested in the recipe then check it out below.

And that is what they should look like when finished.

I have also started a Bara Brith off. This takes longer as the fruit has to soak in tea for several hours before baking. Once again the recipe is below. Both are easy to make and taste great. Just the reason I make them! I am definitely no Great British Bake off contestant, but now and again I like to make a little something when I am at a loose end.

 

And below is what it should look like when finished.

I usually add in some Marmalade and a drop of whiskey to the tea while it soaks up the fruit, or maybe some all spice etc. Anything really it is a flexible menu. It is made without butter and would suit those with a dairy intolerance. 

And what more to add to the excitement today?  More bloody shopping again, this time to get  few meals for my son in work. He takes a microwave meal most days into work. And then we went into Cardiff centre and had a bite to eat in Tortilla in Caroline street. . This time we had a Burrito and very nice it was as well. I did not want it spicy, and you can have it as hot or mild as you want. I will go there again, as you get plenty for your money.

Once seen, never forgotten

Are you a fan of the TV show 'Holby City' on the BBC? I have watched it for years and the co program Casualty. OK, so it not for all, but I generally get to like certain programs and keep to them.

So as on all these programs long medical words are used which mean nothing to most of us and situations occur that could not possibly happen in real life. That's fair enough, it is a TV program not real life. But last night they bought in a situation that gave me the shivers, and possibly most of the male sex along with it!

A man was bought in that had 'snapped' his penis in a sexual adventure with his wife. Personally I did not know it was possible, but it seems it is. The solution by the surgeon was a 'degloving' procedure. Now, do you know what a penile degloving procedure is? No, neither did I, so stupidly I decided to Google it and find out. After all Google knows everything.

And I did find out. I am not even going to put a link on here. If you want to know, Google it yourself. Suffice to say, that after seeing it, the image will never leave me! Ugh! Ladies you may smile at this if you bother to look, but just imagine if it was done to your bits.

Luckily for this poor guy he was fixed up in another way and was of course healthy and with all his working parts. Even Holby could not get way with doing that!