Happy Bucky

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Hi again. I say I’m happy in the title, and indeedy I am. Tired (as ever on 6-2) but I’m off tomorrow, so big lie-in for the Buckster. So that is spiffy. Taekwondo tomorrow night, (more goodness) in work on Friday then off on Saturday to take my TKD grading. Yay!

Also, on the good news from work front, I had put in a holiday form so I could take the last of my holidays in March. I wanted a week off to take the artic course and test. I wanted to wait till March so if I fail it would not be too long a wait before the new holiday year starts in April. As I said I put the form in only to have it returned with "denied. 16 hours holiday remaining.", on it. This in itself was something of a mystery. Our holidays are expressed in hours, but are in reality an allotted number of days. Our working day is seven and a half hours, so that meant I had two days and one hour of holiday left to book.

I’m still in the process of trying to get a resolution to that pay dispute from the 20th of December through my useless manager so my expectation of getting a happy result from this situation was not great.,  When I pointed out the impossible nature of the hours remaining to me to my manager (as per chain of command) he just told me to submit another holiday form and see what they said.

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The old ball and chain

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Well I’m back at work these past two days. That was rough, going back and trying to graft, not sure if I would be able to make it through the shift or not. Still, I did. They all thought I’d got a driving job and was ‘phoning in sick, presumably to give the job a go. No such luck. Besides, as I have told them on many occasions, I am waiting until I pass my artic, and then trying to get a job at our place before looking for jobs further afield.

I’ve not managed to go to Taekwondo for about a month now. I missed the lessons on the week before my grading, and consequently the grading, and every time I thought I had a chance to go I’ve started feeling ill. I’ve certainly not been up to it since last Wednesday when my latest evil cold struck. I had thought to go tomorrow as I’m off and all, but Wendy was a bit put out. Apparently not only do I have to go to the hassle of going up town to the registry office tomorrow, but on wedding days it would appear one traditionally does not go to ones TKD club in the evening.

Bloody weddings. Last time for me I tell you. Way too much hassle, and you can’t get to your club. You should be able to do it on the internet. You can get a Thai bride mailed to you no problem, but you have to go to town to get married.

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And there’s more…

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Goddamn! That Autoglass thing turned into a farce. I was thinking originally of paying for it myself to keep the insurance out of it. To save money I arranged to drop it off at the nearest centre rather than have them come out and do it. After the horror of the £405 quote I promptly changed my mind and put it through the insurance. Then I was told it would be an hour to fit, another hour for the glue to set before it could be driven away. Having no option, I accepted.

Then later on I thought about it, if the insurance were paying for it, why not get it done at home? So I rang their call centre back to ask if would be possible. The guy actually laughed at me! Went on to tell me how the weather was too cold for the glue to set on a call out, that the light would be failing at my appointment time of 4.30, and in essence, not his problem but it wasn’t happening.

Again, lacking any option I had to acquiesce.

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Cars suck bottom

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Hi ya’ll,

I’ve got to go for an appraisal drive and arrange to do the training with the Institute of Advanced Motorists tomorrow, so I’ve spent the last few days ‘pimping’ my Micra. I’ve serviced it; oil, oil filter, air filter and spark plugs (which I’ve already done once in the three years I’ve had it. Talk about overkill!) I’ve put air in the tyres, washed the damned thing, (which I did in 2007) and put the rear-view mirror back up. I had taken it off to get used to using my wing mirrors for my truck training. It says in the literature for IAM that you must have at least two mirrors fitted, one of which must be inside the car. I was thinking of trying to get away with taking it literally ( I had two wing mirrors fitted, and one internal mirror, just it was in the glove compartment) but thought it was probably not wise to start off on that note.

Now then, when I first started my truck training I just turned the rear-view mirror around, but one time it just popped off in my hand. Thought no more of it, just stuck it in the glove compartment. So today I had a bit of a flap when after freezing my hands off washing the mighty Micra off with a hosepipe (and proving the adage ‘you can’t polish a turd’) I couldn’t find the mirror. It wasn’t in the glove compartment. It wasn’t there, Richard! (Virgin complaint letter reference there. How funny was that letter?) Anywho, after taking the tapes out three times, checking under the seats, in the boot and asking Wendy if she’d had it off it still wasn’t there. In desperation I took to fumbling around above the compartment, and there it was!

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Jam tomorrow

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I remember!

I sat down to update my blog yesterday with the intention of setting down the running tally for this bleeding driving malarkey. To get my class C (rigid/ class 2) license it cost me £2,163! Two thousand, one hundred and sixty three of Her Majesty’s pounds!

The original course (20 hours driving and a test, with medical, theory test and paperwork) was £849.

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