Tag: Life

Finally got a weekend off. It’s been six weeks since my last proper one. (My last actual one, three weeks ago, I was dying with that cold and had the sinus pain issues. I would have preferred to have been working and well, than off and in that state.) I had lots of vague plans about what I was going to do, i.e. gardening and generally pottery about having a good time. Not a bleeding bit of it.

I had a few chores to do; shopping, nipping to town to the bank (while I was there I wanted to nip to Wilkinson’s to spend my £10 voucher that I got off Iceland for Xmas on lovely plants), and nip my sisters to drop off a (day late) card for her youngest.

I went to do the shopping at about half past ten. Half past ten, mind you. Not dinner time, not after work on a Friday, not Saturday or Sunday. Half past ten on a week day. It was chocker. Every doddering idiot, coffin dodger, and work-shy chav was in Asda. Why? They were out in force, all determined to stroll around and stop and chat in the middle of the narrowest isles, blocking my passage (ooer, Mrs.!). Don’t let my attempts to shop interrupt your conversation you bovine, slack-jawed, ignorant, embodiment of the argument for compulsory euthanasia.

Life

Doctor. Result!

by Buck18/03/2009 No Comments

I finally had had enough and decided, in desperation to see the doctor. I had another shitty headache yesterday and thought enough was enough. Given my track record with doctors (i.e. I crawl in, ask for help, get fobbed off) it was a last ditch thing. I had tried the alternatives; painkillers, doing nothing, and whining like a bitch, to no noticeable avail. So without any real hope of resolution I trotted off to the doc’s this morning. At least I could comfort myself that I had exhausted my options.

Big surprise. All change down the doctors. It looks nicer, more professional. It’s still a pre-fab, but it has a look of solidity and roomy-ness. Previously it was like sitting in a bus shelter with sick people. Anywho, cosmetics aside, when I got to see her (the doctor) she gave me a thorough service. Prodded my head, took my blood pressure, checked ears, nose and throat, and most importantly of all, actually seemed like she had an interest in resolving my issue!

Hoo-bleeding-rah!

Life

Spring’s here!

by Buck16/03/2009 No Comments

Wow, what a lovely morning. I’m on 2-10 this week so I can’t enjoy the whole day, but I had two hours in the garden this morning and it was lovely. I’ve planted two lots of gladioli, calabrese (standard and quick heading), parsley and rocket. Yesterday I moved all the wallflowers from their overwintering positions into flowering sites, planted out red onion seeds, parsnips and cauliflower.

We have daffodils flowering, snowdrops, hyacinth, crocuses and the remains of the cyclamen and hellibores. The forsythia is coming into bloom, the willow is putting out catkins and the fruit trees are all bursting forth. As is acer ‘orange dream’, which is only a baby (new last year) and it’s well outstripping the three year established acer ‘inabe shidare’.

The garden is bursting into life, drying out, and starting to look like something other than a mud pit. Spiffing.

Life

Bastard!

by Buck13/03/2009 No Comments

It was the reverse! I failed on the first exercise, before I’d even got out of the gate of the test centre. I said I wasn’t getting it, and I bloody well wasn’t. To rub salt in the wounds the examiner and my instructor both said I had it lined up perfectly to go in the first time, but to me it looked all to bollocks so I took a shunt (which is to drive forwards try reversing again). I ended up needing three shunts, you are only allowed two. Fail. Apparently I also stopped short of the bay, but you are allowed to get out and check (if you haven’t already failed and can’t be arsed), and I dinged a no entry sign with the back of my trailer on the way out for good measure, but it was on the blind side and couldn’t be seen from the cab so I didn’t notice and neither did the examiner. HAH! Score one for the Buck.

Then I did an hours drive around an unknown course, with some hideously tight corners that took all my skill and every inch of the road to avoid crashing, and would have passed on that part. I got eleven minor driver faults. You can get fifteen and still pass. That might sound skin of the teeth, but I didn’t make one serious mistake. Not forgetting that on my fourth attempt at a rigid, after forty four hours driving, I passed with fifteen driver errors! That was skin of the teeth!

The minors are just little things, one he got me on was when he told me to pull in on the left. I checked my mirrors, indicated when I knew I was safe to do so, then pulled in. I got a minor for not leaving a few seconds between indicating and moving in to the side. I’d checked it, it was safe, but it didn’t give Dolly daydreamer time to wake up and notice the signal. So minors are inevitable. There’s always room for improvement. When you are juggling the amount of information you have to be constantly processing, slight errors will creep in.

Life

Aaaarrrggghhhhhhh!

by Buck12/03/2009 No Comments

Here we go again. Test day tomorrow, bricking it!

I was out again today, and I didn’t do too bad. He took me around the worst test course that the test centre has (one so bad he reckons I’m only likely to be taken on it if I get a visiting examiner who is only familiar with that route. He reckons the regular examiners are scared to take an artic with full forty four foot trailer around it!) he talked me around it more than I would have liked ( I’m not sure if that is how it would have gone if I’d have been left to my own interpretation of the situation) but I managed even the tightest corners. Now the test is whether I can interpret a corner as I’m approaching it, get it all slowed to the appropriate speed, appropriate gear, take both lanes if I need to, and take the right line through the corner first time every time, without input from an instructor.

Obviously if I can’t I don’t deserve to have the license, but you don’t want your test to be the first time you’ve tried!