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Saturday 6th October 2007
    
This morning M**** was at work again, so it was just A****** and I. We went for a walk around the park, played in the playground for quite some time (only being lured back to the pushchair with the promise of a biscuit) and then went home for some lunch. In the evening, we went over to Helen and Stu's for dinner and were going to stay over, but A****** wouldn't sleep, for one reason or another, so we had to come back with Liz and Anthony. Ah well.
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Sunday 7th October 2007
   
These are some pictures (spot the dragonfly) from our walk somewhere around Leighton Hall. I'm not sure exactly where (Yealand Redmayne?). And, yes, we have been here before: 3rd September 2005 |    
M**** took these pictures.
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Monday 8th October 2007
| Today I've had to take the day off work, on account of A****** being unwell. We don't know what's wrong with him, but he ain't eating much and has a bit of a temperature and generally doesn't seem his usual self. Other things have happened recently that may be interesting, may be not (maybe not?!). I finally had the meeting with the, er . . . I'm not sure what you call him . . . some kind of medical dude. This is in relation to my bicycle accident of 2nd February. My solicitor wanted a medical examination done by this guy, this being one of the final things required before the claim can be settled. I suppose the examination was a bit of mixed bag: kind of good and bad news. Good in the sense that there is a very real link between the damage in my right knee and the accident of 2nd February, but bad in the sense that the damage may be much longer term than I had previous thought. There's still some fluid on the knee-cap and the extent of damage may require an MRI to determine properly (I've only had x-rays so far). So yeah . . . not sure.
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And then there's the car. The mechanic (only known as 'James', from Piccadilly Garage) had previously estimated the cost of work at between £400 and £450 so on that basis I said, "Fine, go ahead then." Then I didn't hear anything for a while, so rang them up and was told that the repairs had come to £597 and some pence. Naturally I was a bit annoyed about this and during the phone conversation with James, asked for some detail about how he arrived at this figure. He kind of lost his rag a bit at that point, which kind of sent further alarm bells ringing. But yeah . . . in the end, M**** and I were like, "Well, whatever, we pay for the car, we don't go there again." So I collected the car on Friday, and it barely made it home, stalling several times (some kind of engine warning light went on about halfway through the journey and stayed on). I coasted along Windsor Avenue, as it didn't seem to want to start again. James had stated that any problems related to the recent repairs will be rectified free of charge, so I rang him this morning to explain the problems. James said to check the oil, check the water (this I did) then return it to his garage. On the trip to the garage this afternoon, the engine warning light never went off and it stalled once, but it made it there. That's the saga of the car. Not good.
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Tuesday 9th October 2007
Hmmmm, you must be bored. Try this.
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Saturday 13th October 2007
Manchester
     
Today we did go to Manchester to see Simon and Beccy. Our journey was again delayed by forces largely outside of our control, such as the car hire company (Enterprise) simply forgetting that I required picking up from my home address. Grrrrrr. They vaguely made up by giving me a category D (Chevrolet) car instead of category B (Astra), at no extra cost, but then this meant I couldn't get the cost of my taxi journey refunded, which didn't make any sense to me, but when she told me the cost of the car hire (which had mysteriously been reduced), I really couldn't be bothered. It all seemed fine. Yeah. So, we went to Manchester. Me, M**** and A******.
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Some stupid image viewing/editing program decided that by rotating an image and saving it, what I actually wanted to do was delete a load of meta data from that file, including the create date, which completely confused one of my scripts that uses that very piece of meta data in order to populate a field in my database. Grrrrr. But otherwise it was a lovely day. We did go to the science (and history?) museum and A****** seemed to love it, especially the journey in the tram and the replica steam engine. Me, I was happy to finally get properly close to Beetham Tower, having seen it from afar many a time.
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Sunday 14th October 2007
more of Manchester . . .
     
Today, after a breakfast of fresh croissants and cereal, we did head towards Salford Quays. We fed the ducks, geese, swans and other assorted animals, some of which looked bigger than A******. And we did go to the Lowry museum, which was quite a revelation, although it really shouldn't have been. One should feel slightly ashamed in thinking that L.S.Lowry painted nothing but grim pictures of matchstick men and women walking around to the industrial backdrop of factories and dingy looking terraced hourses.
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Lunch at Pizza Express and then a long and slow walk back to the flat, A****** taking particular enjoyment in jumping down from a step and getting one of us to do likewise, over and over and over again. The cogs and what-not were some kind of sculpture.
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Saturday 20th October 2007
     
Not a great deal happened today. During the afternoon, after lunch and a brief nap, we all went to Bolton-le-Sands to feed the ducks (not that they needed it) and then play on some swings. Well, A****** played on the swings; M**** and I just kind of watched and stuff. 45 (?!) minutes later, A****** didn't wanna leave, of course, so I just kinda grabbed him and moved towards the car. Then he had a tantrum that lasted about 11 seconds and then I was like, "Do you wanna walk to the car?" and A****** responded, "Yes" and that was it - tantrum over. I said to M****, "It's funny how his temperament can just flip like that," for it can. More scary still, I find, is the mannerisms he has picked up from either myself or M****, but these are harder to describe.
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Sunday 21st October 2007
     
I dunno. No idea what's going on here. We're either at some children's playground or else feeding the ducks. Fill in the blanks. Extended warranty unavailable. Your statutory rights are unaffected. Prepared in an environment where we and the workers touch nuts and seeds. If you've been refused credit in the past . . . blah, blah, blah, only 27.9% APR.
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Saturday 27th October 2007
Hallowe'en
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Sunday 28th October 2007
   
This is about all I have to account for for a Hallowe'en party at Meredith's mum's house, save for my memories of course. There's a lot of things that still bug me, of course, like the average velocity of a cross-bow bolt, and that of a bullet.
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