Moog's meanderings

My Godmother died this week. My Dad rang me at work on Wednesday morning to tell me. It was a bit of a shock. Having thought about it though, she had had various problems with her health, but nothing particularly serious. Apparently my Cousin’s wife found her in her chair with her newspaper still in her hand. I am happy that she died peacefully. I also know that she’s now gone to her real home. I didn’t really do any more work on Wednesday after hearing that.
She never married so didn’t really have any family except my Uncle & Aunt and cousins who all lived close by her in Ireland, and her Church of which she was an active member. Please pray for my family as they come to terms with the fact that she’s gone to where she belongs.

On Friday I had a hospital appointment, but that’s not the topic of today’s blog. After the appointment, I went home to gather up a few things and pick up hubby to go down to Swansea.
We had a burger king lunch on the way out, and also stopped at ASDA in Merthyr to pick up a few bits. Even having made two stops, we got there in good time. It was lovely to stop in and see friends of ours and their two little boys aged 1 and 3, one of whom is mr moog’s Godson.
Then we went over to stay with blonde. We did a bit of catching up with Baby Blonde, who was in a very good mood, then managed a glass of wine before mr moog went off into town for his ‘christmas do’. Blonde and I sat around chatting and catching up over wine and pringles. We were so busy nattering that we never got around to cooking and eating anything proper – sorry B, I am not a good influence on you – I should really have been helping ensure that you had proper sustenance… Mr moog didn’t get in until very late, and was quite worse for wear in the morning. We all had breakfast together before blonde and baby blonde went off to nativity rehearsal.
In the mean time, mr moog and I tried to sort out blonde’s webspace. We weren’t able to ftp to the site. Now, as Blonde has had problems previously with her telephone company, mr moog is named on the account so that he can discuss technical issues on her behalf. Customer services (on a freephone number) were very polite and told mr moog to discuss the technical problem with technical help (on a paying number). Technical help were completely useless.
‘I can’t seem to ftp to your site to upload my webpages’
‘I see sir. You’re having trouble downloading from the internet?’
… and so it went on.
After about 10 minutes, the guy on the other end of the line was starting to get the gist of the problem and asked about security (passwords, etc.). Came to the conclusion that mr moog is not in fact the named account holder, and refused to do anything for him. Then ensued the inevitable
‘I am named on the account and have been for quite some time’
‘You’ll have to ring customer services so that it can be verified’
‘I rang them first, and they gave me your number’
…. Which ended in mr moog demanding to talk to the manager, and being put on hold for the better part of 20 minutes.
In the end, the technical support guy couldn’t sort out the problem and had to pass mr moog onto someone with some technical experience. They managed to figure out that there was a problem with the activation of the account, which is why the ftp server was closing the connection every time we tried to log in. The phone call to technical support was 53 minutes. I am hoping to hear next month from Blonde that her telephone company have not charged her for the call (being as 1) it was their fault that the account didn’t work and 2) The phone call was significantly prolongued due to the incompetence of their own staff).
It seems completely bizarre to me that said telephone company cannot manage to have a system whereby the different departments can see the same account information about customers ie the fact that an account holder has a third party named on the account. Seems to happen a lot though…
Anyway, the four of us had an absolutely gorgeous lunch at Verdi’s and a little walk down the beach. I do miss it…..
On the way back to Brum we went to see our friend from university, mr swirly (don’t ask!). It was good to catch up and exchange presents. Shame that with certain things the fact that they are well wrapped doesn’t do a lot to disguise the content. )

Wasn’t expecting this answer!!!!

You Are Scary

You even scare scary people sometimes!

Edit: but I have been told ’so-and-so’ is really scared of you on a number of different occasions – I always thought it was just because the particular ’so-and-so’ in question each time didn’t know me and I have a habit of speaking my mind and being quite blunt.. some people take that the wrong way!!

I didn’t sleep very well on Monday night, I had a muscular knot in my back which kept waking me up, so by the time I had trekked across London and got home last night, I was really tired and aching in all sorts of wierd place from dragging my meeting stuff around. I had a lovely warm bath to soothe those aching muscles, then sat down with my current book to read. Before I knew it, I had missed most of CSI Miami (shock, horror!!). Realised on getting up from my chair that most of my aches had mysteriously dissipated – hurrah! And I had a really good night’s sleep last night.

Ok, so it seems that I spend a lot of time in London and not at work. Sometimes it seems that way to me too. Unfortunately although it means I am not at my paid job, it’s still a lot of work (and travelling) and generally lots of work outside and in between meetings. It can be very rewarding though.
Have been in a meeting at the IEE all morning, and am just catching up on a few things in the library before going home. Hopefully I’ll be home a little earlier than I would have been had I gone to work today, so will hopefully do my Japanese Homework before tomorrow’s class – it’s the last one before Christmas so it’d be good to have nothing outstanding before the break.

It was a marathon, but we made it! We even managed to wrap the presents for next weekend (the rest have gone back in the box for packing next Sunday).
We were responsible for making tea/coffee after the service at Church on Sunday morning. It was a parade service (lots of brownies, a few guides and scouts) combined with our patronal festival (a celebration of St. Nicolas Day, which was last week) – our Church is St. Nicolas Church combined with the annual toy service. I have to say, not having any children of my own, I didn’t get much out of it. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had got the impression that the kids had got something out of it, but they pretty much stayed in the ’soft corner’ at the back of Church out of the way rather than participating and being the centre of the service (which is what I had expected). So the net result was that the adults didn’t gain anything because the service was mostly aimed at kids, but the kids didn’t join in so they didn’t gain anything either. Shame really, I have very fond memories of playing various parts in an interactive service led by the kids when I was in Sunday School.
Needless to say we are not planning to go back to that particular service until we have children of our own.

We had lots of possibilities for today. In the end we opted for going to the organic shop for breakfast (yummy), normal weekly shop at the co-op, then home for writing christmas cards (international ones a priority) and wrapping presents (ones going to Swansea next weekend a priority).
We got back from shopping and got distracted with pruning things in the garden. It looks lots better now it’s a bit tidier though!
We wrote all the international cards and then walked to the post office at about 4pm (Didn’t start out this morning until 10am so I all in all I think that was quite good going) only to find that it closed at 1pm. Hubby has promised to go to the post office on Monday morning when he gets Down South.
So now we’re back and I am looking at a big pile of presents and unwritten cards. Hum. It needs to be done today as we have churchy stuff going on tomorrow and a really busy week. On Friday we’re going to Swansea as it’s hubby’s work party. I agreed to come but not going to the actual party and definitely not looking forward to the driving down one day and driving back the next part of it. IT’s always a difficult decision about going places and visiting. I love to go and see people but hate the travelling. Also, what with Mr Moog working away in the week, we don’t get much time to spend together and then going away just makes us both stressy and means we don’t enjoy the time we do get to spend together (plus also having to share it with others as well as each other, which don’t get me wrong can be really wonderful, but isn’t always great for *us*). Swansea is always the most difficult of these, because we know and love so many people down there. We never try to see everyone, because it’s horrid and means rushing from place to place not seeing people for as long as you’d like and being exhausted at the end of it (my job is exhausting enough without being exhausted at the end of a weekend too). There are lots of good things about deciding who you’re going to see, and doing that (properly), like you get to catch up and see them, feel as though you’ve except that when the others find out they get grumpy you didn’t see them as well.
Anyway, we’re going on Friday, staying and dropping off some pressies, and coming back Saturday. Sunday’s for *us*, then it’s a full 5-day working week and we’re off to family for Christmas.

Have been thinking on and off what random things people won’t know, and may be interested in. Still haven’t reached a conclusion, so just going to type a few.
Here goes:
1) I used to be a blue belt in Judo. Something I really enjoyed and was quite good at from the age of 10 to the age of 15. I tried to start it up again when I went to university, lasted a few weeks before falling wierdly on my left shoulder. After that, I kept having problems with it so gave up for good after a few months.
2) Own two expired ‘Pool Lifeguard’ licences. I did all the swimming and lifesaving awards I could from the age of 5 to the age of 15, and as soon as I was allowed at the age of 16 took the Pool Lifeguard course and exam. It was quite a good moneyspinner for me when I was doing my A-levels… Might explain why I didn’t do so well in the actual A-level exams (D’oh!).
3) I own a signed postcard of Rolf Harris having been to see him live twice at Rock City in Nottingham.
4) I have a thing about cheese – give me cheese above chocolate any day. I like it mature and/or smelly, soft and runny, most kinds really. I can eat it by itself, on biscuits, bread, lasagne, pretty much any way really. yum!
5) When I was 7 I broke my arm at the elbow when I fell out of a toy wheelbarrow (Don’t ask!!)

Why do I do it? I am still here, at my desk at work. Japanese class is supposed to be tonight. Last week I tried to get into Central Brum in the evening, and failed. Everything was totally snarled up on all the ways in and it was impossible to get inside the inner ring road. I think it’s because the Bull Ring is open until 10pm in the run up to Christmas. That said, even if I leave now, I am unlikely to make it on time. And I haven’t done my homework. And I am completely shattered and frustrated and probably won’t take anything in.
I think I’ll go home and veg in front of the TV.

Monday I didn’t go to work. This was useful as it meant that hubby and I had a little time in the morning to do the stuff that we would have had to fit into our weekend, such as filling in mortgage application forms, agreeing what we’re doing re. Christmas parties and spare time between now and new year (not that easy with him being down south most of each week and us being busy at weekends so not having much chance to discuss it).
At lunchtime I went down to London on the train for more IEE fun. Late back (home after midnight) and was absolutely shattered yesterday having had to get up before 6am to take hubby to the station on the way to work. It was actually quite a useful day at work though, I came home feeling that I had achieved something rather than just being frustrated- which is definitely a good thing. And it wasn’t too late either – I had time to have a lovely hot bath, eat a proper dinner (thanks to leftover Moussaka) and watch CSI Miami without feeling harrassed. Haven’t done my Japanese homework, though….