Notes From Nat

Dear Men of Great Britain

Yes… that great ball of fire in the sky these past few days is indeed the long lost Sun. Yes, we have endured 89 days of nonstop torrential rain, and so yes, it is truly a marvellous sight to behold. Slightly less of a marvellous sight to behold, though, is all that flabby, white flesh out on display, in your desperate attempts to catch every last ray of sunshine. I am a firm believer in the health benefits of Vitamin D myself… but four words, gentlemen: Cod Liver Oil Capsules. You can find them at your local pharmacy… and while you’re there, please pick up some sunscreen. Otherwise you’re all going to end up transforming yourselves from 50 Shades of Pale into a uniform (and very unattractive) Boiled Lobster Red.

Better yet, unless you look like this…..

Keep your shirt on, man!

………

Dear Virgin Media

We have quite a history…. you and me. A lot of water under the bridge… a lot of my hard earned money going into your bank account in exchange for what you claim is the fastest, most reliable broadband service in the galaxy... though quite how I could ever prove that I would love to know, since I can’t even connect to my local office, let alone communicate with the Wide Wide World. Is that the logic behind Sir Dicky Branson’s quest for space tourism… so that he can extend his piss poor internet service into Infinity and Beyond? Seriously, this is all getting a bit boring now… you forever messing me around by dropping my connection, almost without fail on the day that I have a humungous deadline at work. 

I’ve worked out how to circumvent your incredibly unhelpful Help Line (is that your attempt at irony by the way?) by selecting the “If you are thinking of leaving us, press 5" option when I phone up to complain, yet again, that you are in breach of contract. You always answer that line immediately, don’t you? I reckon I’m flagged up as “Difficult Customer #1”, always passed onto the Technical Manager or the Senior Technician or some other Big Cheese. Listen, I will happily talk to Sir Tricky Dicky himself….if you will just give me a frikking reliable connection that does not drop off like clockwork at 4 pm every day, just around the time half the population feels the urge to post "What I am like having for tea -  LOL!" on Facebook.

........

Dear Travel Clinic

I see what you're doing.... playing on Nat's paranoia and phobia of catching some horrendous tropical disease abroad. And I've played along... typhoid, polio, diptheria, typhoid again, hep A, hep B.... you name it, I've had the jab! But rabies... in Thailand??? You mean to say there is a rabid monkey population just waiting to sink their teeth into me the second I set foot onto the tropical island paradise of the Gulf of Thailand? OK, OK.... stick it my left arm....

That is all.

Photos not my own.

.......

Some explanatory notes for the Notes From Nat:

 Unless you’ve been… ahem… otherwise tied up (in which case you already know all there is to know and don’t need any further “educational reading”)… the erotic novel 50 Shades of Grey (and the follow-up 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed) has been causing quite a stir, outselling Harry Potter and making their author a very wealthy woman. To be honest, I haven’t read the book... yet, but I now feel obliged to, purely for scientific research purposes of course, to see what all the darn fuss is about!


Sir Richard  Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies.


 Yes, I'll be travelling to Thailand in the near future... well, I have to use up the excessive quantities of Deet bug spray and Factor 80 sunscreen left over from the Vietnam and Cambodia trip. And I'm itching to go back to SE Asia....

And The Plonker Of The Week Award Goes To....

..... Cowardly 'Costa Concordia' Captain Francesco Schettino, who claims he only abandoned his sinking ship, because he "fell into the lifeboat when ship listed suddenly" as he was trying to help....

Photo of Costa Concordia aground from here

A completely unecessary, tragic loss of lives.

......

Runner-up Plonker of The Week.... that bloke that lives up the road from me and owns the Audi. Although owning such a car (or more accurately being in possession of the appalling driving skills displayed by an overwhelmingly and disproportionately large number of Audi drivers - please note, I am not saying ALL Audi owners are bad drivers, just a lot that I have come across!) might not be enough to qualify as a Plonker (in some instances - again I am not accusing ALL Audi drivers of being or not being Plonkers)..... this bloke qualifies on the merits of his Audi car alarm, that has been going off in the small hours of the morning, for the last few nights.

Dear Bloke With The Rowdy Car Alarm.... when I go around to complain enquire if your wonderful car is still in good shape, as I have been woken up by its alarm for three nights on the trot, telling me that I "must be a light sleeper" does absolutely nothing to improve my mood. We'll see how heavy a sleeper you are when I'm ringing your doorbell at 4 am (in my pyjamas, a sight to behold) if it goes off again tonight!

You have been warned....

......

Plonker - noun 1. Slang for (ahem!) the male organ. 2. Fool, idiot, despicable person.

Notes From Nat...



Dear Howling Gale (that’s been blowing almost incessantly for the past three days and keeping me awake at night, rattling every window pane and threatening to lift our roof tiles)


Enough already!

That is all.

.........

Dear Nat’s Mouth

You and I have had a bit of a stormy relationship over the past 37 years... well, you started the whole thing by giving me so much grief on the Teeth Front! Firstly, I’m told I was a horrendous teether, really struggling to cut those first teeth as wee Nat. Then you thought it would be hilarious to set my teeth up with a massive overbite/Bugs Bunny lookalike that took no less than four years of painful orthodontic treatment to rectify. Just when I got that all sorted out, you decided to mess things up again by giving me 9 wisdom teeth. Normal people just get 4... some very lucky people get none. Did you have to be so generous? Two lots of extractions and possibly a third operation lined up for the very near future.... the novelty of this hyperdentia thing is wearing a little thin.

And another thing... what’s with the regular plagues of mouth ulcers and infections? Like that time back in July 2005 when I couldn’t talk, let alone eat for 3 days. To be fair, perhaps it was Nat’s Immunity kicking in... I had just had a whole load of jabs in preparation for the Caribbean trip. Or maybe it was all down to stress – just the day after those jabs, I spent two hours fretting that my hubby was possibly on the Northern line tube that got blown up by some criminally insane suicide bomber? Luckily though, as he’d missed his first train to London that morning, he arrived late at Kings’ Cross to find all hell had broken loose and the mobile phone lines were jammed... but he was safe! Whatever the case may be, could you please make a pact with Nat’s Immunity so that we don’t have a repeat of Ulcergate when I have to play pin cushion at the Travel Clinic later today for all manner of jabs to ward off potential nasty diseases in Vietnam and Cambodia?

Much appreciated!

.........



Dear Boxercise Instructor (aka Drill Sergeant #1) and Aikido Sensei (aka Drill Sergeant #2)

Go easy on me please... it’s been a while since I did some serious exercise, and there has been a lot of stuffing of my face in-between. I may be slightly heavier footed than back in 2011...



Yours


Nat

Notes From Nat

Dear British Summer

So....along with a large portion of the UK’s industrial sector, even you’ve resorted to outsourcing to India these days? After doing a pretty shoddy job yourself over July and August... no sunshine, just rain and wind and grey cloud... you’ve decided to call on someone who actually knows what they’re doing?!

Your cousin, Indian Summer, has arrived in all her glory, bringing days of warm sunshine, beautiful blue skies and temperatures around 28°C. It’s almost October! Even the plants are confused... they were getting their autumn colours out but now wonder if it's spring again! As always, your timing is impeccable... what’s the use of all that gorgeous weather when I’m chained to my computer indoors? Could you not have invited her last week....when I was on holiday.... at the coast.... outdoors?

I’m just saying...

........


Dear British Bee Population

What have I ever done to you lot... apart from eating the odd pot of honey every now and again? Why have you taken to terrorising me? First there was the 'Bee Down The Back of My Shirt' incident on the train down to London to catch the crack o' dawn Eurostar a couple of weeks back... what was that all about? All good bees should have been tucked up in their hives at that time of the night!

Thank you for not stinging me, though, as that would not have been a good start to the day, and could have culminated in me having to whip up my top and ask one of my fellow passengers to pull out the sting. And there weren’t exactly a load of coherent (or sober!) people on the train that time of day...

Then there was the ‘Bee Up My Sleeve’ incident while hiking in Dorset... again, thank you for not stinging me, but what’s with the hitching a ride on Nat lark? God gave you wings.... use them!



........


Dear British Spider Population

What? Are you in cahoots with the Bees, conspiring to take advantage of my morbid fear of anything that crawls and flaps and buzzes? It’s bad enough that one of you tried to stowaway to Dorset in our 'cooler box'... that could have ended badly for the spider in question, with an experiment in arachnid cryogenics... instead, it ended...er... very badly for said spider... with an experiment in the effect of centrifugal forces from a Dyson vacuum cleaner on an arachnid body. Conclusion: spiders do not survive being sucked into vacuum cleaners. Just like all good scientists, I’ve run my experiment in duplicate... thanks to Spider #2 for volunteering for the Good of Science (I say "volunteered", when I mean "scuttled across the living room floor scaring the bejesus out of me", the evening we got back home).

I really must empty that Dyson dust trap some day...

Then there were the three (yes three!) spiders who lurked with intent in the bath tub of the Dorset Cottage. So that old nursery rhyme is true... Incy Wincy Spider does climb up the water pipe. I soon put a stop to that though ... by keeping the bath plug firmly in place.

Do not try to outwit Nat, dear spiders... you may have eight legs but you don’t have opposable thumbs...

Yours, etc

 Nat

Due To Lack Of Interest, Today Is Cancelled!



It's been one of those days when I wish I'd just stayed in bed...

I overslept. See, my body knew shite awaited and was trying to avoid.

I snagged my beloved white throw while making the bed, so it now has a horrible little run and hole on one side... another sign that I should never have gotten out of bed.

The porridge boiled over in the microwave. I've been using the same jug and the same quantities of milk and oats every day for the last five years, but TODAY, the gods of the Microwave Miracle decided they'd have some fun. Cleaning porridge off the microwave is not funny. Not having enough porridge left to eat also gives me a sense of humour failure... quite possibly, it's my Glycaemic Index taking flight...

I'd left the window open in my office yesterday evening - it had been a balmy night that turned to rain... meaning I was mopping up puddles on the windowsill and carpet this morning! Arrrrghh!!!

I opened my email box to a stream of commands (not requests!) from The Demanding Client, most of them I can't even begin to understand let alone address.

The power went off during my teleconference with The Shambolic Client - it took me at least 10 seconds to realise that we were not having another awkward moment of silence, just silence! Just a momentary blip, but enough to knock out my internet and phone for at least 10 minutes.

I had a tense conversation with The Sarcastic Client, who wants the world but only wants to pay the price of a pebble off Brighton beach, but even that's negotiable.

I've just sliced off a good part of my index finger, attempting to chop tomatoes at lunch.

And it's not even 2 pm yet.....



Hope your days are going better!

Notes From Nat, Again!

Dear Annoying, Demanding Client

Yes, we all know that you have tight schedules, and that those tight schedules are all the more “challenging” (to use your terminology) because you are going on holiday at the end of this week... no doubt somewhere warm and tropical like the Bahamas or the Maldives or the Italian Rivieria... not that I give a monkeys! But when I am working all the hours of the day, and weekends too to meet your timelines (and seriously neglecting my blog and blogger friends in the process) please do NOT keep reminding me that you are sodding off on holiday! Hope it rains all the time you’re there...

.......................

Dear British Summer

You suck! Actually you blow... wind mostly, accompanied by bursts of torrential rain...then sudden heat and sunshine....more rain, repeat cycle! You’d better get your act together for 2012, else the Olympics are going to be a washout! Why do I care? I didn’t get any tickets... neither did most Londoners, whose council tax is actually paying for the whole shenanigan!

Love and kisses
Nat x
 
............

I Hate Tuesdays!



Forget Blue Mondays, I hate Tuesdays!

For some reason it's the kind of day that really drags on and seems to have no purpose, a kind of “nothing day”. We've got Mondays that mark the beginning of the week, when you’re feeling revitalised after the weekend... then Wednesdays that are slap bang in the middle of the week (the “Hump Day”), Thursdays mean that we are one day closer to the weekend, and then finally you've got Friday, the last working day of the week, before it's the weekend. Yippee!

Tuesdays are unlucky... fact! And I quote from the Fount of All Knowledge, Wikipedia…

In the Greek world, Tuesday (the day of the week of the Fall of Constantinople) is considered an unlucky day. The same is true in the Spanish-speaking world, where a proverb runs: “En martes, ni te cases ni te embarques”, meaning, “On Tuesday, neither get married nor begin a journey.” For both Greeks and Spanish-speakers, the 13th of the month is considered unlucky if it falls on Tuesday, instead of “Friday the 13th”.

And if it’s in Wikipedia…it MUST be true!



In my experience, if things are going to go wrong, they will go wrong on a Tuesday. Without fail.

Today was no exception. It’s taken many weeks and several visits from the plumber... and sadly not this hot one...

I know you all wanted to see him again!

...to resolve Watergate in my house (the pipes squealing like a banshee in the middle of the night for no apparent reason!). This morning, the power shower decided it was his turn to misbehave, and he refused to switch off  [yes, my shower is definitely male - instantly turned on, hot and powerful for a while, but quick to run out of steam].

Very soon I was well on my way to owning the indoor pool I’d always dreamed off! Cutting the pump and water supply was the only solution, until the not-so-hot plumber could come by and confirm my suspicions that it was a valve problem.

Simple enough, you’d think - just get a replacement valve...not when you can’t locate the paperwork left by the Dodgy Cowboy Plumber that fitted the bathroom in the first place, to track down a model number. The head office of Dodgy-Cowboy-Plumbers-R-Us were no help either... I’d phoned them desperately hoping they may still have the details of the shower they supplied us on file, but to no avail.

And we’ve got bigger problems too... all that turning on and off the water at the mains has knackered (official plumbing speak) the stop cock [Snigger! Now you see why I refer to plumbing in the masculine]. This is a big job that may involve cutting into walls and destroying plastering.

I await the verdict with dread.....

In the meantime, today was the day my superduper, new, double-split-level-eyeball-level-stainless-steel-with bells-on-it oven was scheduled for delivery... as it's a Tuesday, I was preparing myself for disaster. Especially when I opened the door to spy one skinny little dude whose command of the English language apparently extended to "Yep!" and the completely different "Yep!". I was wondering how he was going to wrestle the bulky package all by himself (as I sure as hell wasn't going to risk dropping it on my foot or putting my back out) through the house to its temporary storage spot, the conservatory. Thankfully, help was shortly at hand in the form of his beefier partner who also had a few more words to his repertoire.... like "Sign here!" [to me] and "Lift it you idiot... at the bottom!" [to the Yep Man].

Behold the new oven....isn't she lovely?

Hope you’re having a good Tuesday!

Notes From Nat

Dear Colonel Gaddafi
The job market’s a bit flooded with disposed despots at the moment…might I suggest a career change? There’s an opening for ‘A Walking Advertisement for the Perils of Too Much Plastic Surgery’, but you’ll have to act fast… apparently Mickey Rourke and Tom Jones are already vying for the role.

..............................................................


Dear Water Pipes in my House
Haha! Yes, very funny...but the “Waking Me Up At 2 am Squealing Like A Banshee” joke is wearing a bit thin. If I wanted night after night of disrupted sleep, I’d get myself a baby....maybe one of Brangelina or Madonna’s rejects. Anyway, if you try a stunt like that one more night, I’m left with no option but to get a big, strong plumber in to attend to my waterworks....

Well, we needed something to erase that image of the old Colonel

..............................................................


Dear Travel Insurance Brokers
Yeah, you and me go way back...we have a lot of water under the bridge, so to speak. We’ve already established that you are nothing but common thieves and vagabonds, happy to steal my hard earned money in exchange for stress and aggravation. But how do you justify charging me four times my annual policy fees to add my perfectly fit and healthy mom on our trip to South Africa, just because she’s over 65? I hope you sleep comfortably at night...

Yours
Nat

How Did I Do?

As the year draws rapidly to an end, it’s time for me to revisit my Hope To Do List For 2010 and see how I got on with my goals...



1. Become Master Ninja at Aikido

Ha! This is never actually going to happen...I struggle to work out my left foot from my right most of the time. Then there's the minor issue of a morbid fear of rolling head over heels (break falling). Amazingly, I did manage to pass my first grading though.

2. Get superfit and svelte

I’m certainly fitter (thanks to the energetic Aikido classes and boxercise sessions with Muscle Man) but as long as there is a source of chocolate on this planet, I’m never ever going to be svelte...

3. Run the 10 km Race For Life

Well, it was more of a jog/shuffle/hobble than a run, but I did it, raising £175 for Cancer Research. Then I walked a half marathon, raising £225 for Macmillan Cancer Support. I’m very glad that I took part in both.

4. See the Dutch bulbfields

I really tried to...but I hadn’t counted on a $%^&ing Icelandic volcano spewing an ash cloud into the sky and shutting down European airspace, just a few days before I was scheduled to leave. I am still fighting for my travel insurance to cough up the money they owe me for my cancelled trip, and along with hundreds of thousands of equally conned people, I’m waiting on the Financial Ombudsman to make her final decision. I'm not holding my breath...

5. Take a city break in Berlin

Didn’t happen. I was a bit put off city breaks after the Amsterdam fiasco. I did get to see Lisbon (briefly as I was at a conference), somehow managing to fly in and out between ash cloud disruptions, and I was wowed by the beautiful city of Seville during the Andalusian adventure. 

6. Visit Canada (or China or Japan)

O Canada!  I had a fantastic trip to Vancouver Island and the Rockies in June that you may have read about in my couple of dozen posts. Absolutely loved it and hope to return soon. As for China or Japan...watch this space as we’re hoping to squeeze in a visit somewhere in the East in the second half of 2011.



7. Stop worrying about things I cannot control

Definitely didn’t happen. I have spent a large part of the year worrying about something or another, most often my dad’s health, which has unfortunately not been too great lately.

8. Overcome my fear of driving

I was forced into this.... with B being away for business and my dad in and out of hospital in another part of the country, I had to do some hairy driving on Britain’s motorways this year. Now, with the icey weather upon us, I’m trying to get to grips (literally) with snow driving.

9. Let go of people who bring me down

Again, this didn’t really happen, although I’ve learnt to sometimes screen my calls….some days I just can’t deal with anyone else’s (really quite trivial, self-inflicted) problems.

10. Plan and save for a new kitchen

This became quite urgent earlier this month, when the door fell off our oven…it’s back on now, but we broke the handle in the process, meaning we now have to prise the door open with a knife and burn ourselves senseless. I've decided I want a sleek black and white kitchen….the designs are in, finances are under review, so watch this space.

11. Learn to cook properly

While having a decrepit oven doesn’t inspire me to undertake anything too complicated, I can make some damn good lamb stew (in the slow cooker), roast chicken and lasagna, and I can bake a great banana bread. What else would anyone want? Best thing I bought this year…an egg poaching pan.



12. Watch 3 classic films

Does watching 'Love Actually' for the tenth time count? Just never found the time this year…probably because I was too busy watching rubbish TV.

13. Watch less rubbish TV, read more good books

Epic fail on this one (see 12 above).

How did you get on with your new year plans in 2010?

Five Things I Hate About Christmas

Warning! Bah humbug theme throughout this post, which may not be suitable reading for those who absolutely love Christmas and everything about it...



1. Christmas shopping

It’s not the gift buying per se that I object to (my name’s not Ebenezer Scrooge, although I did once live in Ebenezer Road) but it’s the marauding masses with their screaming, sulking brats little darlings in tow that can make shopping such an awful experience. Long queues at the checkout, unhelpful shop staff and items that I want always out of stock on the shop floor, can add up to a very bad day out. Therefore, in the interests of personal sanity, this year I’ve done my entire Christmas shop online...I think I may be developing a bit of an obsession for internet shopping in fact... but I just love it! Clickety click....ding dong.... “Just sign here”....what a pleasure! Only problem is, half the jolly country has decided that this is the way forward, and, coupled with the snow disruption, there’s apparently a back log of over 4 million parcels to deliver. I’m now getting just a tad worried that not everything is going to arrive in time...



2. Brussels sprouts

I’ve already ranted on about my hatred of Satan’s green balls on here ... and you’re right, no one is actually forcing me to buy them, let alone eat them. They do, however, have a nasty habit of cropping up, completely uninvited, on my plate at Christmas parties. Apparently, they’re festive fare....fair, my foot! Just the sight of them, let alone their stench, is enough to make me retch!

 

3. Christmas pudding

Again, consumption of this stodgy ball of fruity, alcoholic fat is (thankfully!) not compulsory, and passing on the dessert course is one way to cut the calorific load of the Christmas day feast. I just don’t understand why anyone would pay vast sums of money for one such pudding, but that’s exactly what has been going on here in the UK this year. Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal (famous for serving up such culinary delights as snail porridge, and bacon and egg ice-cream at his Three Michelin-starred restaurant, ‘The Fat Duck’) designed The Hidden Orange pudding, which has a whole candied Valencia orange at its centre, and is reputedly The Must-Have Christmas Pudding of The Century. The puds went on sale in Waitrose for £13.99 and were almost all sold out in a week, then started appearing on eBay, selling to the highest bidders for up to £129! The proof of that pudding will be in the eating, me thinks, but just don’t choke on that candied peel or it won’t be such a Merry Citrus....

4. Annoying fragrance ads

Until we get TV that emits a scent (possibly a good idea for cookery shows, not such a great one for workout programmes, or documentaries on sewage works), ad agencies are always going to struggle to sell perfume, the product, opting to rather promote the ‘lifestyle’ that apparently comes with it. And judging from the ads on TV at the moment, spraying yourself with perfume will immediately transform you into a sullen-looking, hollow-cheeked girl who dances bizarrely around rooms, or else drapes herself uncomfortably over a sofa, and awaits the entrance of some equally sullen-looking, rather effeminate bloke. Why do all perfume ads have to end with some random French words spoken in a breathy, exaggerated whisper?



5. Writing Christmas Cards

Spending as much time as I do on a keyboard, I’m rapidly losing the power to write anything by hand...how on earth did I ever get through university lectures taking notes, and write 4-hour exams? These days, just signing a couple of Christmas cards is enough to send my hand into arthritic spasms... forget putting little personal messages in each card, the recipients are lucky to get a spidery, scrawled “Love Nat”... maybe just an ‘N’ by the time I get to the end of the pile of dozens of cards I somehow feel obliged to send out each year. Then there’s the inevitable hour-long queue in the post office to contend with, followed by the heart palpitations that accompany the realisation of just how much it’s going to cost to send those cardboard creations across the globe...next year I’m doing e-cards!

 

So, is there anything you hate about Christmas....or do you just love, love, love it all?

Ask Nat

I’ve just come across the slightly bizarre results of a survey of the most popular online queries by British website users in 2010. Here are some of the top searches, along with my own possibly less popular answers….forget Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves, just Ask Nat for that accurate, concise, informative and completely nonbiased response.



1. Why are England so bad at football?
Because our players are excessively overpaid, underworked, undisciplined, pretty ordinary blokes that have been bigged up to be some sort of demigods…..of course, this answer has absolutely nothing to do with my complete hatred of football and all things football-related.



2. Is the X-Factor fixed?
Is the Pope Catholic? Doesn’t stop me watching the show religiously every weekend though…

Viva The Lion King*!

(Wagner Carillo -  sadly, finally given the boot on Sunday after weeks of vast support from anti-X Factor campaigners who (allegedly) aimed to teach Simon Cowell a lesson by spending lots of money on his show's premium-rate phone votes)

3. Who is Justin Bieber?
To be honest, I only know this because I caught him miming (badly) during his guest appearance on Sunday night’s X-Factor results show…apparently, he (and there was a moment when I thought someone that pretty must be a Justina!) is the hottest, overhyped thing since... well, the last hottest, overhyped thing to strut his stuff before his adoring teenage fans. Yes, I’m just a grumpy old woman…old enough to be his mother (actually, make that his grandmother!)



4. Do all footballers cheat [on their wives/girlfriends]?
Quite possibly…see answer to number 1 above.



5. Should I buy an iPad?
Are you the person who has it all now and can find nothing else to buy? Do you fancy lugging about an oversized iphone? Do you like expensive coffee table ornaments?

If you’ve answered 'yes!' to any of these questions, then yes.



6. What is ‘Glee’?
A bit like a polished, slicker version of the ‘80s TV show ‘Fame’, with better hairdos and clothes….worth watching, just for the witty “Sue Sylvester”.

Snappy and snarky in a track suit

7. Will ‘Big Brother’ ever come back?
Oh hell, I really hope not! We are already overpopulated with pointless non-celebrities...



8. Where can I buy a micro pig?
Old Macdonald’s Micro Farm?

Just don't mention Swine Flu!

9. Where is the ash cloud?
It was in the sky…thankfully not any more though.



10. Where can I buy a vuvuzela?
You're not allowed one.... unless you're 10 or younger! Again, this answer has absolutely nothing to do with my complete hatred of football and all things football-related.

* Wagner owns a pet lion. As you do.

Blah, blah, blah

After bombarding you with nothing but photos for the past couple of weeks, I thought I’d put idle finger to keyboard for a change and give you some witty and spry prose instead...OK, perhaps some rambling, incoherent words randomly knocked together… don’t expect much, and you won’t be disappointed.

So what’s new in the ever exciting life of Nat? Not a whole lot to be honest... I’ve been holed up with bubonic plague, boils and pestilence a lousy head cold that has made me feel completely uninspired, very irritated and pretty much disinclined to do anything, let alone write witty and spry prose.

The dreaded lurgy has also put paid to my usual weekly exercise routine of two sessions of Aikido and one of ‘boxercise’ (with the demon Muscle Man, who was clearly a drill sergeant in a previous life). Yes, a fairly recent venture for me…basically, I pay four quid to be shouted at by Muscle Man for an hour, while I run around a chilly village hall and do squats, lunges and press-ups, drop dumbbells on my toes, question my sanity and dream of eating chocolates. And all this in the name of achieving a super svelte body (or at least trying to counteract my massive energy input with a teeny bit of output).

You see, winter has arrived with a vengeance - apparently, by the weekend we’ll be braving arctic blasts, feet of snow, icebergs and polar bear migrations to warmer climes. That’s if the weatherman is to be believed, of course. And on the topic of weathermen, our favourite forecaster, Tomasz Schafernaker (famous for Flicking-The-Bird-On-Live-TV that I wrote about here), recently fell out of favour with viewers again, this time for his rather casual attire in front of the camera. Apparently the BBC doesn't do Dress Down Days.

Rain, wind and a generally scruffy outlook

All I know is, it’s frikking freezing cold already and all I want to do is lie on the couch and stuff my face with warm, comforting, calorific food.

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

Which reminds me...

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers! I know that this is an important time of the year for you folks....it’s when you get together with your families and give thanks for the good things in life. Aaahhhh….warm and fuzzy feelings all round.

Slightly less warm and fuzzy feelings over on this side of the pond though…or at least in my office. You see, Thanksgiving (or more accurately the week leading up to it) invariably leads to superinflated stress levels. I’ve mentioned that I have a slightly high maintenance client in New Jersey. The week before Thanksgiving she goes into hyper drive….a vortex of energy, determined that (come hell or high water) everything WILL be completed in time for her to head off to her turkey dinner. 

Speaking of holidays, I am thrilled and delighted that Wills and Kate will be tying the knot on the 29^th April 2011. Thrilled and delighted mainly because it means that we get an extra public holiday…. one that will coincide with my South African trip next year, already cunningly arranged to fit in with the Easter and May bank holidays, meaning we get three weeks’ holiday for the price of two weeks’ leave. Meaning I will have enough days left from my 25 days annual quota to perhaps fit in another couple of trips next year :-)

 The Look of Love?

I Just Called To Say....

Recent telephone conversations that I could have happily lived without.....

AAVR*: Welcome to the Bright Spark Electricity Supply Company Helpline. If you’re phoning to report a power failure, please press 1.

Nat: £%^$! [Trying to get my mobile phone** to realise I am indeed tapping the digit 1 on its stupid little touch screen]

AAVR: I’m sorry. I do not recognise that number. Please try again.

Nat: £%^$ing *%^$! [Still trying to get my mobile phone to realise that I am still tapping the digit 1 on its stupid little touch screen]

AAVR: I’m sorry. I do not recognise that number. Please try again.

Repeat this cycle of stupidity a few more times, until finally.....

AAVR: I notice that you are calling from a mobile phone. Please enter the landline number from which you would usually be calling.

Nat: Are you a bit slow or what? Yes, I am indeed calling you from a mobile phone...that's because my cordless landline telephone runs off  e l e c t r i c i t y....you know, the stuff you guys charge us astronomical sums of money for?

AAVR: I’m sorry. I do not recognise that number. Please try again. Alternatively, you can email us or visit our website on www.no we don’t see the irony of getting you to contact us via electricity driven devices when you are reporting a powercut.com
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*Annoying Automated Voice Responder

** UK speak for cell phone



AMPSP*: Hello...is that Nat?

Nat: Speaking. Who is calling, please?

AMPSP: This is your AMPSP. For security purposes I need you to give me the first line of your address and postal code.

Nat: Why? If I’m your customer and you’re phoning me on the number you provided me with, why don’t you have those details on file?

AMPSP: Madam, it’s for security purposes.

Nat: Yes, I can appreciate that...I’m very concerned about security myself. Which is why I’d prefer not to give those details to you, as I have no proof that you are who you say you are.

AMPSP: I can give you a phone number that you can call and they will verify that this is indeed your AMPSP calling...

Nat: No thanks. For all I know, you’ve got your mate sitting on the other end, just waiting to get hold of my details.

AMPSP: Madam, I must inform you that these calls are recorded for training purposes.

Nat: Good. Because I think you could do with some retraining in how not to wind your customers up when they are having a really bad week. [And another thing, please do not call me madam – it makes me feel like a very old woman... and one that is in charge of a house of disrepute.]

AMPSP: -Click-
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*Annoying Mobile Phone Service Provider (or so they claim)

Notes From Nat

Dear Neighbours' Cats

OK, I've now had enough of your crap...literally! It's bad enough I spend my days picking your shit out from my flowerbeds and lawn, but waking me up at 5am with your caterwauling outside my bedroom window is enough to give me a hairball!

What were you fighting over...who gets to crap on my doorstep?

Be afraid, my feline fiends...I'm investing in a pump action water gun!

...................................................


Dear Rain Cloud

Yes, yes, I know you’ve been a good sport and kept away for almost a month....and yes, it’s been the driest, sunniest, hottest April in history and everything is blooming with springtime delight. But could you do me just one small favour and sod off from your current position of lurking with gloomy intent over Wales? I know that fair country is renowned for its abundance of leeks, sheep and rain, but I’d be very grateful if you could let us have just a bit of sunshine for our long weekend in the Brecon Beacons. Otherwise, instead of the famous Black Mountain, all we’ll get to see is Black Cloud....and soggy sheep.

...................................................


Dear Toe Rag Who Hacked My Facebook Account

What a sad little life you must lead, spending all your time trawling the net on the off-chance that you can sneak into other people’s private email accounts and post malicious comments that you are not brave enough to write in your own name! Did it give you a thrill? I hope so, because I reckon you don’t have much happiness in that lonely, perverse life of yours. May I suggest you apply for a personality transplant immediately, and do something vaguely useful with your life?

Yours truly

Nat

Dear Travel Insurance Broker...

 

Apologies for disturbing you when you are obviously so very busy... frantically searching through the fine print of your policy wording to try and find any loophole that will save you from the dreadful possibility of having to compensate anyone for the financial losses incurred as a result of that inconvenient Icelandic volcanic eruption.

You see, it appears that I misunderstood the whole concept of insurance. I thought that this is how it works... we pay you some money, which you invest and make lots more money, and then, one day when something horrible happens and we have to ask you for some of our money back to pay for the fallout of that bad thing that happened, you give it to us. Apparently this is not the case, however....what actually happens is, we give you the money, you make money from it and then....well, that’s sort of where it all ends. So in fact, we are just giving you our money....a bit like a gift or charity, only you certainly don’t need charity as your bank accounts are pretty full thanks to all the money that people like me have been handing over for the past 10 years, and never asking for anything back in return.

Can I please take this opportunity to commend you on your craftiness....if any other industry tried something like this, it would be deemed a scam, fraud, daylight robbery and all offenders would be tried as common criminals and locked up for many years. I’d also like to thank you for broadening my knowledge of all things climate-related. Yesterday, I was informed by a member of your helpful claims team that ash blown by the prevailing winds from the erupting volcano on Iceland and now sitting in the airspace over northern Europe is not considered “adverse weather conditions”. I was intrigued to hear that Section 6.6.6 of your policy relating to “Cancellations due to adverse weather conditions” would therefore be null and void in this scenario.

When I queried exactly how one would define “volcanic ash”, your knowledgeable employee told me that it would fall under the category of “natural disasters” as a volcanic eruption is the work of Mother Nature... but, before I could get too carried away, assuming that my claim would thus qualify under Section 9.11 as “Cancellations as a result of natural disasters (such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, etc) deeming travel unsafe”, your team member was quick to point out that I was labouring under a misapprehension...the word “volcano” was not specified on that list in the brackets.

Now here I was able to give back something in return, with a quick lesson in basic grammar and language. I pointed out that the use of the phrase “such as” is another way of saying “for example” and is therefore not a reference to an exclusive list. At this point, your employee introduced me to his supervisor....what a sociable bunch you are! It’s always nice to meet new people. Your senior team member was able to plug the apparent gaps in my geographical knowledge by informing me that “Holland is not the same place as Iceland and it is a volcano erupting on Iceland that is the problem here!”

So all in, a rather educational experience... and for this I can only say thank you. I feel that we also learnt a lot about each other during that hour-long telephone call (at premium rates)....you learnt that I am a naive optimist who believes that most people are really good at heart, and I learnt that insurance brokers do not in fact have a heart, and would sooner sell their grandmother to the glue factory than fulfil their obligations to pay a claim.

I enclose my completed claims forms and evidence of the money I lost on my cancelled hotel booking, airport parking and museum entry tickets. As I told your ever considerate staff member, who was worried that I would be wasting my time completing these forms as they will only be formally rejected, I will need something in writing for when I take this matter further... to the Financial Ombudsman, the exposé TV programmes Watch Dog and Rogue Trader, or the tabloid press, whatever it takes. Expect to see your company name up in lights, but then I’m sure you don’t mind as, as the saying goes “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”.

I’d like to end by wishing you and all your staff all the best for the future, and I sincerely hope that the day all insurance underwriters arrive in hell to book into their specially reserved, pre-paid, deluxe suites...only to find them incinerated...the devil gleefully informs them that “Actually, fire is not considered a natural disaster in Hades!” and thus they have no grounds to claim...

With best regards

Nat