Hello! I’ll do a proper blog when I’ve got more than five minutes in front of a computer, but in the meantime, I promised Jenny several weeks ago that I’d draw the wider world’s attention to this year’s belated Christmas SimonG.org meet, which so far I’ve failed to do due to not having been anywhere near a PC since, so while I am, I will. I can do no better than quote her:

OK - Saturday 26th January, at Eaton Farm, Wilsthorpe Road, Long Eaton NG10 4AW.

Ta!

All of which is discussed in more details here.

Now I’d better go and take Jess out for her birthday lunch at Frankie & Benny’s. Bye!

Since we last spoke, I’ve returned to York from Leicesestershire, attended to those few scraps of work being thrown my way this close to Christmas (it’s nearly Christmas! Hooray!), and then headed Lancashirewards to spend the festive period at the farm. It’s rather nice to be back there after such a long absence.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago I ordered a shiny new PC from the nice people at PC Specialist. At the time I wasn’t sure where I’d be when it was ready for delivery, so I gave them my York address and called back last week requesting that the delivery address be changed to Jess’s mum’s house. “Email me the new address,” said the nice man. “I can’t take it over the phone because of fraud.”

How this measure combats fraud I have no idea, but I did as he instructed - unfortunately, it later transpired that his email was playing up in some way, which meant the change of address never happened. I learnt this on Monday, when DHL’s order tracking system informed me that they’d attempted delivery to York, but failed because there wasn’t anyone in. “Oh well,” you may be thinking, “just one of life’s little annoyances. These things are sent to try us, and all that.” And no doubt you’re right, and ordinarily I would have shared your philosophy; unfortunately Monday was one of those days when everything that possibly can go wrong does. Shall I count the ways? No, I’ll alphabetise them.

a) My car wouldn’t start and I had to jumpstart it
b) My plan to set up my PC at Jess’s mum’s house so I could do lots of work went temporarily awry when their broadband was playing up so much I’d have thought they had TalkTalk if I didn’t know better, and I couldn’t get my computer to see the network at all
c) One of my monitors hadn’t survived the journey to Lancashire, and no longer worked
d) I broke Jess’s laptop

On top of that lot, the PC delivery issue was more Things Going Wrong than I could handle in a calm and relaxed manner, and I’m afraid I got all stressed and became a bit snappy. Sorry Jess (and Jess’s mum).

Anyway, the nice man at PC Specialist was very helpful and apologetic, and faxed DHL the correct address with instructions to redeliver. Unfortunately DHL decided, for reasons unknown, to redeliver to the York address instead, and this time left it with the neighbours. So I called PC Specialist again - stop me if this is getting boring - and the nice man spoke to DHL and got them to agree to pick it up and bring it to Lancashire. The trouble with that was that I don’t have our neighbours’ phone number to brief them, so when someone turned up telling them to give him the package which had been delivered the previous day with my name on it, they’d probably have thought something fishy was going on, so I thought it best to pick it up in person. And that’s why I spent today driving to York and back, which wasn’t much fun, but now I’ve got a new computer, so hooray!

Which only leaves c) and d) unresolved, but I’ve learnt to be philosophical about them now. So that’s alright.

Well, here we are in Leicesecesestershire again. Earlier today my dad related an incident to me which I shall now relate to you, for reasons which will become apparent at the end. But if you can’t wait that long, the reason is that there is a mystery, and it’s up to YOU to solve it.

So what happened was, my dad got out of bed one morning a day or two ago, and observed by the magic of windows that Jack Frost had paid a visit. Surmising that his car too would be covered in frost - for experience had shown him that this was the case even when there was considerably less of the stuff on the ground - he took a jug of hot water outside to pour over the windscreen. But this proved unnecessary, for of frost on his car there was none.

This was a puzzle, but he presumed there was a simple explanation, possibly relating to the orientation of his car relative to the way the wind had been blowing that night, or something similar. But then he went to work, and as each of his colleagues visited him during the course of the day, they all remarked that they’d observed this very same phenomenon with their own cars, in contrast to what they had observed on every other morning in recent history. Any theory involving the positioning of my dad’s car was therefore eliminated.

“I’d like to hear someone explain it,” finished my dad.

Off you go then.

I’ve finally finished the Top Secret Christmas preparations that have been keeping me busy, which means that a) I now can’t wait for the big day, and am all excited like a five year old, and b) I can turn my attention back to you, my poor neglected public. But not for long, because we’re going down to Leicesecesestershire at the weekend, and thence heading Lancashirewards to spend Christmas at the farm, when internet access will only be achievable on trips to Jess’s mum’s house.

b) is assisted by the fact that the stream of incoming work is rapidly drying up for the festive period, as it does each year when everyone’s too busy putting tinsel up to hire illustrators, which is very convenient for me because I’m not rich enough to turn work down voluntarily, so if the orders kept coming in, I wouldn’t get a holiday. But they don’t, so I do, which is good news for me but bad news for my bank manager, but he doesn’t have too much to worry about, because guess what? I’ve just sold my house!

I didn’t tell you that I was selling my house, did I? You remember, no doubt, that I bought one when I still had a proper job, my dad having pointed out that it would be nigh on impossible to get a mortgage subsequently. It was a sensible investment at the time, but with my tenants recently moving out just as house prices were beginning to slide in a downwards direction, my Financial Department (that’s my dad again) was shouting “Sell! Sell! Sell!” Unfortunately the majority of potential buyers, also aware of the turn property prices were taking, were shouting “No chance! No chance! No chance!", and it seemed unlikely that I was going to get rid of it easily without significantly reducing the price, but now it appears that someone in a hurry to buy has fallen in love with it and immediately agreed to the full asking price, which is nice. As long as it doesn’t all go horribly wrong, of course, as buying and selling houses seems to do quite a lot. But that won’t happen in this instance, because everything always seems to work out implausibly well for me these days. I don’t know why, but I’m not going to start asking questions in case it’s an administrative oversight.

But let us turn from mere finance to more serious matters - Domino’s Veg-a-Romas. As you’re aware, I lived on these and these alone in my Essex days, but then I lived in Leicecesecestershire for a bit, and then Lancashire, and in both locations I was too far from the nearest Domino’s to frequently frequent it. But now that I’m in York, it’s a mere fifteen minutes’ drive away, which is still sufficiently far that they won’t deliver, but also sufficiently close that I can reasonably take myself to them, and as such the Veg-a-Roma once more features quite heavily in my diet. I use ‘diet’ in its broadest possible sense.

Which is all well and good, but there is a dark stain on the horizon, for in the years that I forsook them, Domino’s struck back by removing the Veg-a-Roma from the menu. For the moment, you can still order it and they know what you mean, but how long will it be before I walk in and say “Eighteen twenty-seven inch Veg-a-Romas, please,” and they say “Veg-a-Whats?"? Not long, that’s how long. But I have a plan, for I reckon that if everyone reading this goes and orders a Veg-a-Roma every day for the next year, they’ll see sense and reintroduce that most wondrous of pizzas to the official line up. True, you’ll all be fat and poor, but it’s a sacrifice you’ll be making for the greater good, and on the plus side, you’ll get to eat lots of yummy pizza. Are you with me? Splendid, I knew you would be.

And that, I think, gets you up to speed with everything that’s been happening in my thrilling and epic life. Now you can go and get on with yours.