The things people say...

Today has been a good test of my patience, a quality I do not have in abundance. As it's half term we are very busy. In fact, it's the busiest week of our whole year and we do our utmost here to make customers' visits a pleasant experience. All of us work like trojans to clear tables, wipe up mess, sweep the floors and find seats for the customers who flood in. The weather is normally horrible, it's wet underfoot and people come here to let their children run off some excess energy.

I have lost count of the number of customers who have expressed their surprise at us being busy...what did they think we'd be like this week?? They should come back on a June afternoon when the temperature is 25 degrees outside and see us then. We'll be closing early as we'll have no customers!

One woman told me as I was passing that our toilets were "filthy, absolutely filthy" so mum and I trooped up to the loos and found some toilet paper scattered on the floor, that was all. We wiped all the surfaces down, picked up all the paper and replenished the soap but what worries me is that the woman who complained may well go home and then write a review on us on the internet, stating that our toilets resembled a hovel. And there's nothing I can do about it!

The majority of the people who have come here so far this week have been happy, but there's always a minority who find fault with everything we do, despite our best intentions. Hopefully, most of them who are unhappy will tell us so we can put it right straightaway, but there are always a few who will keep their thoughts to themselves and then moan about us to anyone who'll listen!

But anyway, I was prised out of the office today to lend a hand with washing up and clearing tables and the noise level was tremendous. Now where did I put my earplugs?!

All fixed!

All I wanted from today was the internet to be fixed at home and for my windscreen to be replaced with a shiny new one, and I got my wish!

I was at work at 7.30am and doing the cleaning for the last time this week, thank goodness. It was actually quite soul destroying seeing all our hard work undone in about half an hour when the customers came in, but I was glad we were busy.

The AOL engineer arrived at about 10am and managed to mend our broken connection. We're still not sure what caused it but we have a brand new router and everyone is now back and floating about in the world wide web!

Autoglass also arrived early and by lunchtime my little car was all fixed up. I'm not allowed to wash it until tomorrow when I will give it a thorough clean and polish as it needs it very badly!

The other big event today was Sophie's visit to the dentist to have two teeth taken out, poor thing. She really didn't want to go but the dentist was very gentle with her and she felt very little pain when he injected the local anaesthetic. It was all over in a few minutes but she found the sensation of a numb mouth quite hard to take, although I said the alternative would be far worse! When I was a few years younger than Sophie I had seven teeth taken out and was given gas to knock me out completely. I'm so glad things have changed these days!

Half term looms...

I hate getting up early on a Monday when the rest of the house is sleeping, but needs must. I set the alarm for 7am and was up, showered and out of the door by 7.30am. Mum, Dad and I had to do the cleaning this morning as Jeanette was on a day's holiday so it was more of a rude shock than normal!

We were pleasantly busy but I managed to escape having to go out and clear tables, wash up and generally be a dogsbody so that was a bonus! I'm not sure that will last all week!

In the evening I had a very relaxing bath, tried out a new moisturising face mask and generally had a pamper...I'm now all ready to face the rest of the week!

Car trouble

After a very slow start Soph, mum and I went off to Milton Keynes and this time we took Susie with us. I took Dad's car as the Passat is playing up (now she's retired, she's refused to start so Keith needs to buy her a new battery) and my little A1 was awaiting a new windscreen. Susie lives down a very bumpy track and with all the snow I did wonder whether we'd make it, but it was fine and we didn't get stuck!

The girls went off to shop while Mum and I meandered about and had a nice leisurely look in the shops. My mobile rang and it was Keith to tell me that Autoglass couldn't fit my windscreen as he had the wrong one with him. Grrrr! It was re-scheduled for Tuesday and will be done at work which should be fun as the car park will no doubt be full!

Sophie stayed at Susie's house overnight for a sleepover and it was very quiet at home in the evening with just us and Mikey. Not sure I'd want that all the time!

Not having the internet at home at the weekend is a complete pain. I brought the Tesco order home from work and then realised I wasn't able to order it online for Monday morning. Grrrr! I tried again with the router but we can't even connect to a nearby unsecured wifi signal so I have no idea what is wrong. Hopefully on Tuesday we can get it sorted out.

In the morning I helped Keith put our television on the wall in the bedroom and also put up the shelf I bought in Ikea. Keith grumbled a bit, but between us we managed to do it and everything looks a lot tidier now.

Late in the afternoon, when Sophie got back from work we went for a walk again and as it was a beautiful day we took lots of photos. It was blisteringly cold (-5 at lunchtime so the temperature had probably dipped even lower) but never have I seen the countryside look so beautiful. We had a gorgeous sunset which turned the sky a fantastic shade of pink and with the snowy fields and stark outlines of the trees I was in heaven.

When we got home and thawed out I lit all the candles and sat with Keith on the sofa while he watched the football. It was so cosy!

An unwelcome discovery...

Mum and I went off to the bank this afternoon in my car and mum noticed what looked like a nasty crack in the windscreen. Thinking it was just a water mark from the melting snow, I was very upset to discover that it was actually a crack and was caused by a stone hitting my windscreen the day before, when we drove to Ikea.

I was very annoyed and even more upset to find out that my excess for windscreen replacement was £100! Not what I really need right now! I arranged to have it replaced on Sunday, but in the meantime I have to be careful it doesn't spread further.

As I was home from work at a relatively reasonable time, Sophie and I went for a walk in the snow and very restorative it was, too! The peace and quiet over the fields was like a balm to my stressy soul and when we got back, very cold, but happy, I felt a lot better!

A trip to Ikea and more snow...

I was at home until 10am this morning, speaking to AOL and failing to get onto the internet yet again. They've now booked us an engineer to come out next Tuesday so I'm really hoping that will get us sorted.

At work we were busy but it quietened down in the afternoon so we were able to escape to Ikea in Milton Keynes as we needed some stuff for work. The sky looked a bit ominous and the forecast was for snow to hit us in the evening.

We bought lots of things for work and I treated myself to a new shelf for the bedroom, to put our Sky box and DVD player on, which should free up the chest fo drawers I have. I want Keith to put the television on the wall so we can move the drawers to another place. I'm sure he won't be very happy with me!

We managed to get home before it started snowing and I spent a very pleasant evening relaxing and doing very little!