Sue's Blog - Some assembly required.

No Sniffles Please.........we're British

An odd weekend.
We had plans to put up the outside icicle lights as the weather was really good.
In fact we made a stab at putting them up until I stupidly asked if he had tested them first.
No he hadn't. We had only bought these ones last year. New fangled LED lights that save you loads of money.
Well.........they probably would save you money if they lasted more than one year.
Most didn't work.
So, we took down the ones we put up and starting trying to find the dodgy ones.
According to the box.......they are supposed to stay alight even if one is busted.
We dragged them all indoors again amid mutterings of " I don't fancy paying another $60 for more poxy lights" and I left him to test them.
It turned out that quite a few had corroded. The wire that makes them light up (I know this might be a bit technical for some of you but stay with me) was all cruddy......right through.
He thinks these ones might be the ones that were frozen in the real icicles for about 5 months.
Seems daft now I think about it.
Blooming house is covered in snow and icicles for months at a time and we put "icicle" lights up.
Anyway, they need another "coat of looking at" before we decide if they can be salvaged.

The next job on the "to do" list was steam clean the carpets.
We found a steam cleaner at a bargain price in the sale. So, the plans were to whizz all around the house steaming and cleaning like Billy O.........whoever he is.
We soon found out that you don't "whizz around" with a steam cleaner. You progress very slowly going over and over one little bit until it looks cleaner than it did. You then try to go on to the next little bit only to find out your super, duper, machine is out of water and cleaning fluid, is bunged up with carpet fibre and needs to be emptied and refilled ad "nauseam".
Fortunately we had several buckets of "ad nauseam" that needed using up so we pressed on.
Actually we gave up after doing half of the living room............it is ......."to be continued".

My better half has got a bad leg. Well a bad leg, hip and knee.
He has been limping around like a limping around thing for days. It wasn't the lights fiasco or the carpet cleaning expedition that caused it as he had it before then.
He should really go to the doctor and maybe have an x ray, but he can't.
Why? Because he is only allowed 8 sick days a year and because he hurt his leg earlier in the year and then he recently had flu, he has used them all up.
At least he gets some sick days. A lot of people don't get any. The first company he worked for would take a day off your vacation time for any day you had out sick.
When you consider how little vacation time you get .......that in itself is sick.
A lot of companies here don't give any vacation for the first year. After that year you begin to accrue vacation days.
You would get maybe a day per year for every two months you worked after that first year.
So you could get maybe 5 or 6 days a year.
This is just how it is here, the vacation days are so precious. He doesn't come over to England as it would take most of his vacation for a decent trip so he prefers to have a few days spread out through the year. The trip to see his brother is special but he only has 5 days.
Mad isn't it? They wouldn't stand for it in Europe.
Americans are very hard working people and I suppose this is the way it has always been.
At Christmas they only get Christmas Day off. One day!!!! Boxing Day doesn't exist. This year will be brill for us as Christmas Day is on a Friday. This means Philip will get Saturday and Sunday making it a much better break for him.
At Easter he gets two hours off on Good Friday ..........but Easter Monday doesn't exist here so it is back to work.

He phoned me a little while ago. There are 15 people out sick with oink flu in his department.
Oh poor things........I hope they haven't used all their 8 sick days already. I also hope that the flu he had recently was oink flu then he won't catch it now.

posted by Sue Banks @ 8:24 AM