WHAT A SHOCK!

What a shock I had the other day when I opened one of my email accounts. It is one I would like to dispose of but the only thing I can do apparently is ignore it. The reason I have gone off this account is because it lets in all the spam, scam, and rubbish it can find. I don’t get that with Google!

Having both iPhone and iPad means there is no escape from the internet. I tried to remove the one I don’t like but in the end had to re-establish it because Apple preferred it that way. Apple simply wouldn’t recognise anything else for identification of yours truly. So it proved necessary to go back occasionally to see if there’s any rubbish to dispose of.

I used the word rubbish without thinking, but little did I know the truth of it.

On the last visit I found an email from Netflix via iTunes confirming the purchase of a month’s worth of film viewing. Apparently the subscription would expire after a month and I needed to renew it. To do this I had to click the link!

I HAD NOT ORDERED SUCH A THING!

My brain being what it is these days I panicked. Fortunately, I did nothing except contact Hannah (remember Hannah, former cleaner, now mother of new baby) and ask if her husband could sort it out. My panic was so great I couldn’t think straight.

The next day George and Hannah and Oooooh new baby arrived. George took a look at the email and immediately declared it was scam. He fed the email address into his own phone and came up with something other than what my email purported it to be. It had seemed so authentic (see picture, if it’s clear enough) but George declared it to be one big hoax.

I don’t think I have ever trusted anything that comes into my email box and certainly I will never trust anything again, but I can understand the many newspaper reports on people – usually elderly - who have been taken in by such things. My warning to others is DON’T EVER TRUST ANYTHING THAT APPEARS IN YOUR EMAIL BOX.

I will leave you now and set about changing all my passwords. Again!

THIS AND THAT

My latest read is a book by Lee Childs called A Wanted Man which was published last year. I’ve only just started it but already I feel the excitement that precedes a good read. Lee Childs is a local man, coming from Coventry in the UK. Coventry is roughly about 20 miles from my home so I think of Lee as local man made good.  The fact that he now lives in the US is irrelevant. New York Times described the book as “Smart, breathless... more ingenious than other Reacher books” ... hence my excitement.

Another thing that excites me is the release of new traffic clampdowns when police are expected to focus on:

• Driving too close to the vehicle in front
•  Failure to give way at junctions
• Overtaking and pushing into a queue of traffic (oh the times I see that!) 
•  Being in the wrong lane and pushing into a queue at a roundabout (that happens ALL the time)
• Needles hogging in middle or outside lanes
• Inappropriate speed
•  Wheel spins, handbrake turns and other careless manoeuvres

It would make my day to see those culprits picked up and dealt with. Perhaps if they were all arrested there would be more room in the car parks. Although, having said that, I was lucky enough to have an entire floor in the local car park all to myself. As Joe would say, they must have seen me coming and kept out of the way!

The other day I received an unusual email from a gentleman trying to trace my WI institute. Apparently his mother recently died and amongst her possessions he found a nicely bound recipe book with recipes from members of, yes, MY WI. He asked if we would like it. I didn’t even wait to ask the President... I just said yes. Well, you never know, it might be valuable.

The guy got my name from a blog I once edited for the WI. The blog is no longer in existence but apparently Google still had it ‘on file’. Strange, because when I Google’d it out of curiosity I was ‘told’ it no longer existed. I wasn’t even given details of a post prior to the discontinuation yet the guy said he saw the last one dated April 2013. Isn’t that amazing? But I’m getting away from the point.

The man used to live in my area so whilst writing he tossed in a few names that we might know. The plan now is to have a slot at the next committee meeting so that I can throw the names at the members and see if they remember anything. There was only one name I knew but I’m not sure if she was one of our members or one of the other WIs.

Isn’t it strange what we get in our inbox?

Finally, a bit about bites...

This year I’ve had my fair share of insect bites. Strangely enough they all seemed to come in awkward places like the crook of the arm or leg, thereby reducing the healing time. Whenever I moved the bite disappeared inside the fold of flesh which had the effect of continual scratching. And that, as we all know, is not recommended. I’m thinking of putting arrows on my skin to indicate where the insect should bite. Someone told me that only those with an excess amount of sugar in their blood get bitten; if that's true and considering I don't take sugar or eat many sugary foods, does it mean I'm depriving insects of their daily ration, or is it because they're so desperate for the sweet stuff they'll eat anything? 

SCRAPS OF STUFF

Isn’t it great when a bit of humour appears out of nothing? Quite often I will send reminder notes to myself by email. With a memory like mine it’s a dependable way of making sure I don’t forget something important plus the fact that it’s faster than trying to find pen and paper. Occasionally, if I find something on the internet that I think would interest Joe I send him a link by email. Recently though, when one of the emails didn’t arrive on his iPad I went back on line to search for it. Could I find it? Could I heck! At that point Joe made the comment that it ‘shouldn’t have lost its way, after all I’m only in the next room.’ Droll or what? He’s quite a comic on the quiet.

Do you ever have spiders on the bedroom ceiling? If so, does it worry you? Can you sleep if there’s one hovering above you? I had one visit me the other night. It hung down on a thread then scurried back up. After a few seconds it tried again but when I sneezed the silly arachnid took fright and went back to the safety of the ceiling.  Or so he thought. What he hadn’t reckoned on was my ability to get out of bed and fetch a long-handled duster from the next room. It must have seen me coming because he scarpered the minute I went back in the room and now I’m wondering exactly where he is..............

(Picture courtesy www.hsj.co.uk)

I had to take Joe to the hospital for tests the other day for an appointment at 19.00 hours. While he was being seen to I stayed in a little waiting room shared by a nurse/receptionist, who was on the phone the whole time.  Her one-sided conversation was fascinating. The person she was talking to, known to us listeners as Darlin’, had obviously missed an appointment and was trying to get another one for that day. The nurse explained that the department closed at 20.00 hours and pointed out that the journey would take too long and by the time she/he got there they would have all gone home. She offered to fix another appointment for next day but Darlin’ obviously didn’t want that.

To us that would be enough of an explanation, but to Darlin’ it was obviously a big problem and she/he kept repeating the request for an appointment that evening. Well, the nurse went all round the globe trying to explain but Darlin’ just couldn’t get it. Eventually, a nursing sister arrived and took over the phone, and the listeners were treated to yet another extensive one-sided discourse with the same things being explained over and over again. Their attitude and patience over that twenty minute period and the way they treated the patient was incredible and I got to wondering how many people, in this day and age, would be as tolerant? If medals could be handed out I’d give one each to those remarkable nurses.

With Google Reader on the way out I joined both FEEDLY and BLOGLOVIN just in case Google removed my blogroll as well. So far, so good with the blogroll although I have noticed one or two hiccups in recent days. Normally I just click on the blog title and get straight in but once or twice certain blogs have been missing in action  from the list. I found them by visiting Bloglovin!

I have to admit that I didn’t get on well with Feedly (couldn’t get the hang of it) so made Bloglovin the main one. Having found the blogs I wanted I went on a visit, via Bloglovin. No problem, that is until I tried to leave a comment and found I couldn’t. I got round it by copy/pasting the blog’s URL but it was a bit inconvenient. All is well on Bloglovin today though, comments could be left, but it just shows that it’s not only Google that occasionally backfires. I have yet to check the blogroll.

Now for a bit of macabre humour:

I have just completed my funeral plan at the funeral parlour and what a laugh that has provided. I thought it would be a gloomy thing to do but it was just the opposite. I now have to think what I want to wear on the big day and if I want people to visit. Gosh, a visit means having a decent coffin and best clothes, doesn’t it? I’m a bit proud, you know, I don’t want people to think I hadn’t bothered about appearances.

In discussion with the person arranging my plan I was asked what music I wanted. I chose West Life’s ‘You Lift Me Up’ on entry and ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life’ at the end because I want people to go out smiling. One thing that made me feel good was a suggestion she made to me. I had given her my ‘profile’... you know the sort of thing, where I worked and why ... and she remarked on the bit about achievements. So I told her about the story that won the Lady Denman Cup... A Man In My Life. She asked to read it.... and the upshot of that is that she thinks it should also be read out at the Crem. If that’s not an honour, I don’t know what is. For obvious reasons I won’t be able to let you know how it goes.... grins.

Oh well, that’s enough stuff for today. I don’t want to bore you to death ... especially if you haven’t ‘done a plan’.