Thursday, December 01, 2005

A Random Train of Thoughts

Had good fun back in Dundee last week. Caught a weird and very crude show at the Rep, Ubu the King, Harry Potter 4 (more on that later) and generally chilling out. It was good reminding myself what home looks like and the train journeys were quite relaxing (note - taking a laptop makes long journeys pass much quicker). The journey up was harder than the journey back, though I had to stand as soon as I changed trains into the crappy English Midland rail network.

Thing's haven't been dull since I got back.

After getting back to work in Leicester on Monday ol' faithful B. decided to act up again. He's not been happy with me taking holiday in term time - originally gleefully tell me I would lose most of my holidays as I couldn't take any during term. On my return he lasted about 10 minutes before bringing it up as an excuse for him not to do any work that day on our help desk.

On Tuesday, while en-route to work for my 9:30 lab I got a puncture about two streets away on the main road to Uni. Rather than be run over by the mad motorists of Leicester I finally got to use my AA membership, so my 9:00am arrival turned into a 10:30 arrival.

The AA guy was really helpful but the wifie on the phone asked daft questions because of the nature of my AA membership. She wanted to know the date of my last servicing. I gave her a vague date, she wasn't happy. She demanded silly bits of information such as the postcode for garage that serviced me (Arnold Clark's on the shore front on Dundee - would you know the postcode off the top of your head after a breakdown). Purely by chance I had the receipt from my last service so I was able to find the date, address and postcode of my last service. My blood donor card meant I was also able to tell her my bloodtype.

After I limped into work A. recommended a particularly fine tyre company to repair the puncture and they even fitted it back on for a mere £8. Last year (yeah - I expect no more flats for a while) when I got a puncture it cost me an extra £50 to resurface the alloy-wheels that had been scratched and I drove 8 miles before realising.

Sitting in my car at 0 degrees centigrade waiting on the AA dude probably explains why I've come down with yet another cold and taken the day off work. I suspect I'll be paying for that with the office Fuhrer tomorrow.

Also I was forced to choose between my staff-do and a fencing meal on the 15th. I've chosen the staff-do so it should be interesting.

No comments: