All sorted

What a difference a day makes. The Director of Music replied today, thus:

Dear Tenon,

My apologies for the response you received last night - we have recently recruited two Assistants in the department to help with the volume of work during our interregnum. The web-site is a serious problem at the moment, and I have been "going up the wall" over the last week about its poor state of health. We will have a new web-site by November, but for now I am told, it has to stay in its current sorry state. I have already spoken to the assistant who was dealing with the desk yesterday and dealt with the matter accordingly. [Does he mean somebody answered his e-mail for him?]

Many thanks for giving Freddie some time on his little solo for Evensong tonight ... I thought it might be useful to connect what he does with you and with us.

How lucky you are to have been a chorister under Stanley Vann.

Best wishes

'Bob'

Help needed

Can anyone tell me if this is a rude e-mail? (See below) [Edit: i.e. the bit I sent him]

On Friday I was asked to run over a church anthem with a singing pupil of mine. I mentioned that I may go and listen to him sing the solo. The parents said it was to be performed in the morning when I am at school.

Today they texted me to say it was actually in the evening, so I can go. I decided to visit the church website and see what the canticles were going to be in the service. The music page has not been updated since March.

I sent this quick e-mail to the webmaster:

[EDIT on Sunday: Actually I emailed the Director of Music. I now recall that the contact page said this was the thing to do - I am thus even more confused by his answer]

Hi (note the cheery greeting)

The Music list on your website is VERY out of date!
URL of webpage pasted here so he could let me know if I had navigated to the wrong page.

Tenon Saw
(Director of Music)
A school in the Midlands

He replied

As is the manner of your e-mail. (That was it!)

Weird or what?

I have replied but await, with interest, your views.

No bang bang

I have tidied out the garage today as well as the shed. There is more to do but one car load went to the tip; other items will be free-cycled. We need the space to store our new kitchen units before they are installed.

Two days ago I was unable to find either of my hammers. I didn't need one but I saw they were not where they should have been. Todyay's work has revealed they are not in the tool box, nor on the shelves or in the shed. A mystery!

I can only conclude that some local thief has entered my garage on the very rare occasions I leave the door open (and they are both rare and brief) and helped himself. But - I ponder - why did he not take anything else such as my electric drill?

Dead Computer

My PC died yesterday. I was working away and went to answer the door. I was delayed in conversation and, when I went back, the screen was off. "Only have to wiggle the mouse" thought I. No way, it was dead and not just the video card. The main board gone. New one ordered.

Lay a garland

I've just had a sad e-mail from a friend who has planned the music for the funeral of singer who was as close to her as a sister. One of the pieces I didn't know but really strikes a chord, even just reading the words.

Lay a garland on her hearse
of dismal yew.
Maidens, willow branches wear,
say she died true.
Her love was false, but she was firm
Upon her buried body lie
lightly, thou gentle earth.

Does anyone know why I can see this in Firefox and not in IE?

Sausage Rolls

I have never understood the Sausage Roll or the fact that people like them.

Why take an already unhealthy butchery product (sausage meat) and wrap it in flour and fat?

Evening Out

Mrs TS and I went to see Julie and Julia tonight; quite funny if a little long. The reviews sum it up correctly I feel. The cinema was mostly populated with women who laughed at the knob joke (but it was a good one).

Oink and snort

Apologies if you left a comment and it has only just appeared (i.e. Sorry Steve and The Sagittarian and I hope everyone else is enjoying the blog)

The fact is we started back at school this week and I have been very busy. We had special training on Wednesday (which was very boring) and we had our normal pre-term day on Thursday.

As usual, we went through a list of all the pupils at school and issues were raised of an educational or medical nature. Calm down - we only have 95 pupils, not the 1300 or so at my last place of baby minding work.

We are given a list of information which we check, and we also receive updates.

The Latin teacher, who was sitting next to me, drew my attention to one boy's details. I can see somebody was trying to save space on the sheet but their abbreviation was so funny I could not contain myself and grunted/snorted like a pig as I strained to keep quiet. This was followed by much lip-biting on my part in the hope the pain would allow me to keep my laughter in. Here is an imaginary extract from our list. (LSU = Learning Support Unit)

Peter Smith: Maths LSU, Asthma, no nuts, colour blind.

Poor chap.

Life ain't cheap

In July, Mrs TS and I decided to replace our 20 year old kitchen which looks rather grubby and is past saving by cleaning; moisture and I suppose grease, has done for some of the doors.

We approached a well-known DIY store for a quote on the basis that a friend of mine had had hers done and was very pleased. The man came with his laptop (which crashed twice) and did a plan and priced it up. The fitting came to more than the kitchen was worth so I approached another high street store for a design and quote. This came to somewhat less but they only gave a 'dry fit' price and a table of charges from which we needed to calculate the total cost of work to be done. This included plumbing, electrics, tiling and so on.

The third company told us lies - that we had to have an extractor hood and needed to sign a disclaimer if we didn't want one. This is not true, the council told us, and so they were sent packing.

The fourth company convinced Mrs TS that a full size dishwasher was better in that whilst we had opted for a slimline model, the space saved was not worth the effort.

Unfortunately the full size dishwasher messed up the total measurements of the units on that side of our gallery style kitchen. The DIY stores can only supply units in certain sizes (400cm, 500cm, 600cm etc.) but I have no wish to bore you.

At 2am today after going through all the figures and plans we finally made the decision to opt for the more expensive of the 3 quotes. So it's beans on toast for tea for six months. Seriously, there's the old adage buy cheap, buy twice. Mrs TS will have to do without her new clothes.

Today I wanted a kettle - ours has sprung a leak. What a problem it was to choose one.

Tesco had several options ranging from £5 up to £34.00. Regular readers may recall that I last bought a kettle in January 2008, so I am somewhat miffed that it has had such a short life. I keep all my credit card slips but doubt I shall be able to locate any documentation relating to the old kettle.

In days gone by they built things to last. Compton organs were well made, it appears. My first organ teacher was a real fan. They also built theatre organs (indeed they probably started with those and went on to church organs later).

It's good to see that one of their instruments has been rescued and still actually worked when it was discovered.

Panic buy now

Thanks Classic FM.

As I drove into work today (not that I am at work but I thought I'd pop in if only to say "Hello" to the piano tuner) the final story on the Classic FM news was about the impending tea shortage.

Now, how long will it be before the supermarket shelves are empty?

Not that this radio station will be to blame as many news organisations now carry the story. I was annoyed by the way Classic FM used it as a funny snippet of news with which to end the bulletin; a Dead Donkey story in other words.

Blog Power

Had I not blogged about Gift Aid I might never have found the answer, so I am grateful to Taxback (whoever s/he is) for leading me to THIS PAGE.

I still think it is a silly system.

I have also heard [from elsewhere] that I can claim the tax back myself, so HMRC loses out twice! I know I can list charities on my Tax Return but I'm not sure if that is sufficient. (Taxback....)