It always comes in threes

Well, I returned from my time with Mum and brought a guest with me. I found out that my mobile phone camrea had stuffed up (again) my car was leaking oil and my Satelite Pro A10 laptop had lost its display.

The phone was still under warantee (just) and has now gone away for repair. (with all my phone numbers in it) The car got the RAC called out to it (those people have never let me down; well worth the money to have all the U.K. extras) and it turned out to be a leaking oil pressure switch; so they towed me to the nearest garage. The A10 got a support request filed about it on Toshiba's web site so I'll see what happens next on that, but I think that the power inverter has gone ga-ga; shouldn't be too expensive and I can fit the inverter myself because it is probably out of warantee.

The garage just called up to let me know the repairs were £35 (at which I am well impressed from a Ford dealer) the A10 is now hooked up to an external monitor for the short term and I've got a loan mobile phone while mine is away (there are sometimes benefits to being on a contract)

All that while I play host to a friend who I am trying to help get through his computer exams. Easy, you might think, but this particular person doesn't exist ... twice ... except to pay tax, but more about him later.

With regards the trip to my Mum, everything went reasonably fine, except that I've now developed this nervous twitch in my left eye. Mum carried on the usual triad of, "Do you want a cuppa," "Fancy something to eat," and, "Got any laundry?" I now hear those phrases with such monotonous regularity in my head that I seriously considered getting some decks out and scratching a tune to the, "Mother nag rap."

Saturday was spent in a big town, shopping in Liddls. I recognised much of the stuff that I used to eat while out in Germany. Most of it is relatively tasteless, like the Dr Oateker mozarella cheese pizza, which needs a good helping of fried bacon and mushrooms on top of it to give it any flavour. There are some good bargains there if you know what to look for, but it did sort of twist what little is left of my brain to find the hardware bins full of stuff for golfing and horse care. The only way I could explain that away to myself was to believe that the German buying team reserached our market by watching Emerdale Farm. There was also a mini hi-fi system that looked an awful lot like an enlarged iPod. Law suit pending somewhere, I think.

Sunday was spent cleaning the car and digging out all the crap from behind the passenger seat. You know the stuff I mean; it's the stuff that slowly builds up on the passenger seat, that you shove there quickly as a last option when having to carry the next passenger. That is always good for a few surprises, and usually explains some of the odd smells that have been lingering in the car for a while.

Monday was spent relaxing while waiting for the remainder of Mum's new bedroom furniture to turn up, and then dropping in on some friends on the way home, also picking up another friend on the way, who was spending a few days with me at my home. Yeh, I know, it does get a bit difficult to follow at times, but whenever I go anywhere it is almost obligatory that I have to call in on everyone that I haven't seen for ages. It always seems to be that I never get to go from A to B without going via C, D, E and sometimes F to boot. Still, it is good to see my friends, even if only for a few snatched hours at a time.