(c) J Pearce 2005

7/1/2005

Today we have got back from our Honeymoon. We have spent the last two weeks in Tenerife. What a fantastic place.

It has been great to be away both over Christmas and New Year. The people were very welcoming, the hotel, The Puerto Palace, was second to none. The food was great, the service was second to none and the weather was so much nicer than in the UK. We had a couple of days rain in the first week, but then it was just summer. I wish I could afford to do it every year.

New year was a real feast, and if you look in the album section you’ll see Jack and I in disguise, amongst other pictures. We took loads of pictures and I got them on here before I even printed any off. You gotta love digital cameras.

22/1/2005

We called to see one of Claire’s friends today to see her new baby. It’s a little stunner and there will be pictures in the 2005 album. Good luck to Mathew James.

6/3/2004

Well, it’s been a while again. I’ve not really got a good reason either; other than the fact that I’ve been ill for a couple of weeks, and the fact that I’ve discovered Binaries news groups. That coupled with my love of radio plays has been my downfall. I think I’ve managed to download in a couple of weeks of being ill enough plays to keep me going into my old age, if I start listening now.

Work is going about as well as work always goes, but if it were meant to be fun it wouldn’t be called ‘work’ would it?

I’ve not heard from Sam for a week, her mothers acting strange again so it could take a while longer before I get to hear from her. Time will tell.

The rest of the family is fine. We don’t seem to have done a lot just lately, but its hard to get motivated and get out when the weather is crap. Still as the new National Trust membership has come through, I’m sure we will be back out and about soon. We don’t all want to turn into couch potatoes. I’ll have to start thinking about what we fancy doing this year, the nicer weather will be here soon, I hope.

I still need to get some more pictures sorted out for this site, I’ll aim to get that done soon as well.

That’s it for now, hopefully I’ll be back soon to write some more. ;-)

8/7/05

Well its been months since my last update once again. I always mean to visit more often, but the best of intentions doesn’t seem to help me to actually sit down and start writing.

Ok, the reason its taken me so long to update this time is that I’ve been too busy, not that I can remember now half the things that seem to have taken my time.

Let’s start then at what I can remember and hope the rest drops in as I go along.

Claire and I went to see Kylie Minogue on the 24^th of April for the ‘Show Girl’ tour. I have to say that despite my initial doubts this was a show worth seeing, a fantastic performance and although miss Minogue may not have the best voice in the world for live performance, it was great to see her strut her stuff.

One of the major things that has happened in my life was the acquiring of a new car. What a drama this has been.

I took my time, I went and started to have a look around at different manufacturers, considered new versus old, test drove the one I fancied. Ordered the one I fancied. Then waited. But only for a couple of weeks before being told that I could have the car I wanted in any colour so long as it was silver. Now don’t get me wrong, silver is a nice colour, but every other car on the road seems to be silver these days. Furthermore, I was buying a new car, for the first time in my life a brand new car, I wanted to be able to choose what bloody colour it was.

To cut a long story short, and it was a very long story, I wrote to the manufacturer direct and they put me in touch with a different dealer, the car was ordered for the second time. I was given an expected delivery time of up to six weeks, as I had over two months MOT left on my present car this tied in rather well.

Or it would have if they had completed the transaction on time. It ended up with me keeping the car past the initial delivery date. They forgot to order it for delivery! Then the timing belt went on my old car. Bang went the part ex I was using to pay for part of the new car, then delivery was late again, I lived like a pedestrian for two weeks. It was awful.

Not sure if its just my face but I had a problem with PCWorld as well. I bought a PC for Daniel via the PCWorld website, got a fairly good deal, £250 for a Refurbished/returned pc. I was pleased and so was Daniel when it came, not just because it was over two months before his birthday. Unfortunately when he unpacked it, it didn’t work. No problem, a couple of calls to PCWorld and date for pick and return was arranged. This was where my problems started. The pickup went ahead, three days early, service indeed!

And that was the last we heard of the parcel. I had receipt, everyone accepted that, but officially the parcel was not missing. I was fuming, I got on to customer support and stayed arguing my point that they should send me out a replacement and that it was not my fault there courier could not find the goods. I had a receipt!

Customer services are nice enough, but they only have so much power to help you. I took my problem as far as I could with them, then asked for a contact address and wrote the whole sorry saga down and got my letter ready for sending. I decided to send copies of the letter I was sending via email to the CEO of Dixons and the MD of PCWorld as well. This I carried out. 10:00 hrs, or near enough the next day, I had a call from PCWorld, apologising about the poor service I had received. Recompense was made and it was arranged that I should pick up a new pc from my nearest store. This shows that a large company like PCWorld do care, its just a matter of getting through to the right person.

Been to see a few films, the best of which was Star Wars Episode III great film, not many surprises but its difficult to make a prequel surprising. The one thing that did surprise me was that R2D2 seemed to have been turned into a Swiss Army penknife, he had loads of gadgets, they must have just fallen off 20 years later in the original Star Wars, coz by then he was just a wheelie type box that couldn’t make it down a flight of steps, unless he was falling down them.

Also went to see Mr and Mrs Smith, this is a not bad film, well worth a watch, if only to see Miss Jolie bouncing all over the screen.