Thrills, spills, and camping

Yesterday, the hooligans and I pootled down to Monmouth with our bikes and cycled along the Peregrine Path which follows the River Wye from Monmouth to Symonds Yat.

The weather was good, and it was a great ride, with wonderful scenery. We picnicked on the way, grabbed an ice cream in Symonds Yat, and turned around for the return journey.

Boy 2 insisted on weaving at speed on the gravel track, despite my repeated warnings that at some point he was going to come a cropper, and it would hurt. As with much of Boy 2's life, he learnt the hard way, and over the handlebars he went in spectacular fashion. He was bloody lucky, not that he thought it at the time. I whipped out the first aid kit (pretty much goes everywhere with us with our deathwish offspring) and started cleaning him up. Gashed chin, cut hands, not too bad.

He proceeded to howl the Wye Valley down, screaming for his Mum, hospital, and bizarrely, a lifeboat. My efforts to calm him down were largely unsuccessful, leading to Boy 1 to declare. 'I'm off, I'll meet you at the next corner, you two look mental, and I don't want people, to think we're related.' Off he went shaking his head and I'm sure I heard him mutter 'Lifeboat? Nutter'

Cheers.

The next two weekends will be tent based and we have finally upgraded our faithful four man job, too a rather natty new one with three sleeping compartments. Oh, the luxury, and it was end of line and cost very little.

This weekend with friends for a chums birthday party in mid Wales, and next weekend with another group of friends at the Green Man Festival. I'm very much looking forward to both. Let's hope for some decent weather.

Yay! Talktalk, finally sorted

After six months of phone calls, the email sent below finally solicited a response which resolved the situation.

But they told me off for swearing.

An incident was created in RightNow:

Subject: Billing

Contact Data:

First name: Gumpher

Last name

Email: @hotmail.co.uk

Mobile Phone:

Home Phone:

Office Phone:

Incident Data:

Question:

Customer: Gumpher at 2010-08-01 22:58:26

I cannot access my account, as despite phoning you every month for the past

six months, you have consistently been unable to recognise that my email

address is @hotmail.co.uk, not 1@hotmail.co.uk.

Each time I have phoned, the person on the end of the call has assured me

that the problem has been rectified, yet each time it has not.

I cannot access my bills. Until I see a bank statement, I do not know how

much you are charging me.

This situation has now gone beyond annoying, and descended into customer

service of such shite proportions that it is simply farcical.

Are you capable of getting this right? What do I have to do to make you

get it right? Why did some fool at your end change my email address? It's

been the same for years. @hotmail.co.uk, NOT fucking

1@hotmail.co.uk.

I await your reply, but suspect that there are chimps in zoos who could

help me more.

Go on, give it a whirl, otherwise I'm going to BT,and you can stick your

contract up your arse, as a contract is a two way thing.

Incident ID: 5824267

Incident reference: 100801-001615

Incident Subject: Billing

Back again

We swam in the surf on near empty beaches.

We caught lots of crabs.

We ate grilled sardines and fried eels.

We had ice cream every day.

We drank near frozen Sagres and cheap cold red wine.

We all read.

We did an awful lot of not a lot at all.

We all rather enjoyed it.