Many Unhappy Returns

Now I don't want to sound like an ungrateful and miserable old fart but we have just got home following my wonderful short birthday break to find that Southport (or at least our road) appears to have suffered some sort of hurricane during the 48 hours or so that we have been away and all our garden pots have blown over. Sad to say, the most beautiful (and expensive) pot is now in half a dozen pieces although we have salvaged the mature plant that was in it. God knows where we will find another like it, we have had it for years. There are other breakages but as we have £250 excess on the home insurance it will hardly be worth claiming. When we got back from holiday in the summer we found that the freezer had defrosted and left us with a soaking stinking mess in the kitchen. This is one of those years that insurance excesses look like false economy.

Oh well. At least we can look back 48 hours when the sun shone and the Yorkshire Dales were warm and welcoming.Marion even managed to take her anorak off.



And I found some unusual mushrooms.



Tomorrow sees a return to work and important decisions to take on our staff annual pay review. Having listened to Radio 4 for most of yesterday and today whilst driving around Yorkshire and back home, you would have thought that the world was coming to an end and we would be making everyone redundant or at least giving them a pay cut. I really don't see what good all this doom and gloom is doing and, whilst I don't want to sound blase or flippant we could do with some more positive and upbeat news. Instanta sales were up in the year to 31st August. OK it wasn't a mega increase but it was an increase and, if we can do the same again this year then perhaps we can squeeze something out for the staff. No promises mind.

I just took a quick look at the Pick the Scores League Standings on the Guardian website from between gaps in my fingers. It's pretty horrific stuff with Office Manager Jenny Wright way out ahead of the field again and me languishing mid table. Which reminds me. Where exactly are Manchester United at the moment?



Oh well. Better enjoy the rest of my day off. I got a lot of nice presents including a very unusual puzzle from my daughter Sarah. It's a really super and enigmatic piece of engineering and I am sure that it will give me a lot of pleasure before I start scouring the Internet for the solution.