About a month ago my BT connection failed. I was alerted to the fact by my brother who said he had been ringing for hours and no one had picked up the phone. Firstly, it should only ring 4 times because the answer machine is always on and secondly the phone hadn’t rung because I had been sitting next to it all the time. There was then a bit of a saga with the automated phone service although eventually an operator picked up the phone. Unfortunately it was Saturday and BT engineers don’t work weekends and on top of that all faults take up to ‘three working days’ to fix!
It was fixed quite quickly after the engineers had gone back to work, the engineer explained that it was a switch in the exchange that had become faulty.
Fast forward to today, those of you who read this post from yesterday will have noticed that that I mentioned that my central heating system had gone faulty over the weekend. When the engineers arrived this morning they asked why no one had answered the phone when they rang to say they were coming. What phone call? I thought nothing more of it and they went on to change the part that they thought was causing the problem with the heating. The engineer will check back tomorrow and in a couple of days time to make sure that the problem has been fixed satisfactorily. If it hasn’t he will be back to check out a few more things that could be causing the problem. I can’t complain at that, well done British Gas 
A bit later in the day, my Mum rang to tell me that my Dad had been rushed into hospital and she needed a lift home. I did a bit of rescheduling to make sure I was able to see my Dad before visiting hours were over. When I got there, my Mum asked me where I had been for the day. Apparently she had rung me at 2pm on the home phone… It definitely didn’t ring because I was sitting right next to it!!! Now I am feeling rather miffed with BT because I am paying them for a service which they don’t seem to be able to provide properly. I am especially miffed because the call was an emergency and I should really have been with my Dad this afternoon. Get your act together BT 
Tags: Life, National Trust, Sudbury Hall, Technology
The architecture of chapter house at Buildwas Abbey is Gothic in style and quite beautiful. It was from here that I was treated to that lovely musical surprise.
It is here where the monks would assemble every morning with the abbot presiding over the meeting:
This began with the reading of a lesson and a chapter from the Rule of St Benedict, after which saints and benefactors were commemorated and on certain feast days the abbot delivered a sermon. Matters of the abbey business and estate administration might then be discussed by the community. The chapter meeting was also the occasion when faults were confessed, accusations made and penances assigned. Monks who had transgressed the Rule might be expected to fast on bread and water; flogging was reserved for more serious breaches of discipline.*
The tiles in the bottom photograph are situated in the centre of the chapter house. This wasn’t there original location, but all the tiles are from Buildwas.
*Information from English Heritage guide book.
Tags: Buildwas Abbey, Chapter house, English Heritage, History, me, Self Portrait
Last week was a bit hectic because I had to fit so many things into the time I had available, especially because I had visitors stopping this weekend and I needed to prepare for them too.
Friday and the time of the visitors arrival finally arrived but there was no sign of the visitors… The evening had a tight time schedule involving a Chinese takeaway and a visit to see my parents early in the evening, before my Dad got too tired (because of his chemo treatment). After a phone call it was established that the guests were sitting in a local pub!!! And they were hastily rounded up.
Following that saga my early Saturday hair appointment was quite welcome, I find having my hair done quite relaxing. I was having light perm which means sitting around for a while for the treatments to set. I had to smile when my stylist gave me some magazines to read to stop me getting bored. The rack is full of those tacky, gossipy, tasteless magazines (which I would never read) but she rifled through the rack and brought me the Shropshire Magazine, Shropshire Woman and Country Life. I think she has got me sussed out 
After my hair appointment the plan was to go out for lunch and I had said what time I would be back for. When I got back everyone was sitting around drinking tea and reading papers and not at all ready to go out!!!
Eventually we left the building and made our way to Attingham Park where we enjoyed the sunshine and lunch. We made a tour of the house, it has had a lot of renovations done to it recently which has brought to light some interesting details about the property. I also had my first glimpse of the walled gardens which are a fairly new introduction to the property. On the way back home we visited Sunnycroft which was also interesting and it was nice to see the grounds with very few people around.
The weather was equally as good today so we visited Sudbury Hall and the museum of childhood then came home to a meal that had been bubbling in the slow cooker since this morning. There was a slight technical hitch, but it was delicious anyway.
I have booked the day of tomorrow so that I could have a lie in to recover from the busy week and weekend. Unfortunately the heating system broke on Saturday and although I have turned the heating off it still turns itself on at the allotted times. Today it decided to heat only the upstairs radiators, that should not be possible with the system installed! Anyway, enough of that technical stuff, the bottom line is that I won’t get my lie in because they might just arrive at 8.00 in the morning :-/
Tags: Attingham Park, Life, National Trust, Sudbury Hall, Sunnycroft
Whatever is in any way beautiful has its source of beauty in itself and is complete in itself.
Marcus Aurelius
Tags: Buildwas Abbey, Cherie's Place Thought, English Heritage, Flowers
I mentioned that during my walk in the park last Saturday I felt rather nostalgic, I was really having a deja vue moment. The petals falling around my head triggered a memory.
Calum said he would like to see a picture of why I had that memory, so here it is (you can see both the tree and the bench)…
Those of you who have read the original post will note that I thought the park had been spoiled by the addition of a children’s play area. The play area is now situated just behind the tree and it extends to where you can just about make out the wheel of a car on the left of the picture.
Sorry about the quality of the photo, the scanner hasn’t done the colours justice.
Tags: Dale End Park, me
On the way to work today I needed to fill up my car with petrol so I called in at the nearest petrol station. There was a bit of a queue and the person in front of me was taking a long time.
When I eventually got to the pump I chose the ‘pay at the kiosk option’ and took the hose. As I pulled it towards me to fill up, it dragged the hose for diesel off with it. I hadn’t noticed but someone had managed to twist all the hoses around each other. As I went to pick it up and replace it the pump spewed diesel all over my hand. Lovely! I untangled the wires and tried again and it did the same thing.
By this time I was getting a bit flustered but I thought third time lucky. I managed to get the hose to the car without incident but nothing happened, there was no petrol forthcoming so I pressed the ‘pay at the kiosk’ button again. Still nothing happened and when I went back to look, it said ‘pump in use’ and it had reverted back to the previous sale. I rather sceptically pressed the button a further time and this time I got the helpful message ‘preparing pump’. At last I got to fill up the car, after which I found a tissue to wipe the diesel off my hand.
I went inside to pay then hopped in the car and set off towards work. On the way there I heard an odd clunk and wondered what it was. I found out when I got to work that it was the petrol cap cover banging shut. It is the first time ever I have forgotten to put the petrol cap back on the car!! Thankfully these days they are attached to the car so you don’t lose them and mine has the added benefit of clipping over the cover.
What a start to the day…
Tags: Fabia, Life, Petrol, Petrol Station, Skoda
The plants are very well covered in the Orchard House at Cragside.
More views of the Orchard House and other views of Cragside can be found here.
For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.
Tags: Cragside, National Trust, The Orchard House
