Vote George, ugly duckling

Those of you with staying power might remember the “Vote George” title from 12th May 2008 while we were in holiday in Cape Verde. They were running an election at the time just as we are now but in Cape Verde, there were only two candidates. Both were called “George”. I found this highly amusing and whenever amongst a crowd would shout out, “Vote George”. Eventually, George won so I guess that the one that was known by his nickname, “Scapa” should have held fast.

We started our day out yesterday by visiting the poling station on our way out; good job we did because, it seems that lots of people queued up for over an hour and were still unable to vote because, either the queues were too long or they ran out of ballot papers. What a cock up and how embarrassing for our country. Anyway, right now, it looks like the Conservative party have the most seats but not enough for a majority. It doesn’t look to me like Labour will have enough to form a coalition government with the Lib-Dem’s. I hope that they will form a coalition with the Conservatives; only time will tell.

We had a lovely lunch at the Church in Shenley. We have been there several times before for the Sunday lunch carvery but we heard that they also have one the rest of the week. We have been going to the carvery in Peartree Bridge for ages because its only £3.50 in the week but this one is far superior at £5.25; well worth the extra £1.75. We then waddled off to the city centre for some shopping together starting at the library and Claire did her usual trick of trying to hide from the camera but the large lunch was on my side. Whenever we are at the centre we always stop at the market for some fresh produce.

When our Two Mile Ash flat came back to us, it gave us chance to get around there and cut the grass front and back. Even though there are 12 apartments that share this lawn, the only time it ever gets cut is when we cut it in-between lets and we don’t even live there. Consequently, our hover mower really struggles and we have burnt out several over the years. While I was cutting the front this time, I noticed a huge crack running the entire height of the building. This is not in our block of 6 but the adjoining one but I feel I still need to write and let the management company know so I took several photos. Not that I expect that they will do anything but at least I can say that, “I told you so”. It looks like the adjoining 6 apartments are trying to move away from our block so I guess that the other end of the block is sinking.

Those who followed our adventure around Australia and the world might remember our Christmas, where we couldn’t get broadband and missed our Christmas day lunch because they never came back with a meeting point. Well, they had both taken money from my credit card account, so I phoned the card company to try and claim it back. Unfortunately, I had missed the deadline so nothing could be done. I decided to find their email addresses and write to them just on the off chance of my money back. To my surprise, within 12 hours I had been refunded my money for the broadband that didn’t happen but I have yet to hear from the cruise company. Can’t say I’m surprised because at the time I ended up ringing the wrong company to complain. The other way I tried to save money was to cancel my £16 per 3 month full member fee for the house swap website; (http://www.homexchangevacation.com) we are unlikely to be swapping again this year. Whilst looking how to do this I noticed that they had put a link on their front page to our blog while we were away, which was our last entry, “Around the world in 112 days”. What a nice surprise!

Luckily Claire has had her results back from the “Mole Police” and she is completely clear. However, she has one mole that they would like to take a look at again in a couple of months. I’m sure they would at £95 a session. One thing that Claire forgot to tell you was that after her examination, they have different categories that show how many moles you have. Poor Claire was in the “Ugly Duckling” category. What a cheek, they take your money then call you names!