Saturday, 24 May 2014

Daisy Turnip writes.....

Test! It's been a while! 

Monday, 10 August 2009

In the words of Bob Geldof........

Daisy Turnip writes.....

We're a perfectly formed, but very small IT team and this week IT Jnr, AKA IT Geek, is on annual leave. We miss IT Jnr very much when he's away (and it's nothing to do with the fact that he deals with the overwhelming majority of the 1st tier IT support calls).

First thing this morning (and it had been a heavy weekend), I was sitting at my desk, pumping myself up for a meeting with the new web developers along with a couple of internal meetings, when IT Snr, AKA IT Guru, came purposefully walking round the corner, he had a rabbit 'caught in the headlights' kind of stare going on on his face, he then purposefully pointed back at the server room and said firmly, 'do you have a minute?' - no, it wasn't a question, it was most definitely a, 'get your backside round here NOW!'

Because he's on leave this week and wanted to finish off some bits and bobs before leaving for the week, IT Jnr was the last to leave the office on Friday. The look on IT Snr's face made me think that IT Jnr was stuck in the server room and had been there for the entire weekend - probably dead, due to the Icelandic conditions of our amazing air con system!

I didn't even get to the server room - the heat simply hit me when I was about 500 yards away! Wow, tropical.

Yes, you've guessed it, there was a problem with the air con unit - it too had had a heavy weekend and was confused with its purpose in life. Instead of blowing out cold, crispy clear air, it had decided to have a wobbly and was now chucking out 80 degree tropical waves. Trust me we simply couldn't breathe in there.

Servers squealing and warning lights flashing - it really wasn't a pretty sight first thing on a Monday morning.

All is well now, the AC engineers have been and carried out their magic, otherwise known as vacuumed out the external vent (I'm sure this is part of the annual service programme (mental note to go and check this). But dear oh dear what do you think the rest of the week is going to be like!?


I don't like Mondays either Bob.

Wednesday, 1 July 2009

Make Yourself at Home 'Son'

Daisy Turnip writes.....

The teenage son of one of my closest friends is staying with us this week as he’s on work experience at hubby’s place of work.

On Sunday, as they were about to leave home to bring him down to our house, said friend phoned, asking if we had a spare portable TV teenage son could use so that he could bring his playstation with him. There’s currently a spare TV sitting in the garage, waiting to go back to uni with daughter in September. I said, ‘Sure, bring it down’.

Teenage lodger turned up and promptly asked for the TV, which we gave to him, but we couldn’t find the remote control. I told him to set up the playstation in our bedroom and he could use it in the evenings when he came home from work.

I went upstairs later that evening to find the monstrosity of the old portable TV (without the remote control) in our bedroom and sitting, ON A CHAIR, in the spare room, with new teenage lodger, was our fancy flash flat screen TV, now being used to play some car chasing playstation game. ‘Oh, you all settled in then? Good’ I said!


No Question Time in bed for me tomorrow night!



Sunday, 21 June 2009

Is it cooked yet?

Daisy Turnip writes.....

Oh dear! My work laptop died a week ago - it's still in ICT A&E and I now have a laptop on loan.

I was doing a spot of work this afternoon and knocked an entire mug of tea over the keyboard!

Hubby had a great idea - put the laptop in the oven on the defrost setting (which just circulates air around the oven).

The laptop has now been in the oven for the last couple of hours!

I now have fingers and all other bits and bobs crossed!



Thursday, 4 June 2009

Coming Home and Being in the Pink


Daisy Turnip writes.....

Daughter has now finished uni for the summer and has started to gradually bring her things back from Halls – ‘I can do it,’ very quickly came the response, when I asked if she needed any help. Mother suspects that Daughter is a little concerned that Mother might have a heart attack when she sees how Daughter has been living over the last 10 months.

Yesterday, daughter and favourite nephew drove to uni and filled up the car with her belongings. Last night they brought in boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff and dropped them on the kitchen floor – they looked so chuffed with themselves, as their ordeal, for the day, was over. And I sighed with a heavy heart, as we have a second house viewing at the weekend and have no idea where we are going to put all of this stuff ie mountains of pasta, heaps of tinned sweet corn, opened packages of food, unopened items of food, more tinned sweet corn, mouldy items of food, clothes (dirty), more pasta, 2 lots of bedding (dirty), towels (dirty), kettle, iron, more tinned sweet corn,cleaning products (bought by mother at the beginning of the year) (unopened), cooking equipment (dirty), more tinned sweet corn, cooking utensils (dirty), books, 3 boxes of shoes, more clothes (dirty), books, photos, folders, art work, CDs, DVDs, several A1 portfolios (ie HUGE slim briefcase type thingies). Open the garage door and loft hatch hubby!

Daughter LOVES pink – she has bright pink bedding, bright pink towels, bright pink fluffy mats, bright pink shower curtain – I think you kind of get the message. Yes, she’s Barbie reincarnate!

This morning, I started Mission Wash Up – ie washing a whole academic year’s worth of clothes and bedding etc. So far, it’s only 7am and I’ve already done 2 ‘pink loads’ and am now sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away on my laptop, surrounded by a very bright pink fluorescent haze coming through the kitchen window, emanating from all the VERY bright pink washing, which is now drying on the line!

It must be bad – daughter had just walked in to the kitchen, stopped dead in her tracks and said, ‘Wow, Pink!’

Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Short Hand? Surely Not?

Daisy Turnip writes.....

Whilst sitting next to a colleague in a meeting, he looked at my note pad and then leant over and whispered, ‘I didn’t know you did short hand,’ ‘It’s not’ I replied, ‘that’s my writing!’

I knew I could have been a doctor!

Sunday, 8 March 2009

Ahhhh, Best Drink of the Day!

Daisy Turnip writes.....

I went to fetch some clothes out of the washing machine. I opened the door and there, having gone through an economy wash, sat a broken tea bag – with very little tea in it!

Friday, 6 March 2009

Your Pants are Ringing

Daisy Turnip writes.....

A new smart phone arrived at work yesterday. On the back of the phone there was a label which read,

Important
To prevent damage, do not apply excessive pressure to the screen or device case. Please remove the device from your pants before sitting down. For more details, see the Quick Start Guide.

Hmmm, strange, why would you want to put your phone in your pants?

Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Worse Than Child Birth!

Daisy Turnip writes.....

Today daughter’s car went for its first MOT! Daughter had never previously experienced:-

1. The process of sending a car in for an MOT
2. Waiting to get the car back whilst it is in for and MOT and
3. The tiniest fear / thought that it might fail the MOT and that she might be using public transport on a regular basis!

She also needed / wanted to get the car back this afternoon in order to get back to uni tonight, because she has an exam tomorrow morning.

I had meetings both this morning and this afternoon.

I came out of this morning’s meeting to find 5 missed calls, 1 voice mail message and 2 text messages – all from daughter!

OMG I thought, the car has failed the MOT with catastrophic proportions! I rang daughter and she told me, it had failed on the emissions test and needed a new exhaust. I told her to ring the garage and approve the work and I’d leave work early, pick her up and drive to the garage to collect the car and do the dutiful bank of mom and dad duties ie pay the chuffing bill!

At 2pm I went into another meeting. I came out at 3.30 to find 3 missed calls, 1 voice mail message and 2 more text messages – again, all from daughter!

I rang daughter to see what the problem was. She informed me, she’d rang the garage every half an hour to see if the car was ready. It wasn’t! They had been waiting for delivery of the exhaust and therefore still needed to complete the exhaust fit and then take it for a drive to check on a problem she’d asked them to check re the tyre tracking!

The poor garage – daughter on the phone every half hour! I really did want to give them a call myself, just to sympathise with them and also say, ‘welcome to my world’ – see how they like it! But I didn’t! Because I'm not smug! : )

I fled from work at 4.15pm (this in itself is a bit of a miracle) and did my usual 1 ½ half journey in 45 minutes! Picked up daughter, who then began to interrogate me about: how good is an MOT; is it really safe the drive the car all the way back to uni; do they really know what they are doing; why don’t they think there is a problem with the tracking; is an exhaust system really that expensive; why would an exhaust system break; is it normal for an exhaust to ‘die’; are they ‘ripping’ us off; am I worried about the cost; do you think it will fail next year’s MOT; will it impact on the insurance cost....... blah de blah de blah................... I really should have put my iPod on, it would have been so much more less painful.

We collected the car, I paid the bill, daughter put her bag in the boot (correction, I put her bag in the boot) and she went off to uni. I jumped back in the car and slammed my foot on the accelerator and got the hell out of there ASAP. Questions, questions, questions, it’s just all too much!

Next year I’m going to tell her to just sort it herself and send me the bill!

Friday, 13 February 2009

Carly - Just read your emails!

Daisy Turnip writes.....

You never know - sometimes, they ARE worth a read! : ) x