Anyone for Tiffin?

It turned out to be a very tiring but good weekend, despite having a lot of domestic aspects to it. Saturday I went to see the pantomime my mum was directing, which was quite good. Someone I work with was in it, which was quite amusing, particularly as she was playing the part of a fish. The problem with amateur dramatics is that there can be a very mixed standard of talent. The chap playing the part of the Cheshire Cat was great and I was really impressed by him; the woman playing the mock turtle was somewhat challenged in the singing department (to put it mildly) so having a song to sing all on her own did render me somewhat speechless. Of course, you shouldn’t be speaking during a performance anyway, apart from an occasional “oh yes he is, oh no he isn’t”, but my nephew being two and a half did not know this and there was an occasional “where’s the [white] rabbit?” and “I want to go home”, which maybe wasn’t ideal, but he did seem to enjoy it all and had a chat with the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit afterwards.

I then went and picked G up after a night away and we went back to mine. I was hoping that a parcel from Amazon had turned up, as they had tried to deliver the previous day. But there was no card from them. I logged on to Amazon and it said the parcel had been left with a neighbour but with no indication of who that neighbour was. Fortunately the neighbour identified himself yesterday when he brought it round for me. I’m not very impressed with Amazon. I think they have stopped using Royal Mail and instead use different delivery companies. I know Royal Mail has its faults, but they were far easier to use. If you weren’t in they would leave a card and you could just pop down to the sorting office and pick it up. With delivery companies the only way to get it is for them to redeliver and the company they used to send my parcel had delivery hours of 7am to 7pm, I wouldn’t want to wait in that long for a sofa, let alone a couple of books! Even if they had let me go and pick it up from the depot, there is no way it would be as easy to get to as a sorting office. Not even leaving me a note to tell me that the parcel had been delivered and where it was is really poor service as well. I e-mailed Amazon and said I thought that using Royal Mail would have been preferable and perhaps they would think about using them in future.

On Sunday, I went out in the morning and when I got back G had thoroughly cleaned my entire kitchen. I was very impressed! Then we had a quick bite to eat and then went and bought rake and broom so I could tidy up my garden. I then set to work doing that, which didn’t take very long but was very tiring. However, that didn’t dissuade us from making some fifteens and tiffin – although we did try not to mess up the beautifully clean kitchen in the process, which was a challenge. So the day was a mix of cleaning, gardening and cooking. What a life of domestic bliss I lead.

Anyway, for those who have ever travelled on the London Underground, you will be familiar with the pre-recorded announcements that you hear during your journey. A large number of those announcements are made by a woman called Emma Clarke and she has set up a website to promote her many talents, which includes some spoof announcements. Non-London residents may appreciate this announcement. Next time your suspicious of someone on the tube then you might appreciate an announcement like this one and I think we can all agree that this one is entirely true. Tube journeys could be so much more amusing...

Update: the links to the spoof tube announcements are currently nto workign properly. This is either down to the sheer number of people who have visited her site after reading what I wrote or that she has been fired by London Underground. I shall leave you to decide.