Your Day (apart from gardening) - what took place?

Popped out to get a quick bit of shopping really early on, then back home and washed the car....

Before:



During:


After:


Auto Glym Polar Blast (snow foam that you can see in the during picture), finished off with Auto Glym Polar Seal which gives that lovely deep shine and is extremely hydrophobic. Not cheap stuff, but really easy to use and a little goes a very long way.....

 

Thank you. These two cleaning products allow me to cheat considerably, as they do all the work to be honest - my days of spending hours polishing a car are gone sadly. I would highly recommend these products to anyone, but especially to folks who are not just as physically able as they used to be.

 

This evening will be an interesting one. We have been invited to friends but some weeks after receiving, and accepting, the invitation I got a message from one of my ex-staff.

They have organised a reunion of ex-staff at a pub. I've been retired 20 years and in 2007 they organised a big get together for the 50th anniversary of my business. They had hired a hall, organised a buffet and a disco. It was good to see so many of them that were still in touch with each other. There were over 100 of them (partners included). I enjoyed it but ended up deaf in one ear for three days from the disco being so loud!

This time there definitely won't be so many of them and I've no idea whether they will just be meeting in the bar, no partners, or have hired a room. As I shall be at friends I shall just go to the pub for ten minutes to say hello. One of them is driving 250 miles from N. Devon and is the oldest remaining member of staff at the grand old age of 86. All but two of them came to me from school and were trained by me.

They were a good crowd of employees and I always enjoyed going to work. I helped a lot of them start up their own businesses, sorted out a lot of their problems, helped some through divorces and others through cancer and bereavements. A lot them still keep in touch regularly and it will be good seeing some of them that I haven't seen since last century.

 

Due to the economics of today's car manufacturers my car, Ford C Max, has had no spare tyre but just a can of foam to inject into a flat tyre. I've never liked the idea and earlier this week my neighbour's daughter had a flat tyre on his driveway and, again, had no spare tyre. They struggled to take the tyre off as the driveway is on a slope and the jack they had was not good, and in the end they took the tyre to the local Tyre Fitter who put a new tyre on.....job done, apart from the struggle to get the jack to raise the car high enough to slide the new tyre back on.
So, not wanting the same experience, I bought an alloy wheel for my car, at a reasonable price, and when it was delivered today at mid-day I took it straight to my local Tyre Fitter and he put a new tyre on in minutes. I also bought a new hydraulic jack to supplement the Ford jack and all I have to do is rearrange the wheel bay in the boot, chuck out the foam can and the plastic tray for the useless emergency kit, and fit the new spare wheel in it's place.
I'll be driving happier from today!!

 

For the last ten days I've been liaising and helping my sister and hubby get home from their holiday. They were on a cruise around S. America with friends to celebrate 80th birthdays.

24 hours before they were due to fly home the destination country closed its ports! Nobody on board has been ill. As they approached other nearby countries they all closed their borders so the ship eventually turned towards their home port (Miami). This entailed getting from the other side of the continent, through the Panama Canal (transit normally needs to be booked a long time in advance) and across the Caribbean to Miami.

They arrived in Miami yesterday - eight days after they were due to fly home from Lima in Peru. Homeland Security had issued an exemption certificate for foreign travellers on the ship to exit the country through the U.S. but they all had to get ESTAs (equivalent of Visas) first.

The next problem was to find flights home with virtually nothing available. Eventually a repatriation flight with Virgin was organised, due to depart yesterday. Before leaving the ship that flight was cancelled but different flights were organised with Delta.

The next problem was arranging transport from ship to airport but eventually a taxi was found. They land at Heathrow at 9 a.m. today. They now have to get home from there. Their travel agent could sort out a taxi with no problem but they didn't want to be enclosed in a vehicle with someone who might have been in contact with any number of infected people.

So we have worked out a solution. Liaising with their daughter and son in law I've been to their house (I'm a keyholder), found their car keys and the daughter will drive their car to LHR with the s-i-l following in their own car. They'll meet them in the car park at the airport, keep their distance just in case they may have picked anything up on the flights, and sister and hubby can drive themselves home - followed by daughter just in case. Nobody's health should be compromised but all four will self-isolate for seven days (the recommended time) so food has been bought to allow them to do so.

We'll see how it goes.

Hopefully the roads won't be too busy as they're driving home after a very long, and worrying, journey.

I'm doing all the coordinating.