Christmas Shopping Online – No Thank You

Updated 27/07/2010 – Just because I want to.

The wife has been nagging for weeks to start the Christmas shopping and my excuse has always been Christmas doesn’t start until December and neither does my shopping!

It’s now the 21st December and the nagging has raised a notch

I have numerous websites, spend approx 16 hours a day online (probably about 15 and a half of those just dithering around), but just can’t seem to raise any enthusiasm to do my Christmas shopping online.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and always have, this Christmas is going to be even better than usual, both my kids are the perfect age now, we’re staying at home and money isn’t an issue.

Why is it then I just don’t feel like doing my shopping online this Christmas?

Maybe It’s because I’m just old fashioned, a bit of a dreamer and think Christmas shopping should be like you see at the movies.

I love the thought of everyone enjoying shopping for the ideal gift for their loved ones, having good old fashioned Christmas music playing in the background, everybody being in a jolly mood, seeing kids excited about the countdown to Christmas, enjoying a hot chocolate with twirly cream and a flake in it whilst I take a rest.

I love to take the kids to see a jolly, fat, red faced santa with a real (or real looking) white beard and a nice heavy (like old curtains) bright red costume. I like him to sit the kids on his knee, whisper in their ear and then delve in to the bottom of his sack and bring out a wrapped present (diffferent size and different wrapper for each kid)

I even enjoyed Christmas before I was married and had kids, my day dream then was to accidentally grab a book at the same time as a beautiful girl, as it was the last one on the shelf let her have it and receive a lovely smile as a thank you. Later on bump in to that same girl at the cafe and share a hot chocolate (with twirly cream), laugh at each other for twirly cream moustaches and arange to meet on Christmas eve for a night out. (I think the deNiro, Streep film Falling in Love has a lot to answer for).

It’s the same when I go to a fair. The fairs I always imagine are like something from a Famous 5 book, all the stall keepers are jolly old souls, smartly dressed, but ruddy faced, They laugh and smile with you, wish you luck and commiserate with you if you don’t win (and give the kids a sweety). There are stalls with freshly made sandwiches, home made cakes, home made lemonade and big jugs of homemade ginger beer. The rides all sparkle, the music is jolly and everyone feels safe and relaxed.

Back to Christmas shopping. I’m going to put up with the nagging until the last minute, not do any online shopping but put my Sunday best on and nip in to Castle Quay at Banbury. If it’s anything like my perfect christmas shopping experience I will make a full day of it and get all my presents bought, if (as is more likely) it’s not like it is in my mind, I dare say I will be browsing at Amazon on Wednesday

Sing Hosanna Lyrics Give me joy in my heart

My daughter moves up to big school in September and is in the last 2 weeks at primary school, on the last day, they have a leaving ceremony at the local church and hopefully one of the songs will be Give me joy in my heart

I’ve written out the lyrics to Sing Hosanna and will probably be driving the whole family mad as I learn the words.

Give me joy in my heart
keep me praising
give me joy in my heart, I pray
give me joy in my heart
keep me praising
keep me praising till the break of day.

 
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
sing hosanna to the King of kings.
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
sing hosanna to the King.

 
Give me peace in my heart
keep me resting
give me peace in my heart, I pray
give me peace in my heart
keep me resting
keep me resting till the break of day.

 
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
sing hosanna to the King of kings.
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
sing hosanna to the King.

 
Give me love in my heart
keep me serving
give me love in heart, I pray
give me love in my heart
keep me serving
keep me serving till the break of day.

 
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
sing hosanna to the King of kings.
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
sing hosanna to the King.

Radio Station Filter Sound of Vuvuzela or the Vuvuzela will ruin the World Cup

Please, please, please will someone please let me know if they find a UK radio station which is filtering out the sound of the vuvuzela during world cup commentaries.

Because if I can’t find one the Vuvuzela will ruin the World Cup for me.

When did you start building websites

I was looking back through some of my old invoices at easyspace today and noticed that one of the first wheelchair ramps websites I registered was back in June 2001.

More about my old wheelchair ramps site over at podline

Just why are army tanks called tanks?

This question has been taxing our brain this weekend, so when we started looking into the whole world of tanks a little bit more closely, we discovered it’s actually quite an interesting tale that involves none other than Winston Churchill. And no, he didn’t go tank driving…

In fact, it seems the word ‘tank’ was first used to describe these British ‘Landships’ way back in 1915. Churchill was then the First Lord of the Admiralty and these new armoured weapons were being developed under the codename ‘water tanks for Russia’ and well, it seems the name kind of stuck after that.

A nice anecdote from Churchill’s autobiography says that the original codename ‘water carriers for Russia’ was dropped after it was pointed out that it could be shortened to ‘WCs for Russia’!

So there you have it. Soldiers were first driving tanks into war in 1915 during World War One and us Brits are credited with the invention of a fully tracked vehicle, even though genius dude Leonardo Da Vinci had some very early ‘tank-like’ drawings in his mitts.

You learn something new everyday. I just wish I could have a go at driving a tank myself!

Restoring an Antique Desk

After having our Oak table restored last week my wife is now wanting me to get the antique furniture restorer round to have a look at the old desk which she inherited from her grandmother about 10 years ago.

It’s been stored away in the spare room at her parents ever since she got it, but now we’ve had a bit of a clear out, she says it will look nice on the back wall in our lounge.

The table didn’t cost that much to get restored as it was only really a case of getting a few marks of the top and giving it a good polish, I dare say restoring an antique desk will be quite a bit more expensive but she is adamant she wants it doing and is also talking about getting her antique grandfather clock looked at too.

What she doesn’t realise yet is that because our ceilings are so low I very much doubt we will get the clock in anyway, unless I suggest we cut a bit of the top

Zapcats Powerboat performance, but at a fraction of the cost

Having started out on the waters near where I live on a jet ski, this summer I’m looking at moving up a gear and getting a powerboat. Whilst researching on the internet, I found a website all about Zapcats. I’d never heard of Zapcats before, but they are incredibly speedy rigid inflatable racing boats, which offer all the thrills of a powerboat, but at a fraction of the cost.

 The site I checked out offers you the chance to head out in a Zapcat either as passenger or you can actually have a go at driving these pocket rockets yourself, so I think this is exactly what I’m going to do as soon as the weather is better.

 According to the product blurb, a Zapcat has a better power to weight ratio than a Ferrari, which explains the ferocious acceleration and speed. The low drag co-efficiency of a Zapcat means it’s five times more fuel efficient than a normal powerboat and the design lends itself to racing – cutting up the surf and rough seas with ease.

 Seriously, I can’t wait to go out in a Zapcat on the open waters and see what they can do!

A feathery birthday surprise

It was my birthday on Tuesday (21 again). Usually it’s the usual array of socks, a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate brazils, but this year the kids clubbed together to buy me a ‘have a go at falconry experience in the heart of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. Step aside Robin Hood with your merry men; I’m heading into the glades with my raptor!

 Joking aside, I’m really looking forward to going on this experience – the blurb with the voucher says that over the two to three hours I’ll actually get to handle the birds myself and fly one too.

 I’m pretty sure the kids will want to come with me too, so when I called the activity gift voucher company to check, they told me I can take kids along for a fee of £25, as long as they are over the age of six. So it looks like we’ll be having a boys’ day out in the Nottinghamshire countryside meeting the likes of Rocky the Barn Owl and Smirnoff the Snowy Owl.

Pet Memorials

This recent cold snap has bought back memories of our old cat, Button.

She was always an outside sort of cat, but at this time of the year would often hide herself away somewhere at nigh time so as to avoid getting put out.

The problem with that was, she would then wake us up at 4 in the morning wanting to be let out.

So as not to have to wait to let her back in, I put an old blanket in a cardboard box in the shed and covered it over with a load of old cardboard boxes so that she would then spend the rest of the night in there.

I’ve always had pets for as long as I can remember, the first one being Jimmy a black and white cat who apparently just strolled in to my parents sitting rom one evening. other pets have been hamsters, rabbits, numerous goldfish, a dog, and 4 other cats.

Looking back now I can’t remember having Pet Memorials for any of them, but if anything happens to the 2 we have now I’m pretty sure we will get a nice stone pet memorial or possible a Slate Pet Memorial Plaque like the one below.

Total Butler Oil – Central Heating Oil

Update 15th January 2010

As can be seen by all the recent comments at the bottom of this page, not only are there a number of complaints about the pricing policy of Total Butler there are also a number of complaints about communications and the fact customers are apparently given misinformation about delivery times.

We cannot blame Total Butler for the weather conditions, but surely we can expect the sales and call centre staff to communicate with their own drivers and not promise deliveries unless they are possible?

Initial post about sales staff discounting prices (made on 3rd December 2008)

If you are a regular customer of Total Butler for domestic heating oil this might interest you and save you a lot of money.

I have been a regular customer of Total Butler for over 10 years now and have always had my central heating oil delivered by them.

In all that time I have always paid my bill as soon as it arrived and never queried anything.

Last week I phoned Total Butler to order my oil as usual and out of interest asked how much it was now? The reply I got was 48p a litre, I said “Is that the best you can do” and it immediately came down to 44p a litre. Deciding to push it a bit further I said “surely you can do better that that” the guy on the end of the line went away for less than 20 seconds and came back with a price of 40p a litre.

Basically, for the sake of less than a minute asking about the price (only slightly haggling) I got nearly a 20% reduction of my £500 heating bill.

You may think I am happy with this, but no, I am livid. What it shows is that because I have been a regular loyal customer, never queried the price before, I have probably been paying a 20% premium for the last 10 years.

So if you get your oil delivered from Total Butler, have been a regular customer for a yew years and would like to save 20% of your heating costs, don’t just pay the initial oil price they tell you, ask if they can do any better, haggle more and see what happens.

If anyone has any views on Total Butler oil prices please comment below.

Update 14th February 2009

Since writing my initial post the number of comments has obviously revealed that a lot of people are not happy with what appears to be a new telephone ordering system Total Butler have recently bought in.

I was surprised when I ordered my last top up not to speak to my usual local office, but didn’t really think anything of it at the time. I now understand that Total may have changed the system of ordering on the phone? (confrirmation would be appreciated)

This post receives regular visits from users using  an IP from par.totalfinaelf.net if anyone from Total would like to leave a reply to these comments I will be happy to publish it here. tj@nrac.co.uk