Lush

Managed to leave home by 10am on this lots-of-things-to-do day! It is now 10:40pm as I start to write and I am so pleased with some of the things that have been achieved today!

First off was to try to transfer my mobile phone line to my name! It belongs to my employer and I should have done this way back in March 2011!! It almost didn't happen today either were it not for my insistence that Du deal with my case. I had tried on Thursday evening but was told to come back tomorrow (Friday). Today I was told that the "Business" section doesn't work on the weekend! The rest you can imagine...

G wanted honey soap from Lush and we were so thrilled when we happened to walk right past their store in Dubai Mall - not knowing if they were there or where they were located. This was pure coincidence, or providence... we were on our way to Caribou Coffee to get over the incident of the morning.

On the way to Lush, G got herself two ceramic frying pans!! But on with my story... This particular branch of Caribou Coffee always challenges me with very slow service. Today was no exception but a member of staff did bring me a piece of A4 and pen so I could send in some feedback!!

A quick shop before finally getting home to regain our energy. It is getting really warm. Whilst catching up with the news on TV, G couldn't help comment about the appaling picture quality. "Right," I thought, lets see what I can do, so I phoned the Telco provider and explained to the lady (who it turns out was in Cairo) that the picture was pixelating and freezing and watching TV was unbearable. She asked how long it had been happening. I felt quite stupid saying "for months". A pause from her side made me wonder why I'd never thought of calling before. Funny the things you put up with!

Anyway, long story short, she tried doing whatever she could remotely from her end. This included checking the line, downloading and installing some new software and finally restoring to factory settings. Nothing worked so she raised a complaint for a technician to visit. I was amazed when 90 minutes later, a man phoned to get my location and arrived 20 minutes after that!!

He checked the line and said it was OK. Then changed a connector and voila - it was FIXED!!! I can't believe we are going to have snoothly streamed TV again - after ages! He also left us with the new model decoder which is much smaller than the old one and whilst going through the list of channels to save as My Favourites, we have more choice!! SO GLADI made that call.

G had mushrooms to use up so decided to make mushroom risotto. She found some organic risotto rice in the morning, so set-to after she finished baking a couple of cakes for me to take in for our WCRF Bake Sale tomorrow. The rice seemed to be taking longer than normal to cook, so G read the packet. Hmmm, soak overnight, slow cook for 45 minutes, rest for 10 before serving... none of it was going to happen tonight in this flat! In between, we had a power outage. The risotto was not fully cooked when we finally sat down to eat at 9:20 but it sure tasted good.

And it has just gone 11pm and I have yet another early start in the morning. It's been a really happy and relaxed, yet productive weekend. Oh, nearly forgot, when I was told a technician would visit within 48 hours, I did some proper dusting in the TV/stereo area Nice excuse to... It's now shining. :D

PS. Can't believe FIFA haven't managed to get a new leader.
PPS. Sorry for my longer than normal journal today!