Comfort zone

This kind of stuff is way outside mine. And anyway, what's the point of having teenagers in the house if I have to still do this? Dogs and barking anyone?

Also firmly outside the zone was trying to start the car this morning, which for reasons I didn't quite understand at the time was left not under cover at the weekend. Despite hearing my Dad's voice inside my head sighing that I've flooded the engine (can you even do that now?) I persevered, and pumped the accelerator, and eventually it shuddered into life. Off then for a meeting with the lovely woman who will take over from me in the school office. I'd best get the files in better order - she works in a bank and looks terrifyingly competent.

Garden work to the tune of a few weeks worth of GQT was more in my zone of joy.

Seeing TallGirl eating leftover apple pie for lunch did set me wondering whether the unlabelled bag of chopped orange stuff I pulled out of the freezer to put in the pie was, in fact, the quince I presumed it was....

And later a genius idea to call the Orange France English language line brought me to the enormously helpful Gorka, who is going to sort everything out for me (not sure there's much he can do about the questionable quince). I haven't called that line for ages because (a) you have to wait ages for it to be answered, and (b) I'm supposed to be able to speak French now so shouldn't need it. But the great advantage is that you get through to a real person, which seemed impossible in the Kafkaesque circles of doubt and doom I was spinning in last week between 3900, emailing and echat. But, even if he can sort it out, it will be a good few weeks before I can add CarbBoy's mobile, so I finally did what I should have done ages ago and got him a pay-as-you-go card. Only apparently you can't charge it until you have (I'm not making this up) posted a card and a copy of your passport to them. Like, in the post. Not online. I will never again believe those bad guy shows where they use untraceable PAYG mobiles.

All that and pizza for dinner!

And now I've just remembered that it's night one of electric blanket season for me - so I'm going to download something trashy onto my kindle and head to bed. (I'm not going to think about how all the ladybirds in the Northern hemisphere flew into my bedroom when I had the window open this afternoon... Actually I don't mind them overwintering inside, but the shield bugs tag along, and then bug me all night dive bombing my ears.)