Bliped Bliper

Not a good week for me and machinery. On Tuesday morning at 2:00am the coffee machine gave up the ghost - don't ask why I was at the coffee machine at this time of day night. Luckily had some instant coffee so that Angie didn't have to leave the house a few hours later on an empty stomach.

The coffee machine is a 2003 bought very expensive Jura automatic. Long story as to how I came to have it but it's my "life blood". It has been repaired once before in 2008 when it striked at around 20,000 cups and now was at over 50,000. Repair is done by Jura on a fixed price (250 Euros) regardless of the problem. For that price one could buy 10 new standard gravity machines. There are some cheaper repair offers but I went for Jura again on the basis of the excellent service last time. Phoned them at 13:00 on Tuesday, went to the pöost office with it at 15:00 and had the machine back on Friday midday - would have been Thursday but for the bank holiday. The machine in pristine condition and all the small cosmetic defects also exchanged/replaced. Life saving operation excellently carried out.

Today Angie's mother and step father came to visit. Luckily the weather had improved and we could spend some time sitting outdoors. At one stage was showing her mother a Blip photo on the brand new mobile when I took a step backwards to get better WLAN reception and took a wonderful backward somersault over a garden chair, doing a perfect Ma-Sutemi-Waza judo fall. The mobile stayed firmly in the palm of my hand as I slapped it down on the concrete floor to break my fall. I wasn't however amused at Angie reminding me of my comment when we bought the phones a few days ago and the salesman tried to rip us off by selling us an "all events" insurance!

The phone to it's credit still works perfectly but looks a mess. Looked up on the web what one pays for a replacement glass only to discover it's only 20 Euros cheaper than buying a new one. So for the moment it won't be repaired.

MrB popped by in the evening on his way out to "sit". The shooting season restarted on 1st May for certain age/sex groups. Apparently the deer fawns are not yet born and certainly not on the list. He had just checked out his bees and bought us some combs filled with male bee larvae for the chickens, a delicacy they enjoy.