Glorious Morning

And the ever helpful man told me about the dawn when he brought in my cup of tea, so I caught it. And then I made my little flask of coffee, rolled a pair of cigs, fed the cats and set off into the frosty sunlight to take pics. The computer's still downloading them.
But there might be a frosty dawn and some sparkly melted frost. There might be a marvellous old rooty tree. (Not ready yet)
There might be all sorts of stuff. I'm a bit high on lots of coffee and having discovered I've got 2 new photos on Explore in Flickr.
Now I'm having a lot of trouble deciding what I really must do next! Eat I suppose and tidy up and get the bins in and take a CD to the lovely Maggs's and do some shopping and make a Christmas 'to do' list (and a present list and a food list and a shopping list and a ... 'nother two or three lists).
Only I keep having a quick look at the downloading. It's taking forever (It always does). I ought o do some useful things while it's busy. Really.
Gaah! Only 148 of 182 and another memory card to put in!!!!

Tesco's awful strawberries and other things

I got a reply today and Oh dear, I've had to send Tesco another email. I think it was the line saying "and we'll all work hard to stop this happening again" that set me off. So earnest and full of childlike promise. 'And they all worked hard together ever after' Cute. Folksy. Yuk.

(Reply From Tesco)

Thank you for your email.

I'm sorry that you're unhappy with the quality of the Strawberries from our Newbury store. I understand how disappointed you must have been to find the items were below the standard you expected.

We select our fresh food suppliers with great care and always inspect the produce on freshness and quality when it arrives at our distribution depots. Staff in store also check the produce again on delivery and keep an eye on it while it's on sale. They also remove any items they feel are sub-standard.

It seems that we failed to apply this process properly and I apologise for that. I've passed your complaint to the Store Manager and we'll all work hard to stop this from happening again.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to let us know.

If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us at customer.service@tesco.co.uk quoting TES4056795X.

Kind Regards

'helpful employee with good personal skills'
Tesco Customer Service

So this is what I sent today

Thanks for your reply and your apology.

However, I'm not sure you read my email.

My comment was not about the 'freshness' of the strawberries. They were perfectly fresh. The strawberries were not overripe or lacking in freshness, they were hard and tasteless. They were in fact not ripe although the bright red colour made them look as though they were.

Also you failed to answer two questions I asked you.

Are the strawberries genetically modified or irradiated?

I now ask another two questions.

What process does your supplier use to make the strawberries look ripe when they are not?

And will your staff in store now remove these substandard items from the shelves?

By all means do pass on my comment to the store manager and work hard to stop this happening again. I hope you all succeed.

Yours

'evil, snide customer'


You'd think I had better things to do with my time than playing games with tesco. Well you've got to have a bit of fun sometimes and really, truly, the little hard red things ought not to be on the shelves. Not under the descriptions, sweet, juicy or strawberry anyway.

Meanwhile, making all thoughts of hyper-bad store people irrelevant, the plasterers have arrived to pebble dash our front wall. The green elastoplast (tarp) has gone and as I speak, a shower of pebbles is being thrown at the cement they put up over the last two days. A lot of it is also falling down around the window below, highly reminiscent of the day it all fell down! As it began and all that.

The next few days is looking like being more hectic than even the last weekend. Eldest arriving with Marmite, lovely partner arriving tomorrow, a 50th (Impossible!!! a person I remember bathing as a very small pink babe :) birthday in London on Saturday to which Middle daughter and her partner are coming with us. Er, Youngest's partner's birthday (What to get him???We can't afford a motor bike and we haven't been able to find him a field. No we couldn't aford one of those either but he just wants to buy one to keep it green and pastoral for ever.) Eldest will hopefully sort out the email badness. Oh I do hope so!

Oh and I have been given money!!!! For my cards!!!! One shop bought 20 straight off and the Art shop sold six and gave me a Cheque!!!!
!!!!
:)
*speechless*
Well, yesterday I went into Town very early. Really. Before anybody else except BT and the rubbish men. And a few odd bods. Just me and the sunrise, rising rapidly up behind a cloud bank. So much for photos of an unpeopled Newbury glowing in the dawn. Still I took some.
This is the one I am most proud of. The photo wasn't very bad or very good. But the photoshop session was extensive and involved much learning curve steepness and I went to bed triumphant.
It really isn't a photo any more. You wouldn't be sure whether you were in the right place if you stood where I took the original. I've removed signs and bits of wood and pipes and wires and added a sunset from six months ago.
So here's the original.

And here are two versions, one cropped slightly more than the other. Would you be very kind and tell me which crop looks best?*

The lady in another shop wants more cards of Newbury landmarks so I've got to decide quickly otherwise I'd leave it a week and look again.
Later the sun came out (along with all the people and cars and buses and vans thus limiting the options for pretty views)
And later still, I thought "oh the fox is back". But he wasn't :)

*sorry to be boring. Really I'll try not to do photos in pairs again :)

Speaking of mornings

Waking (in the city of dreaming spires)


We were up at 4.00 am this morning!

Not quite as mad as it seems. We were in Oxford last night and went to listen to the may day singing from Magdalene College at dawn. Very nice and clear and fresh it was at 5.00 and the choristers looked suitably naughty and boyish peeping through the stonework at the top of the tower, before singing (disappointingly from somewhere behind windows in the middle of the tower).
My favourite piece of information about this event is that some centuries ago, when the annual event was already well established, there was lateness for some reason and in the general haste the song sheets were forgotten. So the choristers sang some hymn which they all knew by heart and that has been the song they sing to this day.
There is usually a crowd some seven thousand strong, gathered in the street below. I see no reason to suppose this morning was any exception (hence the need to be there by 5.00 am). Many of them have been carousing and dancing and generally making merry all night... and the tradition, of leaping into the river over Magdalene bridge and breaking lots of bones and heads after the singing, has been curtailed...the bridge is closed these days.
Frangelita assures me that though she intended to spend all night carousing and etc, she wasn't planning to leap over any bridges. Which set my mind at rest :)
The tower was very tall (I still have a slightly stiff neck from peering up at it for the best part of an hour)So I'm quite pleased with the gargoyles catching a quick drink of dawn sunlight

And the little angels (oh and some guardian angels I guess) waving and clearly loving being up there where I bet they aren't normally allowed. (this one is worth looking at larger to see the little angel face framed by the stonework on the right)
And after the singing, a last look at the tower as the crowds wended.