On Wednesday I wanted to buy a new pair of jeans. I knew which jeans I wanted and where to buy them but I only had half an hour. How hard could it be? I just had to call into Gap in Belfast, go to the correct section in the shop, find my size, take them to the counter and pay for them. The answer is very hard. The shop was a mess. This often happens when sales are on. The clothes are no longer in any sensible order and everything looks discarded but after about five minutes of looking I did find them. I took them to the counter. Fifteen minutes later I was still standing at the counter. It was lunchtime and there were lots of people in the shop. They weren’t buying anything though. They couldn’t. There were only two tills open and nothing was happening. When I joined the queue there was one person in front of me. Standing in the queue highlighted one reason why the shop was a mess. As no-one was able to pay for anything they started to leave the queue, drop the clothes on a table and walk out.

The problem was caused by their new chip and pin system. It was taking around seven minutes for each step in the process. I could probably have coped with this but the staff were not friendly nor were they apologetic. At one point another member of staff had wandered over to ask what on earth was going on. She was told that the system was running slowly. She suggested overriding the system so that the customers could get served. But the two girls working on the tills refused to do this claiming that they weren’t supposed to do it that way. It didn’t matter to them that customers were walking out of the shop after dropping the clothes they were going to buy. After waiting twenty five minutes I realised that they had rang up the order for the one person in front of me incorrectly and that they were going to have to go through the whole process again. I asked if there was any chance that I would get served in the next ten minutes but didn’t get any sort of satisfactory response. I had lunch to eat and a plane to catch so I left the jeans on a table and walked out without buying them.

This experience made me never want to go into Gap again. Not because I had to stand in a queue but because the people working there didn’t care that their system wasn’t working well. I would have felt sorry for the girls serving if they had looked as if they cared or if there had been nothing at all that they could do about it. But once I heard that they could have served me but weren’t willing to change their process I just felt angry.

On Wednesday evening whilst standing outside New Street Station in Birmingham my niece pointed out that we were facing a Gap. She wanted me to go and buy the jeans. I really didn’t want to do this as I was planning on meeting friends and wanted to be in good form. But Rachel went on about how the jeans I was wearing were too big and didn’t look good. She suggested again that if I didn’t buy new jeans maybe I could wear her skirt. The prospect of wearing a short flouncey white skirt filled me with more dread than shopping in Gap so I agreed to give it a go.

You wouldn’t have believed it was the same chain. They had the same clothes and the same sale but the similarities ended there. I still spent more than five minutes finding the jeans I wanted. But that was because a member of staff had come over to help me and was discussing the various options available for me in my size. When I went to the counter to pay there wasn’t anyone around but within seconds someone had rushed over to the desk and apologised to me for my wait! They took my card and the whole transaction was completed in a matter of minutes. The person who served me was polite and friendly.

When I go shopping I don’t want to be bothered by the problems that are facing staff working in the store. Gap isn’t just selling jeans it’s selling a lifestyle. Their web site tells me that wearing their clothes will set the tone for success. Maybe instead of the expensive ad campaigns they should spend some time explaining to their employees just what that means.

I don’t feel any older today. I was planning on sleeping late, not thinking about work, and eating lots of good food cooked by Marty. I’m still going to eat the food but I woke up really early thinking about work.

Marty planned a treasure hunt for me. It was good fun watching him wanting to solve the clues for me. He was really pleased with his phantom of the opera reference. And thought that I should notice that the line “Who is this man in the mirror.” didn’t have a question mark at the end. I didn’t need to notice this myself because Marty told me. He didn’t give me long to notice either but had told me before I managed to get from the kitchen to the bathroom. But he had artistically placed Dr Who DVDs on the large mirror in the bathroom.

I never believed that crickets were as noisy as they are made out to be in film sound tracks. But I was wrong. They are really noisy. Tonight, whilst watching TV, I realised that the cricket sound effect had continued into the ad break. That it wasn’t coming from the TV at all but from somewhere inside my house. Marty is always assuring me that the insects he buys for his dragon will not escape from the dragon’s tank. That I won’t find them crawling around the house. I suppose he is right about the crickets. I can’t find them – but I know they are out there.

Marty wants me to go with him to vote tomorrow morning. I must admit that I don’t find any of the candidates standing in my area very inspiring. But as I’m always very critical of the DUP tonight I thought I would read the election material they had posted through my door. I really wish I hadn’t. I’m going to quote the paragraph of text they have printed beside a large photograph of Sammy Wilson but I must admit if I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed that any party would really print this.

“For the first time in decades republicans are on the back foot.

It’s not that they are more evil now than before, but whereas UUP incompetence let them off the hook in past days, now – with the DUP as the lead unionist party – republicans are under the cosh and a new confident and dynamic unionism possesses the high moral ground.

The unionist community does not want to go back to the bad old days when the UUP was in charge and daily conceded to Sinn Fein/IRA”

No wonder I hate Northern Irish politics. I didn’t know what the phrase “under the cosh” meant and had to look it up. I will be going to vote tomorrow as I realise if I don’t vote then politicians like Sammy Wilson will continue to get elected. He is the bookies favourite so I’m not convinced that my vote will make a lot of difference but it has to be better than ignoring the election and staying at home. So election material does have its uses and the DUP have motivated me to go out vote – just not for them.

I’m always learning new things. Some people think that learning is only for the young but I don’t agree. So here are some of things I learnt last week.

* The word means one week.
* When Tony says to me “I know nothing” in a strange accent he is probably quoting Manuel from Fawlty Towers.
* According to 16th Century writers a witch was someone who had lost their soul through making a pact with the devil and was working to bring down God’s church.
* There were only 9 recorded witchcraft trials in Ireland compared to 3,500 held in Scotland.
* When practising the snow plough stop on ice skates I shouldn’t bend my ankles as I will end up going faster instead of slower.
* Men wear buttonholes at weddings on their left lapel whilst women wear these on their right.
* In order to get numbered bullet points on a kwiki a “0” should be added to the start of each line in the list.

I have been looking at the various menu options I have been sent for a dinner that Marty and I are planning to attend. The main course options are: goujon of lemon sole with tartare sauce and homemade chips; cumberland sausage, onion gravy and mash; 250 gram burger made from ground beef served on a onion bap with bacon, gruyere, homemade relish and fries. I’m not convinced that I want to pay £25 for fish and chips, bangers and mash, or a bacon cheese burger!

Marinus Christiaan Waijenberg – weduwnaar van Truus Waijenberg – Kelderman. Na een afgerond leven is onze vader en opa rustig overleden. Hij is weer samen met zijn Truus.

Geboren: Apeldoorn, 15 maart 1916
Gestorven: Aalsmeer, 24 februari 2005

De HEERE is mijn Herder, mij zal niets ontbreken.
Hij doet mij nederliggen in grazige weiden; Hij voert mij zachtjes aan zeer stille wateren.

Not being able to remember how to add posts to my blog is a clear indication that I haven’t been posting much lately. Or it could be that the jet-lag I seem to be suffering from has turned my brain to mush.

I got home from E-tech yesterday more than a day later than expected due to a cancelled flight in Washington DC. I was disappointed with the conference and really hope that it doesn’t turn out to be the best conference I attend this year.

My trip to Egypt in February, which at this point seems so far away, was really enjoyable. I would like to be able to post pictures of the trip but I haven’t had time to get any developed nor have I worked out how to get the pictures off my new phone and onto my computer.

It’s good to be home.

This evening I sorted out the books that live on the floor beside my bed and have given them their own bookcase. This means that I now know which books I am currently reading at night.

Catch 22, Joseph Heller

The One Minute Millionaire, Mark Victor Hansen

The Emperor of Scent, Chandler Burr

The Hippopotamus, Stephen Fry

The Shadow of the Galilean, Gerd Theissen

Northern Lights, Philip Pullman

Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh

Completely Unexpected Tales, Roald Dahl

Pet Sematary, Stephen King

Maybe posting this list was a bad idea. Now Tony will realise that I have some of his books that he had probably forgotton about.

At the start of every New Year I usually have a list of things that I would like to change or do differently. None of these things would be that difficult to do but they just don’t seem to happen in my life.

I would like to return my library books on time. I don’t understand why I find this so hard to do. Today I returned six overdue books and was fined 8 pounds and 50 pence. The books were due to be returned in October. I had read all of them before the due date and then just left them in a pile with loads of other books. And I don’t have any sensible excuses – I live facing the library.

I would like finish reading books and give them back to him. Tony lends me books and I always seem to be half way through them all. I have to stop starting the new ones until I’ve finished the old ones.

I would like to deal with my email in a structured manner. I get so much email in a day that I don’t get time to respond to it all. I have tried to come up with sensible methods for dealing with the mail but have failed. I had a great idea that I should only leave email that needs responded to in my various inboxes and that all other mail should be filed away as it arrives. I don’t seem to have successfully implemented this scheme as I couldn’t really have 2,567 messages in my UNITE box that need responded to.

I would like to come up with a way to make sure that I respond to all messages that need responded to. I always seem to have messages that I should have responded to a couple of weeks ago. And the longer it takes to respond the less likely it is that I will ever respond to them.

I would like my house to be tidier. One of my friends once told me that this could be achieved in small simple steps. Instead of trying to tackle everything at once I should make sure that I do at least one thing about the house every day, such as hoovering or washing the floor, and do small things whenever I am moving around the house. For example if I need to go up the stairs I should carry up something from downstairs that needs put away. Or if I go into the kitchen to get a drink I should wash a couple of glasses or fold the washing or some other domesticated thing that people do in kitchens.

So today I returned my library books, dealt with all the email that arrived, stacked the dishwasher, put away all the video tapes that were lying about the living room, and now I’m going to go to bed to read one of Tony’s books.