Another crazy day of victories and defeats for Lois and me in our new-build home - our struggle to get a TV feed has stalled: a guy turned up to put in a second "TV point" (aerial wall socket) in our living-room - in the place where we want it this time. But he also gives me the bad news that we need to get an aerial installed before we can watch TV. What a fool I've been not to check on that issue before! It's sheer madness on my part! I'd completely forgotten that the builders don't provide anything for you that they don't have to.
In the end we decide not to bother with getting a TV aerial for now, and just watch catchup TV via the internet. It's not too bad thanks to our Roku box, which gets all the main channels apart from BBC (for some mysterious reason), and the BBC channels we can watch on iPlayer on our old laptop, so problem solved.
08:30 The TV-socket-guy arrives to do his work - Lois and I are still eating our breakfast : 2 boiled eggs. The guy asks us where we got the eggs from. He says you can't get eggs for love or money at the moment because of the bird flu, a fact which somehow has passed us by - oh dear! If we'd known, we'd have saved the eggs for a rainy day. As it is, we only have two left now, which is a bit disappointing. We're usual experts in stockpiling items that are in short supply before the general public gets wise to it. Oh dear we're slipping these days - no doubt about that!
The work in the street outside our house. laying pipes and things like that, of which we understand nothing, is getting more and more noisy and disruptive by the day. This is getting ridiculous. This current project is supposed to be finished by the end of Friday, however. Well, we'll see!
the scene that awaits us outside our house as we
start our late morning walk - my goodness !!!!
During our late morning walk, we get a call from the estate agents who are selling the house that our daughter Sarah in Australia, and her husband Francis, put an offer in on yesterday. It's not good news - two other prospective buyers have also put in offers, and the estate agent obviously wants them all to start a bidding war. Sensibly Sarah and Francis don't want to get involved in anything like that - it's not as if this house was the perfect buy: it has several drawbacks.
16:45 The delivery guy from the local Morrisons supermarket is cruising round the estate looking for our house. The builders have only put one or two street signs up so it's a tough challenge for any driver who hasn't been here before.
Just like last time Lois and I have to run out of the house in near-darkness, run up to the end of the street, and start waving at him like two crazy people, trying to attract his attention and persuade him to take the turning that leads to our house.
It's total madness you know!
The street names here all have connections with radar or radio, to commemorate the fact that British radar technology was invented here during World War II, on a site now occupied by security and defence contractors Qinetiq.
Qinetiq, the security and defence contractor, as it looks today
"Doppler Road" is one of the local street names, and there's a "Strothers Avenue" to commemorate World War II radar scientist Joan Strothers. There's also a Lovell Road named after after radio-astronomer Bernard Lovell, who also worked on radar during the war, and that kind of thing.
the map of our mysterious estate - "where the streets
have no name " as U2's Bono once explained
Crystal Crescent - that's another one, and I suppose that takes its inspiration from crystal radios. There's a Hey Road - no doubt because of another radio-astronomer called James Stanley Hey who also worked on radar in the war.
Are you beginning to pick up on a theme here? It's not exactly rocket science - more radio science haha!
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