Oh how I hate surprises
So it was the Disreputable One’s birthday on Sunday. And seeing as his other half is in the process of dragging him kicking and screaming into the 21st century, she suggested that he might like a digital camera. So I set about contacting my siblings.
Me (via text): Alright siblings! Any chance of us clubbing together and buying Dad a digital cam 4 his birthday THIS SUNDAY?
Mad Uncle A (via text): Alright saves me a job. U get it send it & I’ll send u the cash. Don’t spend too much I’m not f*ckin Bill Gates.
Sensible Uncle I (via text): Fine.
Well, he’s a man of few words. So, great, I thought, might have known as the token female I’d get lumbered with the shopping, so off I go, spending a happy afternoon researching cameras on the internerd… and finally I come up with an absolute corker. Hubby is a Fuji man (he’s got one of those great big black yokes like the paparazzi are always sticking up Britney’s skirt), and my little red Fuji Q1 is fantastic, so I settled on a really flash new black Fuji Finepix one at 7dayshop.com – less than 2cm thick (ooer!), equipped with a 2.5″ LCD screen, 7 million pixel CCD sensor (no, I don’t know what that is either), a 3x optical zoom, image stabilising system, face detection and an infrared transmission system (not that I expect he’ll be transferring his photos wirelessly but hey, it’s there if he needs it) and an extremely fast shutter speed to ensure his photos come out clear and bright even with a little alzheimers-induced hand wobble (just joking Dad). Anyhoo, I couldn’t get my order to work on 7dayshop, it kept asking me to login again, but Pixmania.co.uk had it too so I sent off my order and sat back all smug. How easy was that?
So you know this is going to go all pear-shaped, don’t you. Two days later, I got an email saying it was out of stock and would be delivered as soon as possible. Poo! I fired off a quick email: ‘No! It has to be delivered by Sunday. It’s my Dad’s birthday! Can’t you find something similar that you DO have in stock?’. Another day goes past and, finally, I get an email back: ‘the black’s out of stock, but we do have Wasabi Green (oh dear), Sunburst Orange (oh dear again) and Cherry Red in stock. Quick text to Dad’s other half and we settle on the red, which I order with another ‘please, please hurry up and deliver by Saturday’ message.
Long story short – Dad’s birthday came and went with no camera in sight – in either black or cherry red. Sensible Uncle I sent him a card saying ‘hope you enjoy the camera’ (oops, that buggered that surprise then), but still nothing. Then this morning, I check my email to find, completely out of nowhere – a completely new ’thank you for your order’ email from Pixmania, saying that my black camera will be delivered in 3 to 5 working days. Give me strength. Next time he can have his usual port and stilton and bloody lump it.
The Friday Photo: Happy Birthday Bertilicious!
So today’s FP is dedicated to that most wondrously lazy and patchily hirsute of individuals, the Bertmeister, aka Burpy, the Biffer, Biff Sniff, Sir Biffington Sniffington, Bishous, Mumma’s bubby (sorry), the fella, the geezer, yer wan, that f*cking dog!!!, and any number of other stupid nicknames depending on how loved up we’re all feeling and whether he’s nicked one of your trainers and you really, really need to go out in a hurry.
‘Tis a glorious thing for a greyhound to be retired to a comfy sofa rather than being, er, retired in a completely different, somewhat euphemistic way. I’m a realist, and let’s face it, people aren’t exactly queuing up to adopt a retired greyhound, and there’s a serious glut, which is a shame as they’re rather good company. And for a greyhound quite as utterly, totally, completely, thoroughly, uselessly rubbish at racing as Bert was to have lived to have seen his fourth birthday is practically a miracle. Thanks, Jen.
Once, when we were at the races, I remember #1 asking someone how long greyhounds live. ‘Hmmm’, came the answer, ‘depends how good they are’.
So here’s wishing the gangling, clumsy great duffer a happy fourth birthday. He might be shite at racing, but he always seems to get to the sofa first. Bless.
