342.
I woke up this morning very, very worried. On reflection, I was worrying about something that is not very serious at all, but, nonetheless, I was worried. Ever since I came back from Portugal at the end of January and developed my current ailment, I have been practically housebound. If there is one thing during the past eight weeks that you could bet your mortgage on, it is that I would almost certainly be in the house. Tomorrow we are having our new tumble dryer delivered - and like all things in this modern digital age, the delivery company cannot give us a more specific delivery time than "sometime between 8.30am and 4pm... and we won't leave it with a neighbour, and if there is no-one in when we call, then we will take it back to the warehouse and there will be a missed delivery charge applied". So, on that basis, and under that financial threat, someone has to be in the house all day to await the new domestic appliance (oh... and they won't deliver up stairs either - and nor will they remove the appliance from the packaging) . As I said, normally this wouldn't be a problem, but tomorrow I have to meet with the officials of the Department of Work and Pensions to assess my ability to suffer fools and try to keep a straight face whilst being interviewed by a person by the surname of Heath, the parents of whom had enough of a sense of humour to name their son Ted (I jest not). I don't know what I'll do if he has a big grin and a penchant for sailing blazers - although I am sure that it will result in me being disqualified from any state assistance! So, that's what I was worried about: there being no-one to take delivery of the tumble dryer (and it will be Sod's law - tomorrow they'll come at 9, when they usually come at 4) and meeting someone called Ted Heath. The things that go through my mind at that moment between sleep and consciousness don't bear thinking about. With today being a bank holiday everywhere except Dundee, I was unable to get the delivery date changed - so now I'll be worrying all night again. Then my bleeding email asked me for my password!!! It's never done that before! So I had to phone the ISP and get them to tell me what it was... and you'll never guess... they asked me for my password in order to reset it! Duh! Got that sorted out, just in time to receive an email telling me that a colleague of mine donated money to help get the CPHRC back up and running. By the end of the evening, I went from having no emails to having five (and that's not including my hotmail and yahoo ones) - including one that I didn't know I had. I seem to becoming a bit of a collector.