Why do people pay more on ebay for used items than they would to buy something new? I understand if it is a collector's item but for something you can currently buy in a shop I just never cease to be amazed at how crazy people are.
Take today. I saw a pair of normal M&S leggings (Amaia-sized). They were 99p with P&P set at £1.50. I know I can buy a new pair in Asda at £3.50 so I added it to my watched-items out of curiosity. It finally went for £4 + the P&P.
I have noticed the same with electronics. People happily bid over the new price for a once-used electronic item. I think people get carried away with the low starting prices and they forget the P&P too. Madness!
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Lent lilies?
When you speak various languages, you become aware of different cultures and climates. Take daffodils - they are called Easter lilies in Danish. That says a lot about climate. In Scotland in good year they pop out in February, March is a worst-case scenario so they'd have needed to be called Lent lilies or last-week-of February lilies in Scotland if we used similar terminology. I guess those are the kinds of names you can use in small languages, that don't work in world languages - when you speak English in places as different as New Zealand, California and Scotland, you aren't going to get names like 'Easter lilies'.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Too weird for the UK market?
Given Thomas has a bit of work on in France at the moment, I'll definitely be requesting the odd jar of 'Vanilla chestnut jam' and 'Milk jam' every time he's over!
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Micro-USBs
What is it about pears?
I've lived with him nearly six years now but I don't get the pear fetish.
Thomas is obsessed with pears... It isn't that he eats pears. I'm not actually sure I have ever seen him eat a pear but he has planted two pear trees in the garden and he loves to buy pears. When they are on special, or there's a new variety in Waitrose, or when they have been reduced as they are nearing their sell-by date, he just can't help himself. Almost every time he goes to the supermarket alone, he sheepishly unpacks in front of me and I can tell the shifty look is working up to him admitting he's bought more pears. They then lie on the work surface or in the fruit bowl till they start to go off, sometimes until the grow their own fruit fly colony and then get binned because no one in the family is a real pear fan, but still I know it is only a matter of days till the next pear consignment turns up. I really don't get it. I guess on the scale of things, there are much more expensive follies that could tempt him (I remember my ex and his TV fetish!) but psychologically it is truly fascinating!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Ten years to change a life
Shared office 2004, a photo by PhylB on Flickr.
Thomas has told me this is a very important anniversary. To be honest I couldn't have pinpointed it to the day, though I did know it was early March 2002. I had been with Collins exactly eleven years and a week, when someone brought round the new guy. I had been through the small talk with the new guy so often over eleven years, I probably didn't even look up. I ascertained he was a single, 30 year old Danish linguist who spoke twenty odd languages and who did computing too. I mentally categorized him as an Übernerd with whom I'd have little in common. I heard he'd be sitting at the opposite side of the office in a booth of his own, so figured I wouldn't see much of him. A few weeks later I came in to my office mate of two years, Sabine, packing up. She was being moved and I was being given a new office mate. Tentatively, I asked who... Sabine replied that she thought it was the big Danish bloke. My heart sank! How could I bore a single bloke with all my kiddie stories about Marcel (who was four and Lots who'd just turned two) and all my girlie stuff? I imagined years stretching ahead without so much as a coffee break. I distinctly remember turning to my computer and emailing my good friend and colleague Carol 'OMG they're making me share with the great Dane!'
The weeks passed and we started to talk and we haven't stopped since! I found out to my surprise that we had more in common than I had expected. By a year later I found my Übernerd had become my best friend! When it became clear my marriage was on the rocks, my best friend became my partner and I haven't looked back since. I wake up every morning thanking my lucky stars that my feelings towards him were reciprocated.
Occasionally, I try to imagine how my life would have turned out if Collins had left Thomas at the other side of the office. Obviously there would be no Anna or Amaia for starters. Given the strained relationship I had with my ex, which had worsened dramatically after Charlotte's birth and after he took on a high-powered job for a big US company just before the 911 stock crash, I know for sure I would be a single mum now, probably not very well off. I'd never have had the time or babysitters to chat up anyone new, so would have been leading a fairly lonely life with only my kids for company.
Ten years ago, some unknown member of Collins management decided to stick us two in an office together. I'm not a believer in fate, but if I ever find out who made that decision, I owe them my life, my love, my happiness and my kids! It's incredible how something seemingly insignificant can change your life forever!
Newborns
One thing I love about newborn babies is the way they sleep with their arms in the air when they are at their most relaxed. You see it most over the first few days of life, then slowly the pattern fades. When the arms go under the duvet for the first time, you suddenly realize they've left the womb behind and joined this world.
Last week Léon was quite under the weather but there was no convincing him to miss Beavers. He got dressed for his session and then I left him alone while I got my shoes on. When I returned, he'd fallen asleep on the couch like a baby. It must have been the first time in six years I've seen him in that position. Suddenly he looked so sweet, vulnerable and tiny to me.
Last week Léon was quite under the weather but there was no convincing him to miss Beavers. He got dressed for his session and then I left him alone while I got my shoes on. When I returned, he'd fallen asleep on the couch like a baby. It must have been the first time in six years I've seen him in that position. Suddenly he looked so sweet, vulnerable and tiny to me.
Thomas's car
Thomas's little Nissan has been annoying me today. I'd forgotten but it did the same last winter too.
At least once every winter we have a day that is so cold that the back windscreen wiper freezes onto the window. Of course, you aren't aware it is frozen on when you reverse out to do the school run and turning it on to move the dusting of snow blows the fuse.
This is particularly annoying because when you open the fuse compartment, you are confronted by approximately 12-15 fuses. They are in an incredibly awkward and tight space under the steering wheel. So I wedge myself in and read the function of each fuse with the help of a torch and my glasses. We have light, radio, washers, electrics - you name it but the fuse box claims none of the fuses relates to the wipers... grrr. So I pull each one out and look at it to see which one is burnt out. They all look intact. I then sit scratching my head as to what to do next when I notice the back wiper has miraculously started working again after three months of acting dead as a dodo. It is as if pulling out all the fuses resets something. So once again, I am none the wiser as to which of the annoying fuses I need to pull every year.
If it does it again next year I'm trading it in!
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Dutch or Kashmiri crispbreads?
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