Badger Galore
Staying ‘Up Over’ for a while.
Another 'booking' mishap!
So... this week I arranged to take an Indian takeaway to my brother's house one evening. In my opinion the best Indian in town is The Taste of Bengal so I googled them and found that there was 10% off online orders on their website. Win, win!
Before you could start to order you had to put in your postcode and then I spent ages trawling through their menu choosing the dishes, rice, naan breads and side dishes I wanted before heading to the checkout.
For some reason it just would not accept my debit card. I tried a few times and was getting quite annoyed but saw the other option was to pay by cash so I tried that option and the order went through which I was to pick up in about 30 minutes.
It was then that I noticed a map of the location of The Taste of Bengal beside what looked like a sizeable body of water. Now since I have been here there has been quite a lot of precipitation but I had not heard of serious flooding in the town. Something was clearly not right and I was horrified to discover that I had just ordered a lot of curry from The Taste of Bengal on the Isle of Man!
Aaaaaghhh! There is no way I could get there in 30 minutes. That's at least an hour and a half by road and then at least an hour's ferry trip!
I rang them in a panic to cancel the order before they started cooking it. It seems I am not the first person to make this mistake and that is why they ask for your postcode and probably why the debit card payment wouldn't go through. The very nice gentleman on the other end of the phone said they would have rung me to check before cooking but he was very grateful that I had rung him to cancel it first.
That's the internet for you!
Durham.
So... this week I made a trip to Durham to renew my British Passport which I thought was due to run out in May this year but I was told it actually ran out last August. I have no idea, in that case, why they let me in the country. It was a 'Brexit thing' apparently. Perhaps that explains everything.
Anyway, I have my new passport and was able to spend ages in the magnificent Cathedral in Durham and even climb the 325 steps up to the tower. I could see why I had to sign a health and safety document and disclaimer before going up. It felt like more than 325 steps and getting to the top certainly took your breath away.
The fellow who was climbing it in front of me could hardly bear to look at the view. It turned out he had vertigo! I asked him why he would pay 7 pounds to go up if he knew he had vertigo and he said he liked to push himself. I was tempted to push him too! He couldn't wait to get down again once he was up but had to cling to the wall until a group of others coming up behind us had reached the top.
Another ascender was a breathless young Asian student who was coming up as I was going back down. She had waited years to climb the tower. According to her it seems University students in the city must not climb the tower until they graduate or they face failing their exams. She had just graduated and was so excited to finally get to the top.
Manchester.
An afternoon in Keswick.
