Argh! They got me!

My laptop's been infected with the techy equivalent of swine flu.

The timing is crap (isn't it always?) but it's going to take a while to sort, so apologies for absence.

I'd forgotten how it makes you feel - vulnerable, violated - like someone's broken into your home and has been rummaging through your knickers drawer.

On the plus side, it provides useful insight for my WIP, where my protagonist is going through much the same ...

I'll be back as soon as I can, meanwhile here's some music ...

Things I don't get ...

• Wearing boots in summer
• Extreme sports
• Non-extreme sports
• Twitter (and Facebook, MySpace, Bebo et al - anything except blogging in other words)
• Low-slung strides
• Gas guzzlers
• People who leave taps running
• Shutter shades
• Mornings
• Instant coffee
• Town houses
• Ironing

Feel free to add to the list.

I'm having a domestic

There's a cold front a'comin' - on the hottest days of the year.

In brief (because spending this much time and energy on household appliances bores me to shreds) we bought a new fridge from Comet and had it delivered.

It didn't work.

Nor did its replacement.

In between, cue hours and hours on the phone trying to get round Comet's inflexible systems so that we could end up with a working fridge without bureaucratic entanglements necessitating engineer call outs, returns to the store etc etc.

After much angst, we finally got our money back and a new (Working! Yay!) fridge elsewhere. My 3 page letter of complaint to Comet's Head Office, enclosing receipts for the £65+ of food we had to throw away - not to mention details of the numerous phone calls, 4 days spent waiting for delivery or engineer, 3 weeks with no working fridge and massive stress and frustration) they've offered me compensation ... £20.

Yep, twenty measly quid. Pah!

But at least we now have a cold fridge.

Except that yesterday I noticed the warning light was blinking - on our freezer!

Bet you can't guess where I'm NOT going for a replacement ...

Seems I'm not alone. Just try Googling 'Comet complaints'.