Jan is in Cambridge, working, and I’m enjoying the last of the English summer. The sun is shining on Higham Ferrers and it is a balmy 20 degrees. The forecasters warn that cold air is coming from the west and temperatures will drop to 16 degrees on Saturday.
At least there is no rain forecast for Sunday – Muriel’s party day. All arrangements are in hand for the party – balloons, food, cake and importantly, the booze!
Re Muriel, a man has been to look at the old boiler. He says she may qualify for a free new central heating boiler under a Government scheme to cut down carbon emissions.
Jan and I have bought her a new flat-screen TV for her birthday, a bit bigger than the old cathode-ray tube model it replaces. We had a man from Virgin (cable) TV come to fix it up. (I don’t understand these English Scart leads!) I hoped they would give her a new hi-definition box, but you have to pay more for that and she won’t want that.
However, the new TV is a triumph, excellent picture and sound. I’ve persuaded her she can use the remote to switch it off as the standby power consumption is tiny. She used to get up and switch off the old one manually.
Now we have to get rid of the old one. It’s too heavy for me to carry, so I’ll have to persuade a neighbour to help load it into the car and take it down to the tip.
I’ve already been to Kettering tip. Bob Lymn treated me to a trip there because he had to get rid of some garden waste. It was very exciting, although it seemed a bit incongruous to be unloading clippings from a Porsche Boxter! Good old Bob knows all the best places to go around here.
I’m typing this in the Beans cafe in Higham, it has good 
coffee and excellent wifi!
I’ve bee copying some of Muriel’s old photos with my new camera, hoping to display them on a TV at her party. I’m a bit stymied because I have no computer to copy them from the SD card to a USB stick, but I’ll figure something out. iPads are a bit useless sometimes!
