Do you remember me posting about a payments protection insurance claims company which kept on ringing me and writing to me? There have been other companies who have rung, but this one was the most persistent.

 

They were called Tucan Claims.

I saw this news items today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-18409269

 

It turns out that the goverment regulator banned Tucan from taking on any new business in April and ordered them to pay all refunds of fees paid upfront they were aware of within 5 weeks. A day before the refunds had to be paid the company went into administration leaving 15 employees redundant and people potentially out of pocket.

 

The administrator now has the job of sorting things out and will investigate the circumstances surrounding the failure of Tucan.

 

I feel sorry for those people who have potentially lost their money. If I find out anything further over the next few weeks I'll let you know. I was wary of Tucan from the very beginning and I paid nothing to them, but there will be quite a lot of people who did.

 

I still keep looking whenever I see clover, I don't think I should buy any scratch cards

The strange thing was that I've never searched for clover, the 4 leaf one I found was by complete chance. I remember that when I found it, my brother started looking for another one but couldn't find any more.

 

El, I think that 4 clover was meant for you, how very rare & lucky  

 

The tooth fairy doggy is cute! Maybe I should make bramble some fairy wings  

 

If you do, you'll need to post a pic.

Lol sure thing She let me put a coat on her that I made

I bought Keira a coat last winter - she hates it!

I wonder why?! I'm making one for stream out of her dads tweed.. Bramble was my model so I could fathom my technique How is Keira now?

I'm off to bed now yogi, hope you enjoy BB & I'll see you tomorrow. Sweet dreams

Sorry Summer, I was in the BB thread.

Keira is fine now thanks.

Goodnight, sleep well.

Goodnight all.

Nite Yogi  

Good morning everyone

 

It's dry at present but another wet and windy spell is coming for most of us later today.

 

My brother is due to come here for the weekend arriving tomorrow afternoon and goes back Sunday afternoon. He intends to come again 5 weeks later, then a gap of 8 weeks. This is because the library staff in his part of London have been told not to take time off during the Olympics and the Para-olympics, and because using public transport in London during the Olympics could be ultra-busy.

 

 

 

Good morning everyone, similar weather to you I think EL, dry at the moment but due to pour later with high winds expected.

 

I don't envy people trying to get to work during the Olympics and I am glad I no longer work in London.

 

Bramble would look so cute with angel wings

The train my brother catches to get from where he lives to the centre of London goes past the Olympics site which is why it is likely to be ultra-busy.

 

Squiggle, I hope the bad weather doesn't cause you problems. Although Gloucester will get the heavy rain and wind, it's outside the area with the current Met Office yellow warning. I think though the Met Office will change the warning as they've got the warning for Friday and the rain seems to be mainly today from the afternoon with the worst during the evening. (I'm referring to your and my areas)

 

 

Good morning everyone. Forecast is for showers in the morning with some sunshine in the afternoon. It's dry but overcast atm.

Hope the weather doesn't get as bad as predicted where you are, El and Squiggle.

El, what is the forecast in your area, during your brother's visit - not wind and rain hopefully.

I have to take Keira to the groomer's this afternoon. She doesn't like going but she does look pretty afterwards. I'll try to get a full length pic of her in all her glory - not easy, as she has a habit of sitting down and smiling when she sees the camera pointing at her.

The forecast is for hefty showers for much of the time, but as we will be indoors most of the time, it won't dampen our spirits

 

When you say Keira smiles, I hope it's not like that advert

No El, I'm pleased to say she doesn't smile like that.

I'm glad to hear it

Hi all 

That advert makes me laugh El 
Weather has been lovely here, but it wont last 
My brother lives in London and dreading the Olympics, just in the sense of getting around

Have a good day all  

I've just seen that there's been vandalism to the railway cables in the Cheltenham area which is causing delays and cancellations. They are hoping to do the repair work during today. My brother's train from London goes to Cheltenham immediately after Gloucester and in reverse on the way back. I'm hoping this doesn't cause problems for my brother tomorrow but I've left a message for him to check the timetable for tomorrow. The power cables have been cut rather than stolen so the signalling isn't working properly.

 

 

Good afternoon a steady/busy morning at work, which is why I'm only just surfacing El, I hope your brother doesn't experiences any major delays, vandalism like that is utterly mindless and disgraceful. I hope you both enjoy the weekend no matter what the weather- what cake will you be choosing this time? Yogi, how is Keira groomed? Do they clipper her, or hand trim..? I'm going to hand strip bramble myself when the time comes, I've been practising on stream this week

Summer, my brother has since rung me back from work so he has been warned about the possible train problems.

Generally, apart from Christmas, Easter and my brother's birthday, my brother brings the cakes with him. He tends to get Mr Kiplings cakes as they are easy to transport. At Christmas etc, I get suitable cakes for the occasion.

 

By the way, have a look at the PMs.

 

I know we are getting close to the 20,000 posts on this thread and when we got to the 10,000 post I did that autoplaying fireworks to the 1812 overture music. The chances are that we will get to the 20,000 mark in the next couple of days when my brother is here. That means it's unlikely I will be around that much so I haven't worked on anything like that this time. So please don't stop posting at 19,999 posts waiting for me to post number 20,000.

I honestly dont understand this vandalism  I hope its all sorted for your brother,s visit El x

I have been removing AVG from my computer and have Avast now. I find the computer running better, touch wood! I found AVG was slowing down the comp too much. It took up much of the afternoon ! 
Will try to keep an eye out for 20.000, i dont want it to be me ............

Thanks Skylark Luckily the vandalism happened early this morning rather than tomorrow. According to the BBC webpage on this, they've updated the news to say that normal service was resumed this afternoon at 3.40 so I would think that means that my brother's journey will run on time.

 

I hope Avast works better for you than AVG. I don't use free a/v s/w and use Bullguard which was installed on my pc when I bought it. I pay about £40 a year but it's an all in 1 package so covers firewall (so I don't use the Windows firewall which is built into Windows XP Professional - not a good idea to have two firewalls on at the same time as that causes conflicts), a/v scanner (both real time and when I want to), It also includes a cloud backup (which I don't use as I have confidential client files), parental controls (a bit academic as I'm not a parent) and a pc heath check for sorting things out like broken registry entries.

Evening all.

El, I hope the mindless vandalism doesn't upset your brother's travelling arrangements.

Keira is back from the groomers, looking and smelling beautiful. She is hand trimmed, not clippered, El. She seemed more relaxed about going in to the groomers today - the staff are really lovely with all the dogs.

Mr Yogi has been laughing his socks off at my attempts to get a decent pic to post for you. As soon as she sees the camera pointing at her, she either sits or lies down - or walks towards me. See the pic below.

I'll try to catch her off guard tomorrow.

Goodnight all, see you tomorrow.

Please, can someone else hurry up and post, otherwise I look like I'm talking to myself.

 

Good morning all. Weather is wet and cold.

Off to do the weekly shopping later today and then I'm going to get my hair cut. I'm tempted to get my "transitional" hair chopped off, it's driving me mad.

Patience is not one of my virtues.

Good morning everyone

 

After a wet evening and night it's dry here and not particularly windy. The wind is expected to strengthen today and there may be a few showers. There's heavy rain over Wales moving eastwards so tomorrow looks to be a lot wetter than today - I'm talking about my area of course as other areas will be very different.

 

Yogi, a nice picture of Keira

 

I think the vandalised railway cables have been repaired now as there's no warnings of disruptions I can see online, so I'm expecting my brother not to have any problems coming here today.

 

I have to go to see a client immediately after lunch today and aim to get back before my brother arrives - he does have a key to my house and knows that I may be out when he gets here. I doubt if I'll be around here much between now and late Sunday afternoon so I hope you all have a great weekend.

Good morning El. I'm glad the vandalism didn't disrupt your brother's travelling arrangements. I hope you both have a good weekend, in spite of the weather.

Good morning everyone, high clouds this morning and a rainy afternoon on the way.  I hope all goes well with your client and enjoy your brother's visit EL - I hope he has brought a nice cake.

 

Yogi this is the time when you must not give in, you always feel like that just before you get the hair to the length you want, I am sure Summer will agree.  Keira is such a pretty girl, I wonder whether she will let you take a picture of her today when she is not lying down.

 

Have a good day everyone.

Morning 

After a couple of nice days we are back to wind and rain here 
Nice pic of Keira, my dog the same, when she gets herself into a cute position i try to take a pic but she always moves ! 

Have a lovely weekend with your brother El x 

Hope you dont do anything drastic at the hairdressers Yogi, you have come this far!

Off food shopping, have a good day everyone x 

Good morning (what's left of it) everyone Hehe look what I found! I love mr Kipling cakes, especially cherry bakewells! Yogi, I agree with squiggle and hope you didn't chop your hair when you're so close to achieving the style you've been working towards. Either way though, I hope you feel good after your trip to the salon! I did 32 haircuts yesterday, and then walked 4 miles with the dogs. That's why I didn't pop back last night. El, thanks for the pm promt and I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your brother

Also, yogi I think Keira's face is gorgeous, I want to hug her!

Summer, that's a brilliant Mr Kipling van

 

My brother will bring 2 boxes of their slices as they don't take a lot of space and are less likely to get squashed in transit. He's not very adventurous when it comes to food and tends to have the same things. At Easter when we had dish and chips on Good Friday I cooked some M&S frozen fish, one cod and one haddock. He had already said he would have the cod as he had never had haddock. So I gave him a small portion of my haddock for him to try and he liked it.

 

The wind has picked up now and there's already been a shower with more to come. I've put a towel and hair dryer in my brother's bedroom as he always walks here. So if he gets soaked, he can use them.

 

Hi all, I'm back from doing the shopping. The price of food is shocking atm!

I have listened to all of you and won't get my hair chopped this afternoon. I'll give it one more month and see how it goes. Squiggle, I love this smiley ->

Summer, I love Mr Kipling cakes. In fact, I've yet to find one I don't like.

I will continue to try to get a decent pic of Keira, but don't hold your breath.

She would love one of your cuddles, Summer, as she is used to lots of cuddles. One night, youngest son returned home at 2a.m. (a bit worse for wear) and decided to go down onto the floor and give Keira a goodnight hug. Middle son came downstairs at 4a.m. for a glass of water, and found his brother fast asleep, snuggled up with Keira.

El, I hope your brother doesn't get soaked, but at least you are well prepared with the towel and hairdryer.

Good luck with the grocery shopping Skylark, and I hope you get more for your money than I did.

 

I did managed to get one pic of Keira looking at the camera. As you can see, she had already started walking towards me.

Sorry about the garden hose and pink gardening gloves in the background.

 

 

I like the photo Yogi, she looks a very wise dog.  So sweet the story of your middle son cuddling up with her and falling asleep.

 

Hope your brother doesn't get too wet EL, my youngest grandson just went off for a stroll down to the post office and the minute he left it hammered down

Great photo of Keira, Yogi

 

I'm off to see my client now.

See you later