Next?

On Monday Royal Mail will complete the move of processing of all inbound mail for everyone with a YO postcode (that's us) from York to the new, expanded sorting centre in Leeds.  They've been warning us since Christmas and reassuring everyone that there will be no disruption, so this year our post has been sporadic, some days nothing other days a small heap, some things arriving next day others taking over a week.  We can only hope that the new centre will improve things but being pessimistic (going on past experience) we have a feeling it may take a while to settle down.  So if you're sending us something please allow extra time and if you're expecting a response and don't get one please do contact us.  The outbound postal service remains unchanged so CJS Weekly deliveries to subscribers should be unaffected.
It's been a bit of a disastrous week so changes to Royal Mail don't bode well at all.  On Monday HB's husband was taking her car to fetch some vital parts for the broken open fire when a bird flew straight into the windscreen leaving a spiders web of a crack, the insurers don't use the normal windscreen repairers and after several cancelled / missed appointments a new windscreen has still not been fitted and the next appointment is for Tuesday, over a week since the incident.
The missing part for the open fire has be custom made, we do have a wonderful local blacksmith but somewhere along the line the dimensions got lost in translation and the new piece is too large and has had to be cut down to size, but that takes time and the household have been without their main source of heat for four days, so when I phoned to ask if she could some extra office typing she was only too pleased to come in for a warm up.
And why would HB be needed in the office during half term on her day off?  Because TB has fallen over and broken her elbow - or to be more precise Titan (difficult ex-racer) swung round and with his hindquarters knocked her over. She landed fairly and squarely on her elbow on the concrete yard.  Most of Wednesday was spent in various A&Es and as of Friday lunchtime she was still waiting for it to be wired back together, Wednesday no bed, Thursday no anaesthetist, Friday too many more urgent cases....
OK next? Our webserver is grumbling again, the whole lot disappeared on Thursday night (I really hope you didn't notice) we got it back up and running about midnight.  More work to come over the weekend.  Please do let us know of any problems.
Oh yes and AW is on holiday.
HB and I are grateful the week is drawing to a close and are planning on celebrating with the biggest bar of chocolate we can find, washed down with a glass or two of something!  Our spirits were lifted by very delicious brownies on Thursday and lemon drizzle cake today from the kitchen of master baker Miss KMB.
And in the garden the first snowdrops are peeking through.

But I'm beginning to despair of ever getting the herbaceous borders cleared of the winter detritus, they're still under snow, with more forecast for the weekend.



Anyway, to finish off, here's some good news.  We have actually put Monday's CJS Weekly together, 14 pages this week including the calendar of Work Days and Conservation Tasks for March plus 58 adverts 8 of them for volunteers.