the white screen of death

On Thursday evening my iPhone died.  Maybe using the word "died" is a bit of an over-reaction considering it still actually worked, I just couldn't see anything I was doing on 2/3rds of the screen due to the screen being all white.

I almost cried, and I stressed so much that I gave myself a headache.

When you rely on your phone for everything and then you don't have it, it is a massive stress!  What DID we do before iPhones were invented?!?!  It'd be like having your pigeon carrier be eaten by your cat and you can't get a new one for ages!

My husband, bless him, lent me his old Nokia phone.  After 24 hours of "using" it, I still didn't have a clue on how to use it, and my texts were badly composed, and I often cut people off, didn't know how to answer a call, or put them on speaker whilst trying to disconnect.

The worse part?  No twitter. No facebook. No weather app to tell me what to expect as the day went on.  No train timetables to check trains on. No Email. No Calendar to check things. STRESS!

Queue Apple Store. 1 hour.  Guy has my iPhone, I sit playing with an iPad.  He comes back.  "I just replaced your screen, all good now".
I leave super happy that I have my iPhone back, and I can see everything I do now.
The bad part?
I want one of these....

the girl who lived

For the last 3 of my work shifts I have had the fortune joy task of dealing with some very lovely nice interesting people.

The majority of the people who read my blog, know what I do for a living, however for those who do not, I will tell you.  I am a Revenue Protection Officer on the railway.  My job involves ensuring people pay for their railway journeys, and where they do not we enforce a fine for traveling without a ticket, or in some extreme cases we will question people about their ticketless journey and submit a report to our prosecutions office for consideration.  Majority of the time my role involves me helping passengers, pointing them in the right direction, giving them information and ensuring they get the correct and cheapest ticket for their journey and needs.  However sometimes I get passengers who are unhappy (it happens!)
For the last 3 shifts I have had, some of the passengers that I've had to deal with assist have been on the wrong side of tricky.

Monday I had a lady screaming so loud that she was causing a scene.  She was shouting, and crying and near hysterics.  Whilst trying to help her and calm her down she was screaming at me, and not two inches from my face, I could see her tonsils, and my ears hurt.  As I couldn't get her to calm down, I stepped back, I suspect if I hadn't stepped back she would have hit me.  She wasn't going to calm down no matter what I did.  In the end the police dealt with her.

Tuesday I had 2 young men who had travelled with no tickets and no means at all to pay for any tickets.  The police also stepped in on this one.  One of the guys was on his way to his court hearing (I didn't ask!) so I questioned him, filled in my report and off he went, and his friend was penaltied, whilst wearing handcuffs.  Whilst I was trying to question him, the police were running his details and the next thing I know is he's being handcuffed as there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest for serious violent assault on a female.  I was just going to leave it at that, but the police officer advised me to penalty fare him.

I had no issues on Wednesday, as it was my day off and I rested, cleaned and cooked.

Today I managed to calm down and placate a very disorientated and upset schizophrenic man.  I know he was schizophrenic because he told me he was, and his behaviour was very text book (well wiki page).  At one point he was aggressive and then he was crying, and then he was fine.  It was like every few moments a switch was flipped on his personailty.  It was scary and not scary at the same time.  Not scary because I knew that I could get through to him and help him, but scary because you just don't know how some people will react to you.  He seemed to react better to a woman helping him rather than a man.  He also didn't really like black people or police officers.

It's really bizarre how I cope with stressful situations, especially ones that are emergencies or are dangerous.  However despite having a cool composed shell, you can bet your ass on the inside that I'm all "OH MY FREAKING GOD!!"  It's like this woman is running around my brain.

Ready, Steady, Cook!

I LOVE COOKING.  I really do.  There are occassions when my husband and I argue about who gets to cook.  He also enjoys cooking.  Sometimes he is very stubborn about it.
I make my own pasta sauces, which are awesome.  We make our own pasta, although this rare now-a-days due to the varying shifts we do.  I love experimenting with food, although my husband says I should just leave things be.  Cakes however are a different story.  They turn out ok, however I'm not always happy with them.  I think I need more practice.

Tomorrow I have a day off.  I may do some cooking.  Cake and Pasta Sauces.  and Maybe I'll take some photo's and do a foodie post.

I leave you with this.

the man who struggled

Last Wednesday (the 18th) was my 3rd anniversary with my husband, as a couple, not as a married.  To be fair we both completely forgot it, until I sent my husband a text about it later that evening!
We decided that we'd stay in on the Monday and cook a meal and have a nice evening together, but things change.  Instead we went to Tony Roma's (the place for ribs) and had a date night (although my husband informs me that it's only a date night if sex is involved...)
  Anyhoo!!  So considering we often work opposite shifts it's sometimes days before we actually see other, therefore when we do have time off together, we make the most of it, well we try to anyway.  As I said tonight was Tony Roma's.  My first attempt at the Endless Ribs. (I failed)  The ribs were nice, I just couldn't finish them.  It was a great evening, and I really enjoyed my evening.  However the highlight was the comments card that we filled in at the end of the meal.
According to my husband, the best part of our visit was the man struggling to have a poo in the mens toilets.  At which I'd like to point out, it was probably the best part of my husbands evening, as I don't actually use the men's toilets.  I would quite like to see the faces of the staff as they read our comment card.

After a horrendously shitty day, laughs and beers is what I needed.

Now to watch a man eat a 3ft Bratwurst.  You can watch the video here.

Highs & Lows

Today is a low day.  It started off as a high day, but things happen.  things which I really can't be bothered to go into because they'll just stress me out even more.  and even as I write,  I re-think things and it starts again, the anger, the offence, and the hurt, and the what if's.  the what if's are the worse.

I hate low days.  Everything I hate about myself rears it's ugly head, all my horrible thoughts, all my insecurities, I over think things that needn't be overthought, I allow stupid things to annoy me, and despite my need to pull myself out of a funk, there's nothing I can really be bothered to do to make that happen.

Then I think that compared to some, my life isn't so bad, my problems aren't really problems.  Except I can't help but want to be a little selfish, that's allowed surely?

Except I'm not a selfish person, so I feel bad, and guilty, for having feelings, for wanting someone to sympathise and empathise with me. to understand. and to not judge.

it's times like these that I wish I was back on my island, watching the sunset from a hammock and drowning my emotions with a rum punch.

Sunset at Rum Point

say What?

Today I came home and sitting on the door mat was a letter that I knew was from the bank.  It screamed bank, despite being a plain white envelope.

Upon opening it, I discovered it definitely was from the bank.  In fact I had to read it twice to believe it.  It started Dear Mrs Masters, then listed my account details and this
Planned Overdraft Limit: £250.00
Balance: £250.66 overdrawn

Ok, fine, then I read on.  All in all, the bank is charging me £33 for going 66 pence over my planned overdraft facility. WHAT? £33 for 66 pence?!?  Thats like 50 pence per penny! Holy cow.

Now normally, if I have gone over my planned overdraft 2 things usually happen.
1. The bank usually decline the card/payment
2. I've made a judgement error and suck it up. (it's happened once or twice in my adult life)

On this occassion, neither of these things apply.  At no point was my card/payment declined, and I certainly wasn't sucking up this atrocious charge.
Queue phone call to the banks customer services department, which thankfully I didn't have to wait too long to be connected to someone. (you have to pay for those calls you know!)

Coversation went like this
Bank: How can we help today Mrs Masters
Me: Well I'm calling about a letter you've sent me today regarding my account.  I'm not happy with the charges you are levying on my account.  I appreciate that I've gone over my overdraft, however it's 66 pence.  £33 for 66 pence seems very unreasonable.  I have a facility that sends me a text message with my balance every week, however you send me a letter 3 days after my account has gone overdrawn.  Surely there should be a text messaging facility to alert customers to the fact that they've gone overdrawn so they can put some extra cash in the bank.  Had I known I was 66 pence overdrawn, I would have put 66 pence in my account!  Further more, why, if there wasn't enough money in my account to pay for a purchase, why did you not just declne the card? (I did probably have a bit more of a rant to her, in fact I'm pretty sure I ranted and raved about moving my account to Natwest)
Bank: Well the charges are done by Visa,  they will take the full payment even if your account is a few pound short.
(wait, what?)
Me: That's rdiculous.  I'm not at all happy about this.  It's an extortionate amount of money for such a small misdemenour (sp?!?)
Bank: I understand Mrs Masters.  What would you like me to do?
Me: Well I don't think I should have to pay such fee's.  I'm happy to pay the £15 unplanned overdraft charge, but I'm not willing to pay the £6 per day levy on top.
Bank: Mrs Masters, I will refund all of the charges for you.

Well thats roughly how it went anyway.

I honestly cannot believe that charge.  Perhaps a facility like the one I suggested with the text messaging should be put in place.  It would atleast save admin costs for them (not sending letters).
Apparantly the system is all changing in December.  They are introducing a £10 buffer, where you have no charges.  However they are charging all people with overdrafts £5 a month for the service.
And they have an iPhone App in the pipeline.  which means I can check my account a lot easier than via the web on my iPhone.

Needless to say I'm a lot happier now that I'm not being charged £33 for going 66 pence over.

Test blog

Just testing to see if I can blog from iPhone
FAIL or WIN?

Sent from my iPhone