.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

One of the things on the rather long To Do list is to buy a doorbell, so that the flashing thingy will work and I will know when people are at the door, rather than relying on my eyes or C or Harry to tell me someone is knocking. Haven't got round to it yet... today I wished I had!

The saga started when C texted me to say she had finished work early in Preston, and as it was such a nice evening, we agreed that I would walk Harry along the canal towpath and meet her at the station at the other end. However, I was halfway down the hill when she texted me to tell me that her train had broken down and she was stranded in Blackburn for at least 30 minutes. Change of plan: I walk Harry down by the canal and then pick her up in the car later.

It wasn't until I eventually got home that I realised I'd lost the car key. Panic! I frantically looked all over the house (which had suddenly doubled in size) but could not find it, so I turned on MSN and panicked to A instead. After an hour of futile searching, made worse by the fact that I'd spent most of today cleaning the house/unpacking/doing washing/generally moving things around, and the other fact that I couldn't really remember what I was wearing that morning [it was 7.30am when I drove C to the station, alright!?], so basically... The Key Could Be Anywhere.

So off me and Harry went out again, down the hill and along the canal towpath all over again, meeting C halfway and turning around and walking up the hill again. Home. C and me turned the house over for another hour, but did we find the key? No, we did not. HOWEVER, C found the spare key which we don't use because it's broken and I'm very likely to get it stuck in the ignition or something equally stupid, knowing me.

By this time it was getting dark and we'd kind of decided that someone had nicked the key and was waiting for it to get dark so that they could come along and steal the car, and then we wouldn't have a car any more. We have an old steering wheel lock that we thought might be useful, so we decided to go and open the car with the dodgy key and make it more secure. While we were just putting the lock on, our neighbour walked past.

"Did you get it, then?" he asked C.
"Get what?"
"Your key? My kid found it on the path and gave it to the old man next door."

Hooray!

Unfortunately the very nice old man next door didn't know I'm Deaf - he does now! - so he'd been round to ring the doorbell twice already, but we don't have a doorbell, so he'd knocked, and Harry had barked, but I'd just told him to be quiet and stop being so neurotic, like I usually do.

And that is why we need a flashing doorbell... and SOON.