THE MAN FROM THE AIR AMBULANCE!

What sort of coincidence is THAT.
The man who collects for the Great North Air Ambulance came to the house this afternoon. As I was busy phoning up to arrange my weeks free insurance on the mini, commencing from 12.00am on Tuesday 13th October (Not that I'm picking it up at 12am, that's just how they do this free stuff. I'm actually picking it up at 4.30.) and changing my existing insurance to cover the mini from 20th October - all very complicated I know, I could hear Charles talking to someone outside and the puppies going berserk in the breakfast room. It turned out that it was the man who collects for the Air Ambulance and after that horrendous programme this morning when the man lost his fingers in the leaf shredder I just wanted to say to Charles, 'Give him as much as we can afford and ask him if he knows how that poor man is,' But I couldn't say any of this because I was busy trying to listen to the flaming recorded message and to press the right buttons and to reject the cover for lost keys while trying to decipher the Asian accent at the end of a very crackly phone line. Even now, I'm not sure what I've agreed to because I'd lost the will to live after being put on hold for umpteen times.
And you know what? When I get my very nice personalised plate in a couple of weeks I have to ring them up and do it all over again!
My plate has my initials on it SLE = Susan LESLEY Ellis.
I have to say I'm not overkeen on the Lesley bit, but as my father was a Methodist minister one wag suggested that he was trying to find a name for his daughter that was similar to that of the mother of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. His mum's name was Susannah Wesley, so maybe my dad, bless him, was being divinely led when he named his first born!
My son, James isn't too keen on one of his middle names either. Yes he has two! His third name is Roderick. His dad wasn't convinced either, so you'll have guessed that it's MY fault. I actually wanted Roderick to be his first name, but Charles wasn't having that. In fact I kind of gave up on the idea, but when Charles came back from registering the birth he'd added Roderick to keep me happy!
It very nearly won James an award though! At the Leavers Dinner when he left KEV1, he came runner up in the award for the silliest middle name, narrowly beaten by TARQUIN! (James you should be grateful you only got Roderick!!)