life skills

mo 1 Jun 2026	Life Skills No. 70: You probably know this but when using a webcam for face recognition look at the camera not the screen.
tu 23 Dec 2025	Life Skills No. 69: If you are planning a tattoo probably not a woman's name unless it's Mother.
we 24 Sep 2025	Life Skills No. 68: Surprisingly the email saying your Evri is ready for collection over the counter doesn't have a barcode. It does remind you that photo id is needed because surprisingly your name seems to be enough ... worked in the Framlingham Co-op yesterday.
th 14 Aug 2025	Life Skills No. 67: In this hot weather useful to remember that double glazing works both ways.
fr 27 Jun 2025	Life Skills No. 66: If you have small children don't buy permanent markers.
we 18 Jun 2025	Life Skills No. 65: It often surprises people that hot dry weather is the poorest for tv and radio reception. If your DAB portable is blipping and burping try moving the aerial to an inconvenient position, it may help it may not. Sometimes turning the radio a little helps.
mo 31 Mar 2025	Life Skills No. 64: The trouble with a clever project to use something up is you may have to buy more of the something to finish the project ... paint for example.
we 19 Mar 2025	Life Skills No. 63: Last Wednesday in the Martlesham Tesco Extra it was so quiet we found it unsettling. Had something awful happened that we didn't know about yet? A mature checkout person opined that Wednesday afternoons are always quiet, useful to know.
tu 4 Feb 2025	Life Skills No. 62: Avoid asking more than one question especially in a message or email because most people will only answer the last one.
su 22 Dec 2024	Life Skills No. 61: Complaining to Tesco is not easy, the Customer Services counter is often poorly informed and sometimes unhelpful and there's no easy way to communicate with the monolith. What did work for us when they owed us £9 was Little Helper via WhatsApp, persevere and AI will pass you onto a person.
mo 2 Dec 2024	Life Skills No. 60: That's £20 we won't get back, travelled to the Saxmundham Tesco to find you can no longer use a coupon after the event. Pleasant woman behind the counter regrettably confirmed you now have to use vouchers at the time of purchase ... have other shopkeepers followed the UK's largest?
sa 19 Oct 2024	Life Skills No. 59: Prompted by a friend we downloaded the RingGo parking app so we wouldn't have to worry about having the right coins when visiting the dentist in Woodbridge. The app worked on our second visit and we thought That's that, but then it didn't work in a Dorchester council car park and we leant there's more than one parking app. Judging by this Wickham Market sign there's now a choice of five apps in East Suffolk.
th 1 Aug 2024	Life Skills No. 58: For years we opened paint tins with a screwdriver then we bought a Wickes opener that looked a little like the screwdriver that came with Meccano. It does work better than a screwdriver. In time we realised it's perfect to put under the lid of a jar of gherkins or olives to ease the vacuum so you can get the lid off ... winner winner chicken dinner.
we 17 Jul 2024	Life Skills No. 57: We struggle with those beer four packs that are glued together to avoid a plastic binder. Indeed on our first encounter we deployed a Swiss army knife and inadvertently cut through a can wall made of an aluminium only slightly thicker than a human hair. Getting ready for England v Spain Sunday night we noticed there are instructions on the can side ... it was so much easier.
mo 13 May 2024	Life Skills No. 56: Don't push your supermarket trolley with your hands on the outside, you'll get your knuckles skinned by a careless trolley pusher and if it's the Bury St Edmunds big Tescos they probably won't apologise.
fr 15 Mar 2024	Life Skills No. 55: When pain killer shopping surprisingly (to us at least) Lemsip and its relatives counts as one of your two per shop.
mo 18 Dec 2023	Life Skills No. 54: The V11 letter that has a ref number to renew your road tax online comes with links to other ways to pay, making an off road declaration or telling the DVLA you've moved or don't have the vehicle anymore but not pay on line. More usefully there's a new to us link get a MOT reminder.
tu 24 Oct 2023	Life Skills No. 54: We knew that Fitzroy replaced Finisterre on the shipping forecast but despite a lifetime of listening to Forties Dogger German Bight we couldn't say where any of them are. The map on the Met Office web site makes it clear they sort of surround the British Isles.

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