30 June 2017 (Friday) - Another Rostered Day Off

I slept well; over brekkie I suddenly realised I’d missed the meeting of the South Ashford Community Forum on Wednesday evening. Woops. Mind you I suppose it might have been for the best that I wasn’t there. It strikes me that the South Ashford Community Forum offers untold opportunities for petty bickering, and quite frankly I’m sick of arguments.

I exchanged a few messages with a friend too. Someone with whom I used to work has been up before the Health and Care Professions Tribunal yesterday. Not that it is much consolation for her, but her hearing took only six months to be convened. Mine took eighteen months, and in that time the stress helped me lose nearly six stones in weight. Having been there myself, I’d offered to be available for her if she needs someone to talk to about it but I’m very conscious that there’s not a lot I can actually do. She said it helped to speak with someone who’d been through it, so I suppose I’ve been some help.
I won’t go into details about why she was there, but I can say that (having been there myself) it would have been a truly horrible experience for her. She’s told me she’s been suspended from practising for eighteen months and has to provide evidence of her re-training before being reinstated on the professional register. Unless she can find someone who’s good enough to provide such training, effectively that’s the end of her career. (I was lucky)
However, if nothing else, she will find out who her true friends are. I did.

The plan for today had originally been geocaching in London. Having organised a route and having organised a Facebook event the idea seemed rather popular. But as today got closer and closer, so everyone backed out.
And the weather forecast for today wasn’t good either, so I cancelled.

I got the leads onto the dogs, and we went round the park for a walk. As we walked, little Rolo was set about by a much bigger dog. Fudge and Treacle leapt to his defence, and I got all the dogs away before any harm was done. Fortunately the bigger dog was on a lead; even if he nearly did pull his owner over. The silly woman holding the lead then had a whinge at me for not letting her dog play with my dogs. I explained that when playing, small dogs do not scream in terror. But she wasn’t having any of it, and followed behind us telling the world how mean I was for not letting her dog play with mine.
It was as well that we walked faster than she did; we soon left her behind. However we were soon stopped by some other idiot who insisted on picking Rolo up to fuss him because (as she told us) she was “dog mad”. When she moved towards Fudge I told her in no uncertain terms she was not to touch him because he had a bad back, and when she looked at Treacle I told her that Treacle bites. I suggested she might like to have a go with the murderous hound that was following behind us.
We then had to make a slight detour to avoid the drunks in the Chinese garden who were as pissed as farts at 8:30am.
Some days our walk round the park is dull. Other days not so.

Once home I loaded up my car with the broken fence panel that I extracted yesterday and quite a bit of other assorted rubbish, and went to the tip. Having met no end of nutters at the park, the tip was disappointingly dull. From there I popped round to Bybrook barn to price up their shingle, and (pausing only briefly for geocachical reasons) then went on to B&Q to compare the price of their shingle. Bybrook Barn was far cheaper.
Whilst in B&Q my piss boiled. I have a plan to make a pergola above the garden pond. B&Q sell the metposts I need to make one. However they don’t sell wood that fits the metposts. When I queried this, the idiot assistant suggested I took a rectangular plank and sawed it to size. I asked if he knew anything about metposts; it was clear he did not. Pergolas are going to have to wait.
I came home to finish painting the shed.

Just as I finished painting, Cheryl phoned. They had got home at 7am and had a bit of a snooze. Did I want to fetch Rolo round?
I loaded his bed and stuff into the car, and I went round for a cuppa. I thought that as I was out and about anyway I would pop back to Bybrook barn to get the rock and shingle I’d seen this morning. On hearing my plans "My Boy TM" came for the ride. I was glad to have him along; he helped with the heavy lifting. He helped me choose a tree. And once we got the stuff home he also helped me get my new huge flower pots in place.

I dropped him home just as the forecast heavy rain started. Rather than carrying on it the garden I got some lunch and ironed shirts whilst the DVD player played “Layer Cake”.

"er indoors TM" came home and then shoved off down to the chip shop to get some cod and chips for dinner. Not too shabby at all. But for desert I had a load of cherries from "My Boy TM"’s cherry tree.
I’ve got stomach ache now…

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