I
didn't drive straight home after the night shift. I stopped off at the garage where
I'd arranged to have a new cam belt fitted. I usually go elsewhere to get my
car serviced and sorted, but I’d found somewhere which is far cheaper for cam
belts. Mind you "cheaper"
is relative - it is still a *lot* of
money. I did wonder about saying "sod
it" but not maintaining the car isn't an economy in the long run and I
am nothing if not parsimonious. (That's a
big word – it is posh for "tight as a duck's arse"). I did wonder
about calling it a day with my car and getting a newer one, but decided that
whatever I do about a car is a gamble, so although my car is eleven years old,
I am sticking with what I know. I'm hoping that the new cam belt will see the
car for a few more years yet; ideally long enough for me to need another one.
Is
that hopelessly idealistic of me?
I
did had a vague idea about going all tree-hugging and getting an electric car,
but there was a feature on electric cars on Radio Four the other evening
featuring Robert Llewellyn (Kryten from
"Red Dwarf"). Apparently the average electric car does two
hundred miles from a full charge, so I would be charging it twice each week.
And not being able to guarantee parking outside the house would be an issue; it
turns out that not only is there nowhere near as many places to charge an
electric car as there is to get petrol. And pretty much every charging point is
owned by a different outfit and each of these requires prior access to your
credit card. And (as demonstrated on the
radio broadcast) they don't always work. Also, when you bear in mind that
the average electric car costs about three times what I will shell out on
something that will bugger up the ozone layer, it's greenhouse gases all the
way for me, I'm afraid.
"er indoors TM" met me at the
garage; she’d brought the dogs over. I had this plan that I might walk them
home from there. It was a good plan. We came home through the park and played
in the river at the ford and at the dog beach. Whilst we were running amok at
the dog beach I suddenly found several other dogs joining in the game.
OrangeHead and her posse were standing on the bank watching me entertain all
the hounds as though I was some sort of street entertainer.
We
came home; I went to bed from where I shouted at the dogs to stop barking.
After fifteen minutes of continual woofing at shadows I got up and (metaphorically) kicked some canine ass.
I went back to bed, and then couldn’t get comfortable as both dogs kept walking
all over me trying to find the warm spot that a hot water bottle would have
made. They didn’t understand I didn’t have a hottie-bottie today.
I
slept for a couple of hours, then got up and did some ironing. As I ironed I
carried on watching "Alien
Encounters" that I've recorded from the Discovery channel. I
found the series by chance; it is actually rather good. But (like all sci-fi) it is far from
original. It is a re-hash of concepts first voiced years ago in Olaf
Stapledon's "Odd John",
Arthur C Clarke's "Childhood's End",
Isaac Asimov's "Second Foundation", Jack McDevitt’s
“Moonfall” and Red Dwarf’s “”Better Than Life”. Effectively it is a
tale of what would have happened in John Wyndham's "The Midwich Cuckoos" if the cuckoos hadn't had an atom bomb
dropped on them. (Having an atom bomb
dropped on you tends to put the tin lid on most things).
After
two hours of ironing I had a text message from the garage. The nice man who
took my car had told me that they would give it a good once-over whilst it was
up on blocks. Every garage does that – I’ve always considered it to be a crafty
way to milk more money out of me. But rather than just telling me what was
wrong and having me think “yeah –
whatever”, they actually sent me a little video clip showing just how bald
the front tyres were. And there was a link where I could authorize them to
replace the tyres without me having to fanny around talking to anyone. Being a
sucker for technology I thought that was wonderful, and I clicked away.
And
then the nice man from the garage phoned to say the car was ready, and he’d not
done the tyres as they weren’t as bad as the man in the video had said, and they
were OK for a few more months yet…
I
popped the leads on to the dogs and we walked through the park and up to the
garage where the nice man was waiting for us. He was a very *nice* man; clearly being “good with colours”. I would hazard a
guess that he “baked a moist sponge” and
would certainly “bowl from the pavilion
end”. As I collected the car the nice man noticed some oily fingerprints on
the car’s bonnet and he laid a very precious egg over the matter.
With
"er
indoors TM"
off out for the evening, once home again I foraged
for dinner. It didn’t take long to hunt some KFC. I scoffed it whilst watching
last week’s episode of “Vanity Fair”
in which Becky was blatantly using her bosom to its best effect. The hussy!
I
really should have gone to the meeting of the “Friends of Victoria Park” this evening but by the time I’d woken up
(having fallen asleep watching last night’s
rather weak episode of “South Park”) the meeting was already half-way
through. I felt rather guilty about missing it but…
Part
of me thinks that “Friends of Victoria
Park” is a brilliant idea. Part of me wants nothing to do with it. Chippy
once told me that I can’t just be a member of anything, and he is right. Over
the years I’ve been to a meeting of so many things and ended up on a committee.
Kite-flying, astro club, snake-herding, cub scouting, trekkie-ing… they all go
the same way. I express a vague interest in something or other, it takes over
my life, and then descends into one big argument.
And,
in closing, today is Russell
Mael's seventieth birthday. Is this town big enough? I think so...
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