I woke in the small
hours and had a fight with Treacle in which I tried to get some bed space.
After a protracted battle I got an extra six inches, but struggled to get back
to sleep after that, I eventually dozed off, but was woken by the bin men “quietly”
coming up the road just before six o’clock.
Determined
not to get up I stayed in my pit but gave up when “er indoors TM”
‘s alarm went off.
I
opened the door to take the puppies out only to find it was pouring hard. So
much for my plans for the morning, eh? So I made toast and had a look at the
Internet. Someone with whom I work had signed up to be an organ donor, so I’ve
done the same. You can do so by clicking here. But don’t tell “My
Boy TM”; he still thinks I’m about to croak from when I started
to make a list of what he needs to know for what I do croak.
Other
than that, not a lot was happening on social media. I considered braving the
elements with the dogs, but with the rain hammering against the window I
thought better of it. The dogs were asleep on the sofa, so instead I sparked up
the telly, and watched a film on Netflix until it was time to
go to work. It was rather good.
I
popped up the road to the corner shop to get a sandwich only to find they
didn't have any. They were waiting for their delivery. Their driver was leaving
it rather late.
So
I went to the co-op instead. I must admit I don't like going to the co-op as it
does attract "a certain sort". There were a family of those in
the queue in front of me. Once they'd paid they deliberately waited for me to
go to the till, and I rather offended
mother by not letting her grubby child maul my sandwich. Having watched it pick
up and crush pretty much everything else in the shop I wasn't going to let it
destroy my dinner. I didn't say anything; just picked up my stuff from the
counter as the brat reached for it, and gave the brat a glare. Mother wasn't at
all happy and marched the brat out of the shop loudly muttering about "some
people...".
The
woman behind the till smiled at me, and
said that family regularly come in purely so that the brat can rub its sticky
grubby hands over everything it can touch.
You
would have thought that the shop staff would have said something, wouldn't you?
As
I drove up the motorway so the sun came out. A shame it couldn't have done that
a couple of hours earlier. I fiddled and played with the cruise control on my
car as I went. Having read the manual and asked on various on-line forums there
seems to be an issue with the car’s cruise control in that the cruise control
display doesn't seem to work. The cruise
control bit works fine. But the gauges and dials don't. I shall ask the nice
man in the garage.
I
got to work in record time. Having been told (by Google Maps) that there
were major hold-ups on the motorway I used the sat-nav. That took me straight
up the motorway where there was not a hold-up in sight.
I
scoffed my (non-mauled) sandwich and got on with what was effectively a
routine day's work.…. As I did my bit I found myself thinking of the first time
I worked the “last working day before the Christmas break”. It was
Thursday 24th December 1981. We all came in to work and did the
morning set-up on the blood testing analysers and then tested half a dozen
samples. Back then at Christmas hospitals pretty much emptied of all but the
most extreme cases, and most GPs had shut up shop.
Forty-one
years ago the day’s work was done by at half past eleven. The boss then sent us
down the pub; she would cover whilst we were gone. We went down the pub and
drank ourselves silly, staggering back shortly before three o’clock. We found
the one who was doing the night shift (on call as it was back then) in
residence, having sent the boss home an hour previously. We then sat around and
drank whisky until it was all gone, then staggered off to find a bus home.
Forty-one
years later, today was just the same as any other working day.
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