Back in the day I used to work nine to five every Monday to
Friday. The night and weekend shifts I did were overtime. I would regularly
work seventy hours in a week, and there was one spell where I worked every
weekend for six months.
Yesterday I came home knackered having worked two
consecutive days and feeling that I needed a rest.
As I emptied the dishwasher this morning I found a pit of
it had dropped off. Some rubber thingy. I emptied the dishwasher and left the
thingy on the side in the hopes that “er indoors TM” might
fix it.
I set the washing machine going and as I scoffed toast I
peered into the Internet which told me that an old friend was having a birthday
today. We went to school together where he once put a drawing pin on another
child’s seat and I got the blame. Every Wednesday night we’d meet at the chip
shop and lip the nice lady behind the counter (one night she set the chip
shop dog on him). We’d go underage drinking regularly and his singing his
home-made ballads got us thrown out of quite a few pubs. When aged fourteen we
once found one of those inflatable sex dolls and he cycled round Hastings for a
fortnight with the thing strapped to his bike’s rack. And we went to Boys
Brigade and the associated church services together as well.
He’s sixty-one today. Where have the years gone?
I got the dogs into the car and we set off to the woods
listening to the pundits on the radio as we went. They were talking about
yesterday’s budget in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been incredibly
clever. She’s kept the election pledges of not putting up taxes on working
people. However she’s putting up all sorts of taxes on businesses. So the
businesses have to find this money by either cutting their costs, cutting staff
wages and putting up their prices. And with no wage increases and higher prices
we will have just as much money in our pockets as we would have had if income
tax and VAT had gone up.
But in putting up the taxes that she has, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer has made businesses appear to be the villains of the piece and
not the government.
Sneaky, eh?
We got to the woods and had a rather good walk. The
forecast had been for a misty morning and I’d hoped to see deer. The mist had
all but gone by the time we got there. We didn’t see any deer, but we did hear
a crashing in the trees that might have been them. Mind you there were a load
of squirrels about today. And an incredibly fat jogger. Even fatter than me. He
was gasping for air but attempted a cheery wave as he came past.
We came home where I got the lawn mower out and gave the
lawn a haircut, then tidied away the last of the soil I’d dug out for the new
bog filter. As I worked I could hear our frog croaking, but couldn’t see him
anywhere.
I made a cuppa, did some CPD and woke up a few hours
later.
Oh – and “er indoors TM” has
fixed the dishwasher…
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