I’d set the alarm for half past six this morning so I woke
at four and lay awake watching the clock for a couple of hours. Eventually I
gave up, got up and made toast. I watched an episode of “Star Trek: Lower
Decks” then sparked up my lap-top to have my usual trawl around the
internet. Nothing much had happened overnight for once, so I had a quick Munz
then got Wordle right on the third attempt. As usual I started off with “table”
and only had the third and last letter wrong. I couldn’t think of any other
word than “tally”.
It was light when I set off to work this morning.
Being a Sunday the roads were nowhere near as busy as usual. Normally if I
leave home at half past seven the traffic trying to get to the motorway is at a
snail's pace from the Matalan roundabout (about a mile from the motorway).
Today I sailed all the way.
As I drove the pundits were interviewing an author
who'd written
a book about the succession of a hypothetical pope. The book
sounded rather interesting; it was a shame that having been talking about a
book for five minutes the chap conducting the interview said that the film is
released this week; speaking in such a way that films and books are synonymous.
I suppose in this day and age for most people they are... Everyone knows about
Harry Potter. Everyone’s seen the films. How many people have actually read the
books?
There was then a round table of various windbags
pontificating on who would be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. One of them
banged on about how an Archbishop should raise awareness of child poverty and
how we shouldn't be dependent on food banks. Another accused the first of being
too left wing and said that politics should be kept out of religion. Sadly when
the first chap asked the second if he's heard of what Jesus had preached about
being nice to each other, it seemed that (despite being some big-wig in the
church) the chap clearly hadn't. And then some well-meaning old biddy
claimed that Christianity was for the well intentioned and the self-serving
alike.
And this was followed by the news that Donald Trump is
planning to appoint the head honcho of a fracking company to be in charge of American energy
policy. I've lost count of the amount of times I've said what a stupid idea
democracy is. Here's another example. Oh well, as I once said (in jest)
to “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” "f... the
environment. It will probably last longer than I will". I suspect I
will actually croak before the environment will, but what kind of a planet are
we leaving behind?
Work was much the same as ever. Originally I wasn’t
supposed to be working today, but I’d had a message asking if I could step into
the breach. I didn’t have much else planned for the morning, and stepping into
the breach at short notice is what hospital work is all about. I got there a
few minutes early so’s I could pop into the canteen for a spot of brekkie, and I
was only needed for the morning. I was back home in the garden harvesting dog
turds by half past one.
After a spot of scran we bundled the dogs into the car and
set off to Folkestone. A couple of weeks ago I sorted “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”
‘s patio. Her outside guttering was overflowing but at the time I thought I’d
sort that problem another day. So today I went and sorted it. The problem was
that the downpipe wasn’t draining the gutter. I took along all sorts of tools…
Well… I won’t lie. I took a trowel, a bucket and a length of hose pipe. What more
could anyone need?
We got there, and as “er indoors TM”
farted around making the beds I went and did some plumbing. I rammed the hose
pipe up the down pipe in an attempt to loosen the blockage. There was something
pretty solid blocking the down pipe, and coming from underneath with a hose pipe
wasn’t working. So, using onto a particularly rusty garden chair as a ladder to
get at the guttering, I came in from the top with a trowel. After a few seconds
of particularly vigorous trowelling I excavated a rather manky tennis ball from
the down pipe, and the accumulated stagnant water immediately gurgled away. So
I trowelled out the residual muck and then used the bucket to flush the
guttering with some fresh water. Trowel, bucket and hose pipe. I didn’t need
anything else. Mind you it has to be said that the gutter is still a bit
rancid, but gutters generally are. A decent load of rain will wash it through.
We then walked the dogs round the Leas for a bit, even though
it was dark. So dark that when we came to do “Boot Dogs”, as Treacle
jumped into the car boot so Morgan jumped onto the bonnet of the car behind.
I caught him in mid-air going in entirely the wrong
direction.
Today I spent the morning at work, unblocked a drainpipe,
and walked the dogs for half an hour. Why am I worn out?
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