I slept reasonably well. I woke t half past six, got
up and made toast. As I scoffed it whilst peering into Facebook I was presented
with a few adverts asking for people to volunteer to help as a scout leader. Lucy Spraggan (no – I had no idea either)
was saying that all you needed was enthusiasm and a willingness to get stuck
in. I was once asked to volunteer to help as a scout leader, and whenever I
hear people being asked to do this I always feel the need to voice a note of
caution. When I got involved everyone asking for help was so quick to say that scouts
was just an hour a week. They would all gloss over the fact that the weekly
meeting lasted for two hours. Then there was the preparation for that weekly
meeting which generally took up another evening each week. There was always at
least one scouting event (outings, district sporting competitions…) which
took up one weekend day every month. There were three weekend holidays away
with the scouts every year, as well as the week-long summer camp. Add on to
this various committee meetings on whatever weekday evenings you had free. And
any spare weekend time would be spent on fundraising to subsidise the parents
who drove bigger cars than the one I had and who lived in bigger houses than I
did…
The gratitude for becoming a helper didn’t last long,
and very soon became guilt-tripping when my every moment wasn’t available for
scouting.
Anyone thinking of volunteering to help with scouting
needs to make it crystal clear exactly just how much time they can offer. The
more you offer, the more scouting will expect (and take).
And there was an impressive squabble happening on one
of the Geocaching Facebook pages in which some idiot was whinging that the
Geocaching corporation didn’t sell good flashlights (or “torches” as they
are called in the UK). Apparently when geocaching, every bit of kit you use
has to bear the “Geocaching” logo. For some inexplicable reason this
idiot was adamant that he couldn’t use just any old torch.
There wasn’t a lot else of note on the Internet this
morning. I sent out birthday wishes to the two Facebook friends who were having
a birthday today, Munzed, and Wordled from “today” to “hydra”; how
many other words have a “D” in the middle and a “Y” not at the
end?
As I fiddled on-line so Steve was on the radio. Guess
the lyrics today was “what happened to the girl I used to know”. No – my
immediate reaction was that I didn’t have a clue until Steve mentioned that it
was from one of his favourite bands. The penny dropped - ELO – “Don’t Bring
Me Down”.
Being Saturday we drove round to Repton and Dog Club.
It was rather cold and rather muddy today, but the forecast rain didn’t come
whilst we were there. Treacle played with one of the children. I say “played”;
the little girl tried to get the ball from Treacle, and Treacle tried not to
let her. Morgan charged around and played rough and tumble with his mates. And
Bailey just stood and shivered until I stuffed her inside my coat. Bailey is a
worry. I took a few photos as I do… and fed one into ChatGPT.
As we drove home so Steve was doing the Mystery Year
competition on the radio. In which year was the first website created and Helen Sharman (the first British astronaut)
go into space? 1991.
We got home. Grubby dogs were bathed and I counted the
Dog Club takings. Bearing in mind the subs is one pound fifty per dog, how can
we end up with an odd forty pence?
And with the car parked directly outside the house and
rain forecast I had ideal conditions for pressure-washing the front garden. It
didn’t take *that* long to set the pressure-washer up. I scrubbed the
concrete at the front of the house three times, and swept away seemingly
gallons of mucky water. As I scrubbed and swept so not-so-nice-next-door
was coming in and out of her house with no end of boxes and bags and three or
four suitcases. Was she going on holiday or moving out? As she came in and out
she glared at me, and (sadly) that was probably as communicative as she
gets. It’s such a shame… She’s been next door for close on thirty years and
makes absolutely no attempt whatsoever to even try to be civil.
“er indoors TM” went
off visiting relatives for the afternoon. With the forecast rain still not
arrived I cracked on in the garden and got the lawn mowed. I say “mowed”;
it was more along the lines of a preliminary scalping. The first cut of the
year is always something of a rough and ready one, but a cut lawn makes finding
dog turds a lot easier.
I might have overdone the morning’s pressure-washing
and lawn mowing, so I settled in front of the telly with the dogs and sparked
up Netflix. “The
Holdovers” was a rather entertaining film, as was “Margaret Thatcher – The Long Walk To Finchley”.
As I watched the telly I kept glancing at the window.
Still no rain, and still stuff I might be doing in the garden. But still I
ached.
“er indoors TM” came home with
kebabs which we scoffed whilst watching “Danny Dyer’s
Caravan Park” which was a rather good TV show about someone who used to
be in EastEnders who had bough a part-share in a caravan park in Leysdown.
It was surprisingly captivating…
And as I’m thinking about bed it didn’t rain at all
today, and not-so-nice-next-door is in and playing her piano…
No comments:
Post a Comment