With an alarm set I woke far too early. Rather than
laying awake I got up and watched an episode of “The Man In The High Castle”
in which nothing really happened. It was the first episode of a new series and
was all about introducing new characters. TV shows wind me up in that most of
them have a plan for one season and if that is popular then further seasons are
made up as they go along. So few TV shows actually have a coherent story all
the way through.
I sparked up the lap-top and had my usual rummage
round Facebook. One posting to a Hastings-related group wound me up as it
mentioned something that “accored” yesterday which caused “bedlem”
on a “rund about”, and everyone was just laughing at the poor fellow
who’d asked an honest question. Why don’t people do themselves a favour and
take two seconds to look at what they’ve typed? The auto-correct thingy will
prompt when it thinks you’ve spelled something wrong.
I set off to work listening to the pundits on the
radio interviewing a professional landlord. A new law came
into force today. In theory it is a good thing
supposedly improving the lot of people who live in rented houses. In practice
it makes things rather more difficult for the landlord who only rents out one
or two houses, and the consensus of opinion was that these people will be
selling up, and those buying are those who already own dozens of rented houses.
I couldn't work out whether or not this was good or bad. But when it comes to
private renting, I always think of the husband of someone with whom I used to
work. Some time ago he came into enough money to buy a house which he rented
out as a small business. That brought in enough money to fund another house...
and within a few years he had over fifty houses across the county. A nice
little earner...
And there was talk about how the average British
Jewish person is afraid to walk the streets following the recent murders. It would seem
that there are those half-wits who cannot distinguish between what's going on
in the Middle East and individuals minding their own business who've never been
any closer to Gaza than Margate. Maybe those presenting the news might try to
make the distinction a tad clearer? I can remember my mother being almost
hysterical because some of my work colleagues were (and still are)
Muslims. Having read the hate stirred up in her daily newspaper she thought
that I worked with cut-throat maniacs...
The press has a lot to answer for.
I stopped off at the Sainsbury's petrol station in
Aylesford to get petrol. Being six pence per litre cheaper than Ashford I saved
just over two quid. That was a result. However there was a minor delay at the
till as the chap at the front of the queue was kicking off. As well as one of
yesterday's sandwiches he wanted a pastie and something else (I didn't see
what it was) and he wasn't happy that the woman on the till wouldn't do him
a "meal deal". Other people get "meal deals",
why couldn't he? He took it as a personal affront that only certain things
counted in a "meal deal".
Eventually he begrudgingly paid up and cleared off,
and once I'd paid up myself I went over to the supermarket to get my own meal
deal.
Work was work, but being on the early shift meant I
got out promptly. I came home and did “FEED THE FISH” then sat by
the pond for a while. I did have a vague idea to take the dogs to Orlestone,
but having had to park the car three streets away I couldn’t be bothered to
walk them back to the car.
“er indoors TM” boiled
up cauliflower cheese which we scoffed whilst watching yesterday’s episode of “Race
Across The World” in which the contestants followed our footsteps through
Uzbekistan. As they went through Khiva and Bukhara we saw places we visited two
years ago, and two of the contestants had a pint in the very same lakeside bar
where we did not five minutes’ walk from our hotel..
That was a good holiday… but I wouldn’t do it without
a guide like they do in. “Race Across The World”.
