I slept well. When the dogs sleep so do I. I did my
usual morning routine and peered into the Internet as I scoffed toast. People
were up in arms over last week’s final of “Celebrity Traitors”. The winning charities certainly weren’t
liked by the masses. Most of the people whinging on social media did seem to be
in agreement that the only acceptable charity these days was that aimed at
helping veterans. To my mind helping ex-servicemen shouldn’t even be a charity;
it should be something that the government [ays for entirely. As I’ve said so
many times, charities aren’t a good thing. In many ways all they do is to allow
government (of all parties) to abrogate their responsibilities. Look at
how we are expected to fundraise to pay for schoolbooks. Look at the hospice
where my mum died which gets less than a third of its income from government
sources and has to go cap-in-hand to the public for most of its running costs.
And I read that a local-(ish) pub had been named as one
of the country’s top pubs. I went in there last year, was met by a lot of
hostile stares, and walked straight back out again.
I Munzed, Wordled from “slept” to “scoot”
in three goes and took the dogs out. We had a dull walk this morning. We drove
over to the garage where the car was having its rear light sensor error looked
at, and then we walked home. As we walked I remembered why we don’t walk round
the streets of Ashford if we can avoid it. The place was heaving with weedy
little people with huge dogs that they couldn’t control. One such dog yanked
its owner over as it lunged and snapped at Treacle. I’d seen it coming and made
sure she was in no danger, and we hurried off as the small little man screamed
impotently at his dog which was clearly ignoring him. We then met a small woman
with a dog what came up to her chest. This dog was on one of those ridiculously
long leads which was dragging on the pavement behind her (it was at least
ten yards long). She seemed amazed that we gave her such a wide berth.
We stopped off at “Pets At Home” as we walked.
The dogs’ flea treatments were ready to pick up, and I got goldfish food too.
The nice lady on the till charged me fifty pence less for the fish food than
the price on the shelf said. That was a result.
We came home where the dogs got flea treated and I
made us both a cuppa. With powdered milk as the real stuff had turned.
I then spent far too long on the phone to the
household insurance people. I’d had an email with the renewal quote and they
wanted two hundred quid more than they asked for last year. I eventually got
through to someone whose English left a lot to be desired. I *think* she
was asking how much I estimated various costs at, but I have absolutely no idea
how much it would cost to rebuild the house if it was destroyed. Similarly I
have absolutely no idea of the value of all the stuff that is in the house.
When I suggested that they are the insurers and that they do insurance every
day and surely they would have ball-park figures she got very excited. She
tried to pretend that they as a company had no idea of the cost of rebuilding
an average terraced house or of the value of all the stuff in an average
terraced house, but it was difficult to make out what she was saying. After a
few minutes of listening to her gibberish I told her that I was going to hang
up and look on Go Compare and get a cheaper quote because I simply couldn’t
make head or tail of what she was saying.
She didn’t like that.
But I hung up and had a look on Go Compare. That gave
me twenty quotes which were less than what I’d paid last year, and forty-seven
quotes which were less than this year’s price. The cheapest of the quotes I got
was a third of the price of the most expensive one.
I phoned the insurance people back, this time getting
someone who spoke English. She knocked serious bucks off of their quote. It
always pays to quibble, even if quibbling wasted the best part of an hour.
I wrote up a
little CPD, then had a look in the garden. I cleared dog dung (a
never-ending task) then went round with the garden vacuum, and managed to
drop the sundial on my foot as I went. That made me sit up and take notice.
I struggled with geocaching puzzles until my head
hurt, then played a little Meowdoku, all the time listening to Treacle’s
stomach gurgling whilst she farted. She’s eaten something that’s disagreed with
her.
Eventually I got told the car was ready. The plan had
been to walk the dogs out to get the car and then drive on to Orlestone for a
quick walk, but it was hossing down and getting dark so I scrounged a lift from
“er
indoors TM”.
It turned out that all my car needed was a new bulb.
The nice people at the garage didn’t charge for the diagnostic as they felt
that was a bit much when all they’d done was replace the bulb, and because I’m
a premium Halfords member I got a discount on the price of the bulb too.
I put a load of washing into scrub and “er
indoors TM” boiled up some dinner. We scoffed it
whilst watching more “House of Games”, then she went bowling. I cracked
on with the ironing whilst watching “Lost In Space”.
It’s been a rather rubbish day today. No decent walk
in the woods, loads of aggro on the phone, loads of waiting around for the car
to be fixed, my foot really hurts, and Treacle is still squitting through the
eye of a needle.
