When I say “at
brekkie time” or “during lunch”
everyone knows when I mean. However there is no accepted name for the meal that
one eats at quarter to three in the morning when half way through the night
shift. But whatever that meal is called, as I scoffed it I had my obligatory
check of Facebook and saw a friend had been visiting relatives in my local
hospital, and weren't overly impressed. Anyone who knows my history will
realise I have trouble being objective about that place, but when I worked
there it was actually the number one hospital in
the country.
Now it is coming out of "special
measures" because the place had gone downhill so fast over the last
few years. How can a hospital go from "#1"
to "rubbish" so quickly?
When I checked my emails I saw I had an
email from the Environment agency, and my piss boiled. I pay them thirty quid a
year for my fishing licence. They stick quite a bit of that money into the Angling Trust and I've ranted about that before. That Trust
funded a fishery nearby that costs over eight hundred quid a year to join.
Today the Environment Agency invited me
to join the Volunteer Bailiff
Scheme.
A worthy cause? I see it that rather than funding water bailiffs themselves,
they want the likes of me to volunteer and do it for free. So... I spend money with them which they
throw at the rich people, and because (having
thrown their money away) they've no money left they want me to do the job
which I thought I'd paid them to do.
Am I missing something here?
I also had an email from the dentist.
They've now got a fully registered aesthetics clinician joining their team, and
wondered if I was thinking of having facial aesthetics treatment. I wasn't;
mainly because I had never heard of it.
Basically it's a face-lift. They are
offering fifteen per cent off the price if I fancy having one. I think I'll
give it a miss.
I got on and did my bit on the night shift, and came home. "er
indoors TM" had already gone to work but the dogs were
pleased to see me. I put their leads on and we went for a little wander. As we
walked through Bowens Field the nice people from “Aspire Land Management” (the posh name for the council parks people) were doing their thing.
For all that it is fashionable to run down the local authorities, Ashford
council (under the alias of “Aspire Land
Management”) do a rather good job with our local parks.
Our walk passed off without anything really noteworthy
happening for which I was grateful.
With dogs walked, I spent a little while looking in the
garden. Earlier in the year I spent the best part of three hundred quid buying
eight (I think it was eight) fence
panels and posts and stuff, and aided by "My Boy TM"
and Sam I installed them at great physical effort.
Over the winds of the last few days the fence had broken
again. "My Boy TM" is off work on Friday and the
boss said I could take the day off so I made a start at sorting the wreckage in
readiness for fixing it at the end of the week.
I took down two fence panels which were either side of a
snapped post. One panel is undamaged; the other is (probably) salvageable. However before I can replace them I need to
replace the post which involves digging out a lump of concrete which is just
over a foot square by a shade more than three feet deep. I’ve done this a few
times before. It is hard work. According to Google this lump of concrete
is about twice my body weight, which is why when I say “I’ve done it before” I mean “my
son and son-in-law have done it before for me”.
And to compound my problems another fence post has snapped
which also needs replacing.
I made the fence so it shouldn’t get any worse; there’s a
great big hole where the panels used to be. The dogs will have to be supervised
at tiddle time for a day or so.
I took myself off to bed for a while.
I woke, and seeing the time I thought I’d get a second dog
walk in before the light failed. As we walked through Bowens field we could see
what the nice people from the council (“Aspire
Land Management”) had done today. They’d done a really good job in clearing
and tidying up, and they’d even removed the tents which had been in one of the
thickets for some months. We left home at half past three; it was noticeably
darker by four o’clock, and we came home in the dark. As we walked we met
OrangeHead who was amazingly chatty. She’d got a yellow flashing collar for her
dog. I’d not thought to put the illuminous collars onto my pups; I should have
done.
It was at this point that the rain started. We were soaked
by the time we got home.
I made myself a cuppa, then had a fiddle-about on-line. The
nice people at Facebook have given me a Facebook page for this blog. Heaven only knows
why, but I might as well have it before someone else has it. I’ve set it up
good enough to be getting on with; I doubt I’ll touch it again.
As I fiddled so both dogs snored.
"er indoors TM" came home and
boiled up some rather good scran accompanied with couscous. I devoured it (with a couple of beers) whilst we
watched “Tattoo Fixers”. If I didn’t
have a fence to fix I’d be tempted to get another tattoo.
No comments:
Post a Comment