We had a different allocation of dogs last night. The “Terrible Twins” and Sid went to the
attic bedroom with "er indoors TM" and "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" leaving Fudge with me on top
of my pit. However the “Terrible Twins”
clearly weren’t happy with us being split up and Pogo and Treacle came to check
on us several times during the night; each time licking my nose to check all
was well. The seven o’clock check was rather vigorous and it was at that point
that I got up.
No one else did though; just me.
I got up, had brekkie, looked at the Internet, played “Candy Crush Saga”, got rather bored.
Eventually everyone else got up, and after a little “Octonauts” we went for a walk round the park. I say “walk”; “the slowest dawdle humanly possible” would probably sum it up better. We started
with a minor melt-down. "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
was insistent he took Pogo’s lead despite being nowhere near strong enough.
After Pogo pulled him over for the third time I got involved and said no. We
went hysterical over this too. After an age we got to the play park where we
waited and waited. It was at this point that Fudge had had enough, and he
wandered off. After twenty minutes of searching one of the passing normal
people told us they’d seen him a quarter of a mile away up by the main park
gates. He’d walked up to where we put leads on after our walks and was
patiently waiting for everyone to catch up.
Having been itching to get out, I was glad to get home
again.
Over a cuppa and a slice of cake I spent a little while
solving geo-puzzles for a possible walk some time over the next few weeks. I
then took myself off to bed for a couple of hours. The idea would be that I
would have a little sleep whilst "er indoors TM" took
"Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" and Sid
back to Margate (apparently Pogo is
staying a little longer). That was the idea – the reality was quite a bit
of You-Tube noise and slamming doors. And when they finally went the remaining
dogs barked incessantly.
I got up and in five minutes got two bin bags of rubbish
from the back bedroom. That room is full to overflowing with tat, and I’ve
finally had enough. If I haven’t used something in a year then clearly I don’t
want or need it.
I settled the dogs and drove off on the evening's mission.
First of all to the co-op for this and that. Whilst I was in there I got some
cash from their cashpoint machine. That thing *never* gives an advice slip with
the money, and again it didn't this evening. As I was paying for my stuff I
mentioned this to the chap on the till. He agreed it never gives advice slips;
clearly not seeing it as anything to do with him. Perhaps it isn't; he only
works there. What do I know?
I then drove round to the Beefeater. Bearing in mind the
debacle of brekkie we had there the other week I was surprised that we
were going back, but there was a family dinner there this evening. I arrived
and met up with in-laws (if that's what
you call prospective daughter-in-law's family). "er indoors TM"
and everyone else soon arrived. We took our table and waited. And waited.
Despite having given them our orders yesterday, the food took an hour and
twenty minutes to come out. And when it did it was awful. The potatoes probably
were good when they were first cooked (several
hours previously) but by the time they'd got to us they were fit for the
bin. The swede and runner beans clearly hadn't been warmed since they were
taken from the fridge (they really were
that cold), and my lump of lamb was burned on the outside. After
fifteen minutes of concerted grumbling the waitress wandered out with some
gravy.
We demanded to see the manager who eventually came out. He
listened to our complaints, and once we'd told him of his failings (precisely and in great detail) he
acknowledged that we were entitled to our opinion. His opinion was that we were
wrong, and he claimed he was entitled to that opinion. It was only when we said
we'd take the uneaten food to the Trading Standards people that he
actually sat up and took notice. He then completely contradicted himself, said
that they didn't usually serve roast dinner in the evening and they'd kept ours
since lunch time as a special favour to us, claimed to have already bollocked
the chef for what was clearly a piss-poor set of dinners, said there would
be no charge, and went on to offer free dessert to everyone. He did try to
lay on the guilt a little bit by saying how the waitress was crying her eyes
out in the toilet, but we quickly told him that he was being utterly unfair
on the poor girl by expecting her to deliver such rubbish dinners one
hour and twenty minutes late.
He had no answer to that.
(Mind you I can't
help but wonder what the Trading Standards people would have said if we'd
turned up at their office with our left-overs. And the manager
clearly hadn't noticed that I'd been so hungry that regardless of just how bad
the dinner was I'd devoured all of mine anyway.)
Bearing in mind how long we'd waited for a frankly
dreadful first course, and also bearing in mind I had places to be , I
said my goodbyes and set off to Gillingham. A week or so I'd collected a
parcel to give to Nick at yesterday's geo-meet and had completely forgotten to
take it along. It didn't take me long to deliver the parcel this evening,
and it took even less time to get to the general vicinity of work. There is a
McDonalds in the general vicinity of work... Remembering that the rest of the
family were scoffing free pudding I shelled out eighty-nine pence for a
McFlurry. As I scoffed, the people on the next table were grumbling about how
piss-poor their burgers were. I smiled to myself and said nothing.
I farted rather impressively all through the night shift. I
blame that iffy dinner...
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