One of the
dogs spent much of the night grumbling. I suspect it was Treacle; she is the
most quarrelsome of the pack.
Finding
myself awake a little earlier than I needed to be I got up, and over a bowl of
cornflakes I watched the third episode of "Russian Doll". The
plot took a rather interesting twist.
Being
half-past six on a Sunday morning it was probably far too early for anything to
have kicked off on Facebook, so I got dressed and set off to find my car. I did
chuckle when a passing vagrant asked where my dogs were.
The roads
were rather quiet this morning, as well they would be. As I drove the pundits
on the radio were broadcasting from Nigeria where there are elections pending.
They were interviewing all sorts of people there. I've worked with many
Nigerians over the years and they have all said bad things about the place.
What I heard this morning just reinforced what I've heard.
There was
talk on the radio about how there are reforms to sort out the corruption that
is rife in all walks of Nigerian society. But they are only prosecuting those
who took bribes in the past. Those who are still in office and taking bribes
are being left well alone. Bribery is only seen as an offence when the person
taking the bribes is no longer in a position to need to be bribed.
And there was
talk about how bad it was that the youngsters there are forming friendships and
relationships based on whether they like each other rather than depending on
which crackpot religion their family has followed for years. Stopping the
religious hatreds of hundreds of years is seen as a bad thing.
I might
whinge about the UK, but things here could be an awful lot worse.
I got to work
and made a bee-line for the canteen. I've had better cooked breakfasts than
that which work boils up, but I've certainly had far worse ones. I took a photo
of my full English and put it on Facebook; tagging my colleague who had started
her shift an hour previously. Not that I was gloating or anything.
Work was
work; as I did my bit I learned of a new micro-pub. It is in Cranbrook. Not the
easiest of places to get to, but it might be worth a visit after a walk one
weekend.
With my bit
done I sparked up my sat-nav. Last night just before bed time a Lego bargain
appeared on one of the Facebook selling pages I follow. The seller took the
line of first-come-first-served, and seeing how I was the first person to
message him, I had first dibs on the bargain. The chap lived on the other side
of Ashford from where I live. I typed his post code into my sat-nav. The
quickest route was to drive north of Maidstone and pick up the motorway. I say
"quickest" - the sat nav said that going that way was five
minutes shorter, but twelve miles longer.
I went
cross-country.
I soon found
the house of the nice man who was flogging the Lego. He invited me into his
house; there were boxes of Lego everywhere, and carrier bags too. His children
had *loads* of Lego but they had grown out of it (so he said) and
he’d put it all into storage, and now (years later) he was having a
clear out. He was surprised at the market there was for used Lego. I was his
first buyer; apparently forty-five other people had messaged him about the
bargain I got in the twenty minutes it took for him to mark it as sold.
My box had my
name on; many other boxes and bags had names on. I asked if he had any he’d not
yet listed on Facebook’s selling page. He had. I snapped up another bargain.
I came home
to find "er indoors TM" had gone shopping. All three dogs
barked at me; they wanted a walk. Pausing only briefly to shut Pogo’s paw in
the toilet door (whoops!) we were
soon walking up to the park.
Sometimes our walks are good, sometimes
they are a misery. Today’s walk was excellent. The dogs behaved themselves, did
as they were told (they understand
English no matter what anyone might say) and didn’t fight with anyone or
anything. There was a minor incident when Pogo and Treacle both got soakings when
they fell in drainage ditches though. They are used to running down and up
these ditches as they are usually empty. But what with the recent rains there
was two feet of water in them today. I laughed as Pogo fell in, and I laughed
even more when Treacle fell in two minutes later.
We got home at about the same time as "er
indoors TM". I put the Lego I’d bought on the scales. I’d
bought two job lots at eight quid each. They had a combined weight of eight
kilogrammes. I’ve seen mention in many places on the Internet that the going
rate for job lots of Lego is ten quid per kilogramme (plus postage). I’ve just saved over sixty quid. Result.
A cup of coffee, a slice of cake, and I
had a little look-see at my first bargain. There’s an awful lot of fiddly bits,
but it didn’t take me long to knock together a little shop-salon thingy.
There’s also a Lego ladder, conveyor belt and all sorts of other goodies. And
I’ve not looked at the second one yet.
"er indoors TM" boiled up a very
good bit of dinner, and we scoffed it whilst watching last week’s episode of “Star Trek: Discovery”. I think where
Discovery is going wrong is that it is trying too hard to have an ongoing
storyline. I’m afraid that “The Orville”
is in danger of leaving Discovery behind…
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