It was a
hot night last night, and matters weren’t helped by Fudge who decided to spend
the night guarding the front door. He declared “Red Alert” at every
shadow, and there were a *lot* of shadows.
The plan
for today had been an early start and a drive out to hide geocaches for the new
series I’ve been planning, but with the car still in the garage, that wasn’t to
be.
Bearing
in mind it was supposed to be getting hot later I took the dogs round the park
fairly early. Pogo barked at the first few dogs that we saw (to the owners’
disgust) but once we were through Bowen’s Field the novelty of woofing at
everyone wore off, and from then on we had a good walk. We chatted with other
dog owners in Viccie Park, we had a spuddle in the river, and when we lost
Fudge a passing toddler told us in which bush he was lurking. We even exchanged
pleasantries with OrangeHead in the co-op field.
Once
home I fed the pond fish whilst Pogo growled at the plastic heron. We’ve had a
plastic heron by the pond for years to deter real herons from taking the fish.
We’ve never had a problem with herons, so it must be working. However over the
last week or so, Pogo has taken an intense dislike to it, and whilst Fudge and
Treacle bother the fish, he snarls at the plastic heron.
I then
gathered dog turds (of which there were many) then wondered what I could
do with the day. With no car I was restricted to only being able to go as far
as I could walk, and it was too hot to walk anywhere or to be gardening.
So I fed
laundry into the washing machine and settled in front of the telly.
I
watched a few more episodes of “Another Life”. For me good sci-fi works
by having believable characters in relatively credible situations with the
sci-fi element being at least plausible. However this is the minority view. The
people who made “Another Life” clearly feel that the most important
element of a sci-fi yarn is having women running round in their undercrackers.
Now, given that your spaceship has been invaded by some strange alien monster I
can imagine that time would be of the essence. But if the men have had time to
get dressed, why haven’t the women?
After a
few episodes of this I had a spot of lunch, then ironed some shirts. I then
logged into my bank account and did the monthly accounts. Ironically I found I
was rather flush and seriously considered driving up to Bluewater to treat
myself to that Lego lunar module model that I have been hankering after… Then I
realised that I couldn’t go to Bluewater because my car was still in the garage.
And I couldn’t afford that Lego lunar module because my car was in the garage.
And then
the garage phoned. My car was ready, and would I like them to send the nice man
to give me a lift? In the past I’ve walked the dogs over to collect my car, but
it was rather warm and walking three dogs into the garage is hard work. I
accepted the offer of a lift. I was told the nice man would be along within the
hour – he arrived five minutes later.
I got to
the garage – apparently the resistor package had gone (?). Fixing it and
re-gassing cost me the thick end of four hundred pounds…
This is
the point at which I find myself bombarded with tales of people who know people
who have friends who could have done it for fifty pence. Do you ever find that
whenever you have something that needs fixing, no one has *ever* heard
of a mechanic or of an electrician or of a plumber. But once you’ve shelled out
good money, everyone knows someone who could have done it cheaper.
With car
fixed I took it for cleaning. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I
go to the cleaners in Ellingham. They’ve changed their advertising slogans
recently – for years they claimed to be the “best hand job in Ashford”. Mind
you, they did a good job; the car is immaculate, and unlike other car cleaners
they don’t charge extra for hoovering out dog hair.
I came
home via the shop over the road where I got myself a Del Monet lemonade ice
lolly. Have you ever had one of those? They are not too shabby at all.
I then
watched two more episodes of “Another Life”. "er indoors TM"
came home and boiled up a rather good portion of fish and chips.
I could
have done *so* much today. Hiding caches, mowing the lawn, doing the
ironing… Rather a waste of a day off…
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