28 April 2021 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

er indoors TM” had a restless night, and consequently so did I. Just as I got up so Sid started shouting. He doesn’t like being confined to where there is no carpet overnight. He had a choice of two baskets and he could have been very comfortable, but he is just awkward.

I made toast and peered into Facebook. The local Labour party candidate had paid for a “vote for me” advert in which he claimed that under his regime all would be better. “Better” is such a vague phrase, isn’t it? It sounds impressive whilst promising nothing tangible. But the chap’s post had got quite a lot of rather abusive comments which spoke volumes about the state of our country. Are Labour, the Lib Dems and all the others *really* so bad that we'd rather vote in a party lead by a Prime Minister who openly lies so much that the public expect nothing else of him, and with ministers brazenly awarding public contracts to their mates. Obviously they would seem to be...

 

My cousin had posted something interesting. The pub just down the road from my dad’s house is up for sale. It is closed now, but when open it was never anything special; very much a “local pub for local people”. Being a (ex) local I could go in with impunity, but it was the sort of place where strangers probably would have got eaten had they ventured inside. It had the lame to fame that during the 1970s the landlord was in the Guinness Book of Records for holding the world record for flipping the greatest number of ten-pence pieces from the back of his forearm into his palm. My cousin had posted the details of the place on-line. If I had a spare half a million pounds… I probably wouldn’t buy it. I suspect it will be knocked down and redeveloped as a block of flats. It would be a great shame – there’s only one other pub within a mile of the place, but (as I’ve ranted before) I can’t help but wonder if pubs have had their day.

 

We got the dogs leaded up and went for a quick walk round Orlestone Woods. It’s a lovely place to walk; just a shame that someone (wish I knew who!!) makes a point of getting McDonalds, drives at least five miles to those woods, and just dumps their rubbish in the car park. McDonalds really should print the number plate of all cars which use the drive-through onto the packaging of their take-away. We cleared the mess once we’d finished our walk.

Once home I spent a little while in the garden. Having dragged loads of stuff out of the way for the roof repairs and house painting, I dragged it all back, and then mowed the lawn. And this is exactly what I “bl**dy hate about gardening” (as I say from time to time). Having spent an hour’s really hard work, the garden now looks exactly the same as it always has done.

 

I came in to find that Pogo had eaten his brekkie. Being a greedy dog he never turns his nose up at food, and last night he didn’t eat his dinner. Instead he moped about with his stomach rumbling. Having lost one dog recently I was worrying myself sick about the silly pup. It would seem that whatever had upset him yesterday had now passed.

 

I popped round to B&Q to get some decking boards, decorative stones, screws a saw and drill bits for a little garden project I have in mind for the coming weekend. They didn't have the fancy decking I wanted, but plain decking planks will do just as well. Though I had something of a shock at the till. What I thought might cost forty quid set me back nearly eighty quid, but that's the cost of pretty much everything these days.

 

With utter drivel on the radio I turned it off and sang along to my odd choice in music as I drove up the motorway. I needed both lunch and petrol so I thought I might get them all at the Aylesford filling station. I got there so see that the door to the kiosk was closed and there was a queue of people waiting to pay at the window. When I paid for my petrol I asked if I might have a sandwich. The chap behind the counter said that they were only selling petrol, and flatly denied that the woman in front of me had bought a sandwich, even though I watched her do so, and we could both see her carrying it to her car. I asked why they weren't selling anything other than petrol. He said it was because his colleagues were filling the shelves with more stock. In retrospect I should have smiled and said nothing, but I didn't. I made the observation that his colleagues weren't filling the shelves with more stock. (They weren't). They were standing around gossiping and neither had moved in the five minutes that I'd been waiting in the queue. That didn't go down well and provoked a torrent of bluster from the chap behind the counter, but I regained the upper hand by pointing out his name was on his badge and demanding the name of his supervisor's boss. The chap behind the counter didn't actually crap himself, but he went from aggressive to smarmy at the drop of a hat.

I'm not going to write to the director-general of Sainsbury's (I can't be bothered) but he doesn't know that.

 

I then went into the main branch of Sainsbury's to get lunch there, and consequently rather than being fifteen minutes early for work I was five minutes late. Not that anyone noticed.

 

Work was work... and after the morning I'd had it was something of an anticlimax. it was only a shame that I spent the afternoon with backache having overdone the gardening. Having managed to get a parking spot outside the house when I got home this evening I unloaded all the stuff I’d got from B&Q.

My back really aches now…

 

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