Treacle’s whining to get back on to the bed woke me at two o’clock, and I then lay awake for the rest of the night with a dull throbbing in my right leg. When the dogs had me over yesterday I must have hit the ground harder than I realised.
I got fed up with laying awake sulking, so I hobbled downstairs, made toast, and just as I was about to make my coffee I realised I’d forgotten to switch on the kettle. Again.
With telly watched I sparked up my lap-top, sent out three birthday messages, and seeing nothing of note on Facebook I had a look at my emails. There was nothing worth looking at there either, so I hobbled back upstairs, glared at the sleeping dogs who had completely forgotten about what they’d done yesterday, got dressed, and hobbled to my car. I was so glad I’d managed to park it outside the house last night.
I was rather pleased to see that my car was happy with its tyre pressures this morning. Mind you it did tell me that it was due for a service in the next month. I saw this as something of a result. My old car wouldn't give me any warnings; it would just wait until the service was due before saying anything. Having some notice is useful as it gives me time to book an appointment somewhere. I say "somewhere" - I'm going with the main Skoda dealer for now. The garage I've used for the last fifteen years have been very good, but are victims of their own success. If I had tried to book an appointment today they wouldn't have anything for three weeks. And because they service all makes of cars they are something of jacks of all trades... I think it fair to say that on over half the times I collected my car after they had had it, I would start to drive the car away only to find a fault with the parking brake which had been of their causing. And every time this happened they would say "oh yes... Renaults do that, don't they?" And I would wait for twenty minutes whilst they sorted the problem they openly admitted they had caused.
As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about the latest scandal to befall the Royal family. Some chum of Prince Charles is alleged to be selling honours.
Honours... Some people really will pay for one (cunningly disguising the cash as a bung to a charity). When I was a lad my ambition was to have done something worthy of getting an OBE as I thought an Honour was worth having. But now I know of many people who have run scout groups and Boys Brigade companies and kite clubs and done all sorts of voluntary work for most of their lives and had sod-all formal recognition. Meanwhile loads of others get a gong for doing the job for which they are massively overpaid.
I ranted about this years ago (4 January 2007 to be precise), and still it continues.
There was also a lot of talk about paedophilia among Italian priests. It was claimed that as many as one in twenty Italian priests have tried it on with children. I thought that figure a bit high, but apparently this was true in Australia ten years ago.
There was an attempt to interview one priest who is still an active parish priest in Italy despite a court having told him he's not to be trusted anywhere near children. He wasn't keen to talk, but his bishop was, and the bishop said he saw no reason to dismiss the paedo. You'd think the paedo's flock would have said something though. Wouldn't you? Or are they still terrified of parish priests much like a bunch of medieval peasants would have been five hundred years ago? It never fails to amaze me how the average Catholic is so much in awe of their local parish priest. I used to work with a woman who was Catholic in name only, *never* went to church, but was frankly terrified of the local priest and would hide if she saw him in public.
I went in to work for the early shift and spent much of the day peering down a microscope. I was glad I didn’t have to move about too much today – my leg wasn’t up to much. When the boss went for a cuppa I quickly phoned the garage and told him the car had asked if it could have a service. The nice man has sorted that out for next week.
And then I phoned the Swan and Dog in Great Chart where some weeks ago (January 18th) I arranged to stage the monthly geocacher's meet-up. I wanted to confirm the arrangements for this weekend. It was as well that I phoned them. To begin with they claimed to know nothing about my booking... then they asked what my phone number was, and the manager then came on and said she had wondered what that number was that was written in their diary. She said she could reserve me a table for six people. Bearing in mind I've already got over fifteen people saying they are up for it, this came as something of a blow. So while the boss went for lunch I frantically phoned around desperately trying to scare up another venue. I managed to get somewhere…
An early shift meant an early finish. I was home early enough to walk the dogs in daylight. We did a very quick walk round the block. The same one we walked yesterday; this time with no “episodes” whatsoever for which I was grateful.
“er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of scran which we washed down with a rather good bottle of plonk whilst watching more of “Celebrity Hunted”. I have no idea of who these celebrities are, but one of them has no hesitation in waggling her bare arse at the camera (which on its own makes the show worth watching!) However if you ever get the chance, watch this show in the company of “er indoors TM”; she certainly gets over-excited…
And in closing, today is one year since my mum died. I mentioned this on Facebook this morning. So many people have reacted to that post…
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