We both woke to missed calls from “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”. When we finally got through to her it turned out that one of her rats had died. Poor Squeak. The first mention of him in my diary was on 3rd October 2020, so he was a good age for a rat. Mind you “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM” didn’t seem overly fussed at Squeak’s demise, which was probably for the best. He’s told his mother she’s still got another rat (and Pogo) and he can’t see what all the fuss is about.
I made toast, and as I scoffed it there was something on Facebook which made me think. In one of the 1970s groups I follow there was a photo of a jumble sale. Back in my days in the Boys Brigade in the late 1970s we would have jumble sales to raise funds to pay for whatever it was that we were doing. And before the jumble sale we’d go round the local houses asking for unwanted stuff that we could sell. Fast-forward to today; when did you last see or hear of a jumble sale? These days everyone sells their unwanted stuff on Facebook marketplace, pockets the profit, and pays ten times the (relative) cost of whatever it was that jumble sales used to finance.
I then did a little research. Poor Squeak’s body had been put in the freezer until such time as “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” decided what to do with him. I had a look on-line. A cremation would come in just under two hundred quid. Two hundred quid. For a rat!! I shall do the farewell myself… and have told “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” just that.
“er indoors TM” was working from home this morning, so I left the dogs with her and went for a little drive.
First of all to B&M Bargains. They usually have garden shingle (which was what I was after). They had some, but they had no trollies for moving the bags of shingle about. And then an assistant came past with exactly the trolley I needed. I asked her where they were kept. She looked my up and down as though I was the sh*t on her shoe and said: “they aren’t for customers” and walked off. I shouted after her “so that’s it, is it?” and whilst what she said was “I said they aren’t for customers”, her tone was very much “F… off fatso!”
It was at this point that some manager-type bustled over asking if there was a problem. I assured her there was no problem at all, and that I was grateful to her staff for making it quite clear that they didn’t want my money, and that I would go to somewhere that did.
I drove for thirty seconds to Wickes where I got three bags of gravel for half the price that B&M were selling it for, and some exterior filler (for the garden path) as well. Wickes allow customers to use their trollies; I commented on this to the chap on the till who laughed, and said I wasn’t the first one to have walked out of B&M and gone to them.
I then drove up to Bybrook Barn (or whatever it is called these days). I also wanted bags of red gravel, and whilst I was at it I got three large rocks too.
And then home. With nowhere to park I put the car on the double yellow lines and emptied out the gravel bags and boulders one at a time. Jut as I was on my seventh (of nine) unloads so the person whose car was parked right outside my house decided to move. A minor result; just a shame she couldn’t have gone fifteen minutes earlier.
And then (despite the heat) I dug a grave for the deceased rat. Shoving the shingle about and moving the anti-weed membranes took long enough; let alone excavating a hole big enough and deep enough for poor Squeak. Hopefully it should be deep enough for when the other one goes too…
“er indoors TM” then went off for her works’ summer afternoon jolly. I could have arranged gravel, or sorted the rockery or filled the cracks in the garden path.
But since it was so hot I turned on the telly and watched “Oats Studios” on Netflix. It was rather good. A bit like “Dark Mirror” or “Love Death and Robots”. It is now five years old – how did I miss it?
I did like watching telly whilst cuddled up with dogs though… if only the dogs would stay cuddled on the sofa. They seem to have taken to quarrelling over the chew toys. We’ve got about twenty identical chew toys, and they all want whichever one it is that the other dog has…
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