I had a better night's sleep last night. It would have been
far better had Bailey not been trampling all over me. For a very small dog she
is surprisingly heavy when she treads on your "flowers and frolics"
in the small hours. But for all that I slept reasonably well, I was wide awake
at five o'clock. I thought about phoning in sick, but I just don't phone in
sick unless I really have to. I'm silly like that.
I got up and made toast. Recently the toaster has been
incinerating the toast; today it came out floppy. Making a decent bit of toast
isn't easy. If I was brave enough I'd kick “er indoors TM” out
of bed to boil it up for me.
But I'm not.
This morning's episode of "Shameless" was
spoiled for me by the casting. The actor who plays "Spudgun"
from "Bottom" was playing a rather nasty debt-collector.
Bearing in mind that "Spudgun" is an amiable idiot I really
couldn't relate to him playing a nasty character.
I then had a quick look at the pond. The water level seemed
pretty much what it was yesterday afternoon, which was something of a result.
Mind you the pond didn't look very clear...
I made my way to where I'd left the car; weaving my way
through the four epic holes in the pavement that had been dug a couple of weeks
ago and set off to work. As I drove to
work the pundits on the radio were interviewing some opinionated woman or other
who was seriously slagging off OFSTED. The body has no end of failings,
not least of which (she said) was a shortage of experienced inspectors.
As I drove up the motorway there was also talk of the Prime
Minister's scheme to ensure that everyone gets maths lessons until they are
eighteen years old... regardless of the fact that there aren't
enough teachers.
And the government was being criticized for the shortage of
doctors too.
How do we address these shortages? Conscription? It worked
in the navy two hundred years ago. Should the current policy of allowing people
to choose their own jobs continue if people aren't choosing to do the jobs that
the country needs? (!)
During a lull at work I phoned Kent County Council's highways
department to have a whinge about the four epic holes in the pavement of our
road that I'd walked past today. No one can dig a hole in the road without the
say-so of Kent County Council; someone at the council had given Southern Gas
Networks a permit to dig the holes because of "an emergency".
This permit lasts from the thirtieth of last month until next Tuesday.
I was also told that if someone says they are having an
emergency then the county council believes them and gives them carte blanche to
dig whatever holes they want wherever they want. There really seems to be very
little actual control of what is going on road-works-wise.
If I wanted to know more about the specifics of the holes in
question, the nice lady suggested that I might contact Southern Gas Networks
directly.
So I did. I sent them an email saying that I wouldn't mind
so much if they hadn't obliterated a quarter of the street's parking spaces,
but digging four holes in the road and leaving them unsupervised with no work
being done for over two weeks could hardly be construed as an emergency.
I suspect that after a few days they will email me to tell
me to get stuffed.
As I drove home I had a stroke of genius (I have those
from time to time). I need to re-think the filtration system again; the two
small filters that I installed last year just aren't doing it. I remembered that
the people who used to be nice-next-door three neighbours ago once gave
me a pond pressure filter. After a bit of a rummage I found it in the shed, and
spent an hour looking it up on the internet and taking it apart and generally finding
that the thing is actually fit for the dustbin. But after that hour I’d learned
a lot. I asked opinion on the Ponds UK Facebook page, and people seem to favour
pressure filters over the arrangement that I use.
A pressure filter? Could be the way forward with the pond? I bet they ain’t cheap.
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