We’ve been looking at getting a new bathroom recently. Last
night I had an incredibly vivid dream in which a friend with whom I used to go
to school offered to do the “bathroom” far cheaper than anyone else
would do. However my old mucker isn’t a plumber; he is a Baptist minister. He
came along, said some prayers in the bathroom, announced that the taps now
dispensed holy water, and gave me a bill for several thousand pounds.
Shortly after that the bin men came up the street seeing
who could be the noisiest.
I made toast, sparked up the lap-top and saw two people had
birthdays today. I sent out birthday wishes to the one who had made the effort
to communicate over the last few years, and then had a little rummage in
cyber-space. Not a lot was going on.
Once we’d found the dog leads (buried under a bowling
ball) I took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the
radio were talking about a new scheme whereby YouTube is now verifying health care
professionals accounts to stop the spread of disinformation.
I thought about signing up; after all I don’t want happy birthday videos,
movies from my Lego cities, dog videos and my lip-synching to be labelled as “fake
news”, do I?
We got to the woods and had a good walk. Morgan
particularly was over-excited as he’d not been out for a couple of days, but
with the heatwave it has been too hot recently. We walked two and a half miles
and in that time only met one other dog-walker with whose dogs my dogs had a
good game of chase.
We came home to the bath; Treacle had been wading in the
swamps, Morgan had been rolling in the poo, and Bailey needed a scrub anyway.
With dogs washed I popped up the road to the corner shop for pastries, then
phoned the car insurance people. My car insurance is due for renewal next week
and they’d quoted a price for the next year of a hundred and seventy quid more
than I am currently paying. I threatened to go with another company, and the
price dropped considerably. And when I said I’d rather pay in one lump sum
rather than in monthly installments I ended up paying twenty quid less than I’d
paid last year.
It always pays to quibble with car insurance.
I then paid the next year’s road tax for my car. Again I
saved money my paying the year’s worth in one hit rather than in installments.
Paying out these lump sums might have left me a tad short, but
over the next year I will put money aside each month ready for next year, and I
shall be quids in… or that’s the plan.
I did some CPD, had a
shower (as I was rather sweaty – yuk!) and set off to work. As I drove
away from home I saw that I was right to have taken the dogs out earlier. In
the three hours since we'd gone out the temperature had gone up by fifteen
degrees.
Seeing the co-op car park full I didn't stop. As I drove up
the motorway I saw there was a half-hearted attempt at "Operation Brock",
but rather than using the barriers (which obviously had cost a small fortune),
there were a few miles of road cones going London-bound and only lorries going
coast-bound; cars (presumably) taking the A-road.
Not having been to the co-op I went to Sainsbury's to get
lunch. I met some "normal people" there. I got my stuff and
joined the queue for the till. As we got to the till, the chap in front saw how little shopping I
had compared to him, and suggested I went first as I would get through quicker.
I thanked him, but as the cashier ran my stuff through the till, so his wife
loudly started shouting about how some people have no manners, and there was a
queue. And to my amazement the chap who'd suggested I went first stared loudly
agreeing with her. The cashier winked at me and whispered "we get all
sorts in here".
I hurried away...
Yesterday had been hard work; the late shift was one of the
worse ones. And to think I'd asked to swap into it (to go to the dentist
appointment which got cancelled!). But eventually the night shift rolled in,
and I came home… down the A-road as the coast-bound motorway was closed.
“er indoors TM” boiled up fish and
chips which we scoffed whilst watching more “Landscape Artist of the Year”
in which for every one person coming up with a half-way decent painting there were
half a dozen making frankly dreadful messes which (had he scrawled them)
my eight-year-old grandson would be embarrassed to show to anyone.
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