I slept well last night, but still woke at
quarter past seven feeling vaguely miserable and “bleah”. It didn’t help
that Treacle had barked at someone crashing next door’s metal gate. Several
years ago (and several sets of neighbours ago) someone put metal
railings round next door, and every time anyone goes through the gate it
crashes loud enough to wake the dead. Or the dogs. I’m sure that passers-by
bang the thing for fun.
To compound the issue
there were some children standing outside shrieking too.
I got up, made toast,
and had a look at the Internet. A new Lego set had been announced – a model of the Orient Express. A bargain at only two
hundred and sixty quid. And an old friend (from over fifty years ago)
was jetting off on another foreign holiday. He seems to have a lot of those,
not that I’m being judgemental. There are several people on my Facebook list
who seem to have an inordinate amount of foreign holidays, but I suppose that
by the time I’ve spent out on three vet plans and dog food each month there’s a
hundred quid (each month) I could put toward a holiday or squander on
Lego.
And there were several
of those annoying motivational memes being posted on-line. They sometimes boil
my piss. It is very easy to say that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade
when life has never given you a lemon.
I looked to see to whom
I should send my birthday video today. When Facebook tells me someone’s having
a birthday I send them a little “happy birthday” video. There were two
people on my Facebook Friends list having birthdays today. Mind you I say “people”;
one was a pub and the other was the blood transfusion
simulator
that gives me problems from time to time.
I didn’t send either
the video…
With a little time on
my hands I took the dogs to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio
were talking about the sacked Home Secretary Suella Braverman who has announced
that the Prime Minister’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is dead in
the water. Perhaps it is, but she was singing the praises of the plan a week
ago.
It never fails to
entertain me that every Cabinet member when sacked suddenly no longer feels
constrained to pretend that someone else’s stupid idea (with which they had
hitherto agreed unconditionally) is actually a stroke of genius and
immediately slag it off. I’m reminded of myself when I was forcibly removed
from a position of (admittedly minor) authority some twelve years ago
and did exactly the same thing.
We got to the woods and
had our walk. It was rather wet, muddy and slippery underfoot. Usually once we
are away from the car park we walk for ages without seeing anyone. Today we met
three “special” people.
The first had her dog
on fifty yards of rope (rather than a lead). This dog saw the puppies,
tried to play “chase” and made a rather impressive cats’ cradle of rope
around the trees.
The next had a barking
dog on a lead and was seemingly guarding one of the major crossroads in the
woods. As we approached the crossroads she shouted asking us to keep away from
her dog (which was on a lead and snarling at nothing that I could see).
I whistled and my dogs came back. We backtracked a few dozen yards, but it
became apparent that this woman wasn’t going anywhere. We stood and looked at
each other from fifty yards away. Eventually I called to ask if she was just
guarding the crossroads. She grumbled and wandered off.
And as we came back to
the car park we met some chap with a dog the size of a cart horse on the lead
over which he clearly had no control.
We walked a rather
shorter walk than usual today, but I was surprised to see (from my
smartwatch) that we walked half a mile further than we’d walked when going
to the garage a couple of days ago.
With walk walked we
came home for a bath. Treacle particularly needed a scrub; the other two just
got generally grubby, but Treacle walks into muddy puddles then stops and looks
at me as though showing off how clever she is. And with dogs scrubbed I set off
to work via some points of interest (it's a Munzee thing). As I drove up
the motorway I tried the cruise control. I mentioned to the nice people in the
garage that there wasn't an indicator light to say the cruise control was
active. there still isn't. Either they didn't replace the bulb or there isn't
one. I wonder which it is.
I went to Sainsburys to
get a sandwich for lunch. The car park was gridlocked when I arrived; half
empty when I came out.
And apart from the cake that was waiting for my
afternoon tea break the day was effectively all done by the time the late shift
started...
No comments:
Post a Comment