I slept like a log until four o’clock last night, went to
the loo, and then lay awake for the rest of the night. When I finally dozed off
Treacle did some silly nonsense in which she rolled herself in all the bedding.
I got up, took the dogs into the garden where I harvested a
bumper crop of dung, then made some toast. I peered into the Internet as I do.
There was consternation being expressed at the number of road closures planned
across the county for this weekend. Four major A-roads and two motorways look
to be closed. It strikes me that the obvious answer is to only close one road (and
one road only) at a time. Get all available workmen on it regardless of
what firm they work for. and work round the clock until the job is done, then
move on to the next.
Look at the shambles at Coldharbour (M20 J5)
yesterday where the roads are up until Christmas. It took me half an hour to drive
one mile and there was only one digger doing anything there.
I got the dogs onto their leads. Eventually. Morgan is a
worry. He clearly loves the walks when we are out, but he trembles seemingly in
fear whenever it is time to put the lead on, and when we get to the car and do
“Boot Dogs” he cowers at the back. Does he get travel sick?
We got to the woods and had a rather longer walk than
usual. I’d had reports that two of the geocaches I’d hidden had gone missing.
And they were at opposite ends of the woods. The first one was missing so I
replaced it. The second was fine.
As we walked we met another Jackshund – a dog crossed
between a Jack Russell and a Dachshund. Like Morgan and Bailey are, and like my
Fudge was. This one looked rather like Fudge; a paler colour, but a fat little
barrel like he used to be before his kidneys gave up. We chatted for a bit;
Jackshunds aren’t that common.
As we drove home we saw a car with the registration plate
MUM 1. Once home the dogs went straight into the bath. The overnight rain had
made the woods rather muddy, and we had grubby tummies.
After a quick sausage roll for lunch I set off on a little
mission. First of all to return the frankly useless waterfall thingies that I’d
mistakenly ordered from Amazon. The idea was that I did all the paperwork
on-line and got a bar code emailed to me. I scan that in the shop that does
Evri delivery, and they print the return label for me. Seems straight forward.
So I went to the nearest shop that does Evri deliveries but
sadly the village idiot was on the counter.
She said I needed to come back tomorrow because they don’t
have the machine to print labels. I asked what time the thing would be arriving
tomorrow. She said it wasn’t. I asked her how I would print a label if I came
back tomorrow. She said I wouldn’t be able to. I asked what good my coming back
tomorrow would achieve. She gave me a dopey grin. I asked if there were any
other shops locally that did Evri.
The nice lady in the shop by Aldi eventually printed labels
from her machine, but it clearly wasn’t easy.
I then had a look at sleepers for the garden pond’s next
upgrade. My first choice of places to go to (Wickes) didn’t have the
bits I needed, neither did Jewson. The timber merchant near Stanhope had two
sleepers that I could use. But only two. And on closer inspection both had
great big cracks through them. The nice man there said to snap them up as they
are shipping out all their stock to other branches as the place is closing next
week. The landlord has doubled the rent.
In the end my last choice of DIY shops (B&Q) had
what I needed. Well, not what I needed but what I might be able to use. As I
was looking about I saw someone I recognized. The ex-chairman of my old scout
group. I’d not seen him for years. We chatted for over an hour. It was rather
odd really – twenty years ago the scout group was such a large part of my life,
and consequently so was this chap and his family. And now I’ve not seen him for
years. There are so many people like that in my life. Which is why I like
Facebook – if nothing else it keeps me updated on what people are up to.
I wrote up some CPD then settled myself in
front of the telly for the evening. “er indoors TM” boiled up
a very good curry which we scoffed whilst watching the last episodes of “Meet
the Richardsons”. A rather good show even if you do watching it wondering
what is real and what is made up. Amazingly Kemah Bob really does sound
like that.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ve walked nearly
seventeen thousand steps today. In theory I really should sleep well tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment