I had a good night's sleep, but did wake far too early. I
got up, made toast and watched an episode of "Brassic" in
which the fat one got caught in a deep-sea diver suit nicking golf balls and in
which him who played Grumio was kidnapped. Grumio was later rescued whilst in
only his undercrackers. Whether or not he'd been kidnapped whilst only in his
undercrackers was never clarified.
In today's episode our heroes were stealing Koi for
financial gain. Good luck to them - it's been my experience that for all that
Koi cost a small fortune when in the aquatic shop, once they've left the shop
they've got no resale value whatsoever.
I got dressed and set off for work. Having worked every
bank holiday weekend last year, this year I only had the one bank holiday shift
– today. Despite what the weather forecast had predicted, overnight we'd had
heavy rain.
I found myself thinking about the August Bank holidays of
ten to fifteen years ago. August Bank Holiday always used to be Batcamp when a
dozen or so of us would spend the weekend camping at a friend's farm. We didn't
want rain when camping, but unlike many of our camping trips from back then we
didn't mind having wet tents on the last day. Being on a friend's farm we could
leave the tents for a couple of days until they dried out. But wet or dry, my
August Bank Holiday was always hard physical labour putting camping gear away.
And like most of our camping trips it was never helped by most of the campers
having pressing reasons why they had to get away promptly on Monday morning.
Everyone was always so apologetic about why they couldn't help with the putting
away, but every year the putting away was done by the one whose farm it was,
and those dependent on me and “er indoors TM” for a
lift home.
Having said that, I'd do it all again... Such a shame the
farm's been flogged off.
I drove to work along very quiet roads. As I drove the
pundits on the radio were talking about an amnesty over the next month in which
the public can take zombie knives into police stations and hand them in without fear of prosecution. Zombie
knives are quite vicious things apparently. However the knife crime expert
being interviewed made the observation that the zombie knives which are being
banned aren't used in most actual stabbings and slashings. Zombie knives are
apparently very good for scaring people. However most actual knife-related
stabbings and slashings are done with bog-standard kitchen knives. It seems odd
that the law won't let me have the ceremonial katana I was bought as a
Christmas pressie (which is blunter than my bum) but it has no worries
about “er indoors TM” brandishing a razor-sharp
carving knife.
I got to work and found myself thinking of previous August
Bank Holidays again. This time of 1980 and 1981 when I was in a different line
of work. The halcyon days of the Harbour restaurant. Back then for nine months
of the year we used to serve up a couple of hundred dinners a day. An
exceptionally busy day would be four hundred dinners. August Bank Holiday would
be over six hundred. I can remember staggering out of that place at nine
o'clock in the evening one Bank Holliday Monday knowing I'd earned the pound an
hour I used to get paid back then.
As I pondered I got on with what I couldn't avoid. I did a
couple of wet ones today (it's a blood transfusion thing!). Lunch from
the works canteen was some spicy chicken thingy followed by apple pie and
custard. It was rather good.
I also spent a bit of time today thinking about an old
mate. I spent much of the day with a
song stuck in my head. "Born to Be Alive" was
from the one-hit-wonder Patrick Hernandez in 1979, and was a firm favourite
song of a good friend of mine from that time. My old mucker would sing that
song continually. I wonder if he still does; I'm still in touch with him (after
a fashion) - after a career in banking he is now the Baptist minister of
Minehead.
With work done I came home. We did the feeding the fish
ceremony in which the dogs go berserk to get some fish food. Feeling myself
nodding off by the pond I suggested we took the dogs out so that I could say
I’d done something on the Bank Holiday. “er indoors TM” had
a missing geocache to replace, and with that sorted we drove on up to Longbeech
Woods for a little walk. As always the place was quiet. Not a single other car
in the car park. We only had a short walk, but it was good to get out. As we
walked we found a beetle on its back, so we put him back the right way and he
scuttled off. And then we found another upside down one. And another. We lost
count of the amount of beetles that had been overturned. What was that all
about?
We came home where “er indoors TM” boiled
up burgers and chips which we scoffed whilst watching more “Below Deck”
in which the bosun got jiggy again.
When I went to get a yogurt my hip had a funny five minutes.
A shooting pain shot through it and I nearly collapsed. Sitting on the sofa
with a hot Pogo up against it seemed to sort it out. Mind you a
few years ago the other hip gave me similar aggro. That was arthritis. I seem
to have it in both hips now…
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