27 November 2020 (Friday) - New Stair Carpet

With "er indoors ^TM" having taken up the stair carpet yesterday, walking downstairs this morning was a rather noisy process. I cleared up the turds on the kitchen floor (nice one Sid!), made some toast, and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “People Just Do Nothing” then sparked up my lap-top to have a quick look to see what had happened overnight.
I spent a little while looking at some of the comments on the local Facebook groups. I try not to comment on them – they really are one huge nasty bitter argument. A lot of bad feeling was being expressed at yesterday’s announcement that the entire county will be going into COVID-19 tier three restrictions when lock-down ends next week. I didn’t comment on any of the rather ill-informed comments being expressed but reading them just reaffirmed by heartfelt conviction that democracy is no way to run a country. One woman was incensed that we will have tier three restrictions, and had taken great offence to other people’s suggestions that she was (partly) to blame because of the incessant anti-mask anti-social-distancing diatribes she has been posting all over Facebook for the last few months. Another chap had publicly declared that he will be ignoring any and all tier three restrictions until such time as the Prime Minister pays all of his ongoing household bills and professional expenses. (I can sympathise with that). And it spoke volumes that our own (Conservative) Member of Parliament was asking how it was possible for our town to go into lock-down in tier one and come out in tier three.

There was a rather telling discussion on one of the work-related Facebook groups. People working in a hospital some miles away were whinging at how slow the drivers doing their blood deliveries were. They weren’t happy that the courier firm they used had prioritised cake deliveries over blood deliveries. I’d intimated yesterday that perhaps the bakers pay more than the blood bank. Whilst a lot of people weren’t happy with that, it turned out to be the case. The couriers are running a business, not a charity.

 

It was again rather dark and dismal as I set off to work this morning. But today the street lights were on. They weren't on yesterday, but (in all honesty) they didn't make much difference today. Energy-saving non-light-polluting street lighting would be such a good thing *if* it actually lit the streets.

As I drove to work there was even more “blah-blah-COVID” on the news.  I didn't really pay much attention to it. There is pretty much nothing to say, but the pundits on the radio say it every day. No one likes the forthcoming tier system, a lot of people will ignore the restrictions, but there it is. Pausing only briefly to stick a bar code onto a lamp post and earn five zeds (it's a Munzee thing) I went in to work for the early shift and did what I had to.

 

An early start made for an early finish and as I headed home I popped into Aldi in Aylesford. Last week I didn’t as the cars were queuing up the road to get in to the place. The queues were a little shorter today, but still ridiculously long. Bearing in mind I know where stuff is in that shop but I don’t know where stuff is in other supermarkets I queued up. I have no idea what the queuing was all about – there was just an epic queue to get into the car park, and an equally epic one to get out again. The car park itself wasn’t busy – there were loads of spaces. And the shop wasn’t busy either. I didn’t have to wait at all at the tills.

Mind you if any of my loyal readers went to Aldi in Aylesford today and went through the second till from the right, I’d disinfect whatever you bought. The woman on that till was wearing the most manky gloves you ever did see. She wasn’t at all impressed when I told the young mother behind me to thoroughly scrub anything that those gloves had touched.

 

I came home to find that the new carpet had been fitted. It looks rather good. Bearing in mind that we had the loft conversion done round about the turn of the millennium it has only taken us twenty years to get round to carpeting those stairs.

We should have done it years ago…

26 November 2020 (Thursday) - This n That

I came downstairs this morning to an intense smell of dog turds, but despite a vigorous search couldn’t find any. I suspect a Sid-fart. Let’s hope so.

I made toast and watched another episode of “People Just Do Nothing” in which our hero’s girlfriend was looking for a suitable wedding venue. But not just any old wedding venue – one with the right atmosphere and “ambulance” (ambience?). And again I recognised so many people’s mannerisms in the show. What is it with the younger generation these days? Couples will take out mortgages and have children but getting married is too big a step.

 

It was rather dark and dismal as I set off to work this morning. As I drove there was all sorts of talk about the ongoing pandemic on the radio. There was a lot of discussion about when will we all get over it. But it wasn't "get over" as in "get better", it was "get over" as in "pay for it all". There was also an interview with the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer who took great delight in finding fault in all that the government has done, but seemed rather devoid of idea or suggestions of her own.  But (as always) money is more important than people.

There was also an interview with my MP. He's got the hump because the entire county of Kent has will be put into the highest COVID-19 restriction tier next week. One small part of Kent has the highest COVID-ity in the country and so the entire county pays the price.

 

There was also a lot of hot air spouted about Christmas and how lock-down is stuffing up the right of people to go out carol singing. Whilst I'm not overly fussed about having the righteous caterwauling on street corners, I'm really keen to bring back urchins squalling carols on the doorsteps in a thinly-veiled rue to extort cash from the public. I used to go carol singing myself fifty years ago and it used to be a good little earner. "My Boy ^TM" used to go carol-singing from mid-November to supplement his pocket money.

And talking of Christmas I’ve found myself thinking about this “up to three households can meet indoors during a five-day Christmas period of 23-27 December” ruling that has been agreed by the leaders of all four nations of the UK. And on reflection my opinion is that it is utter bollox. Given that we have two children we now have to choose between seeing either my parents or mother-in-law or father-in-law over the Christmas holiday. And whoever we don’t see will probably take offence and with good reason. Mind you … I say “Christmas holiday”; I have only two of those five days off work.

 

I got to work and (pausing only briefly to stick a Munzee on a lamp post) I got on with the daily round. As I worked there was quite a bit of sniggering. A colleague had to take the day off at short notice as she had "leakage"; I would have chuckled too, but currently suffering the same affliction I know that an iffy roof is no joke.

 

Having left home in the dark I came home in the dark to a house in uproar. "er indoors ^TM" was in the throes of taking up the stair carpet and had found splits in the wood on some of the stairs. I suppose this is only to be expected in a house that was built over a hundred and forty years ago. She affixed repairs (with a hammer) then boiled up some dinner and we watched another episode of “The Crown” which again whilst making for good viewing wasn’t particularly historically accurate. The scandal of Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon  came to light in 1987, some three years after Prince Harry was born.

But I stayed awake during it, and staying awake when watching telly is always good…              

25 November 2020 (Wednesday) - After the Night Shift

The night shift started rather busier than I would have liked and carried on in the same vein. But I’m not complaining; being busy meant the time didn’t drag, and soon I was on my way home. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how much the COVID-19 pandemic has cost us as a nation. Estimates vary, but it is more money than I’ve got.

 

I made a flying visit to home to collect the hounds, and we went straight to the woods. The car park’s height restriction barrier was open when we arrived, and there were some bulldozers in the car park. I wonder what they are up to? But they didn’t interrupt our walk, which was the main thing.

We were over an hour later getting to the woods today compared to the last two days, and there were more people about. We arrived just as the little old lady with the poodle and Jack Russel was leaving, and as we walked round we met quite a few other dog walkers; fortunately all encounters passed off without “episode”. We met one elderly dog being pushed round in a four-wheeled buggy thingy. I wonder if we might get one for Sid?  We saw a bag of dog poo hanging from a tree some twenty yards from the path. Why bag it and hang it from a tree? Why not use a stick to flick it int the undergrowth and bury it with leaf litter? It would mulch down in a few days. And we saw something that amazed me. In the deepest part of the woods two women were trying to train a dog. The poor thing was at the end of the longest lead you ever did see. Both were giving the dog incredibly complicated instructions (I would have asked them to repeat what they were saying, and I speak English!). And both couldn’t understand why the dog was getting the lead tangled amongst the tree trunks. Pogo and Fudge went to investigate; a blast on the whistle called them back. I quite like doing the whistle training when there are ill-behaved dogs about if only so that I can gloat about how (relatively) well behaved my hounds are.

 

We came home, I had a bit of brekkie, then went to bed. I would rather have not wasted the day asleep, but it was probably better to go to sleep deliberately rather than just nod off. I slept for a couple of hours. I would have slept longer but "er indoors ^TM" had to go out on a mission and when she went out so the dogs started screaming. Not barking - screaming. I wish they wouldn’t. Mind you they all looked suitably ashamed when I came downstairs to them.

I made myself a cuppa, and then got the ironing board out. I spent a couple of hours doing the ironing whilst watching “People Just Do Nothing”. It is such a good show – I recognise one or two people of my acquaintance as I watch it. This afternoon our heroes went to church for a “christianing”.

 

As I ironed so my phone beeped. An employment agency wondered if I would be interested in a fixed term contract doing the job I now do, but for double the wages. At first sight this seemed an attractive offer, but the job was in the Orkney Islands.

I think I shall pass on that.

 

Hopefully "er indoors ^TM" will boil up some dinner soon and we shall scoff it whilst watching last night’s Bake-Off final. Even if I do know the result… Someone had blabbed the result on Facebook which I saw (by mistake) earlier. I suppose it was rather silly of me to hope to be able to avoid being told the result, but there’s no denying that when I saw that spoiler I wasn’t impressed. I won’t say who posted it, but I am I being *that* petty when I say that the person who posted the spoiler will be getting quite a few spoilers about all sorts of things over the next few weeks?