24 July 2011 (Sunday) - How Dull....

I was woken by the sound of “My Boy TMclumping up the stairs some time after 3am this morning. About an hour or so later he clumped down the stairs, and then back up again. Next door’s dogs started a riot shortly before 7am, so today I was left feeling somewhat tired.

After a bout of brekkie I set off on a shopping mission: new filter media for the pond filter. The pond’s a bit whiffy at the moment, and I’m not sure what the problem is. New filter stuff should help, so I went to the pond shop. There was a dodgy five minutes at the till at the pond shop. “Two filter media at fifteen pounds each – forty five pounds please”. I queried this – but I was again told the price was forty five quid.
I suggested that he might like to try again, but the bloke on the till was adamant. “Forty five quid – till says so!!!” I disagreed with till, and this really upset the “acolyte of till”, who argued his case. He would not listen to reason or basic mathematics. If the till said that 15 + 15 = 45, then that was the case, and it was reality that was at fault. It was only when the chap was almost in tears that the manager came over and explained that fifteen plus fifteen didn’t equal forty five, even if till did say so. The manager did stroke the till to reassure the poor “acolyte of till”, but the damage was done. Till’s integrity had been besmirched. I handed over my cash to the manager and got out as quickly as I could – things were clearly about to get nasty.

From there I went to Argos - ‘er indoors TM had found a new doorbell and reserved it. Argos texted me, and when I arrived I just put the number Argos had texted to me into the gadget and five minutes later the surly schoolchildren behind the counter handed over my new doorbell. I must admit that I am still amazed by technology – you can reserve something on your computer and the shop’s computer sends a message to your phone with all the reservation details. I’ve done the “Argos remote shopping” several times now, and every time I’m impressed with the technology; if not with the arrogant spotties running the shop.
Buying weed killer and filler from B&Q then came as something of a disappointment.

And so home for a bite of lunch, then on with gardening. I scrubbed out the pond filter and replaced the filter media. Hopefully that will do some good. I mowed the lawn, and then scraped the weeds out of the cracks between the front garden’s paving slabs, and filled the cracks.  
(A few lines of writing to say what I did – hours of back-killing effort to achieve it!)

A phone call: a friend of a friend had heard that I like snakes – did I want her mate’s royal python for forty quid? They have had it for a while, but now that the snake is two feet long they are scared of it. I asked if it came with vivarium and all the accessories. It did, but in the time it took to ask that question the price had gone up to fifty quid.
I told them that I wasn’t interested in paying a penny, but if they cannot re-home the snake, I’ll take it (and all the kit) off their hands as a favour. I’m kind like that (!)

Another phone call: last year at Rye bonfire I was talking about booking a hotel room for this year’s Rye bonfire parade. I must admit that I’d forgotten all about that idea, but if I was serious about it, then I’d better see about booking the hotel room fairly soon. By the time I’d got to the PC and booted it up there wasn’t a hotel room within walking distance of Rye on the date in question for less than silly money.
Oh well – once more we will be going on the train, or someone will be driving…..

After the fun of the beer festival on Friday and the successes of the most recent fruit of my loin yesterday, today has been something of an anticlimax…..

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