View from the Window

Vegetarians look away now, what better way to start the day than a bacon sarnie, the food of the gods followed by a double espresso to kick start my internal engine. I wasn't caught out by the clock change but the missus who is 'away' with her friends still emailed me to see if I had, she also tried to organise my whole weeks meals so I didn't starve without her, despite being left the Batmobile, my debit card and three supermarkets within walking distance. The anger against the road closure is reaching new levels as people are now, too late I might add, wondering why there was no traffic management put in place at the beginning of the work, also the 'workers' do not work of an evening nor at the weekends. The road jams outside the PO is a sight to see and I have to keep my eyes open in case my wall again gets taken away by some SUV, truck or caravan. It is dull and grey outside and slightly damp, there is a promise of rain which to be honest we have not had much of over the past month or so.

In the pub on Wednesday a man in the know was telling me about the modifications to the so called overflow works on the river Keer which is causing the havoc, in layman's terms it would seem that it will still dump raw sewage into Morecambe Bay but it will be diluted so therefore will pass the limits for dumping raw sewage. Mind you, you only have to look at Morecambe's seafront and you would be suicidal to paddle or swim in it as hordes of people actually do, yeuch.


You have probably never worked in a shop before but you will know that a lot of things wind me up and I learned a long time ago to quickly forget that 'the customer is always right' because nothing could be further from the truth. I had one this week who came up for a parcel then asked if she could open it, take the contents home in her bag as she didn't want the hassle of getting rid of the cardboard, guess what, neither did I and I told her so and that she could put it in the bin outside if she didn't want to save the planet and put it in the proper recycle bin at home, all that weight. I handed a knife over to cut the tape and she even asked me to do it in case she cut herself, the dear, luckily she didn't. She wanted an awful lot considering she has never so much as bought a stamp here before. Then there are the ones who lick their fingers and make a big show of thumbing a note with a loud snap in case two are stuck together and as my eyebrows are too close together I would obviously keep this fact to myself if they were unlucky enough to hand me two, he is Scottish you know, the previous owners are probably buried in the garden.

Mind you perhaps I was a tad miffed above, we went into Lancaster for some shopping and decided to save time we would have lunch as well, we went to a pub the missus thought might be OK, the menu looked meh, but I didn't particularly fancy something burgerish or Italian, you don't have a lot of choice in Lancaster, so in we went. The bimbo behind the bar saw us enter, watched us approach the bar then proceeded to a side kitchen where she commenced to wash some plates or glasses or whatever, she was on the clock as my ire rose. She made it by seconds to tell us to take a menu and a seat, which was a shame as the meal was less than mediocre, although I had to smirk at the wife's fish goujons, which actually consisted of one goujon comprising half a fish in batter on a piece of bread, a fish buttie in other words. The chips came in their own little cage, the peas in a tiny bucket, the only saving grace was that I actually had a plate on which to do the cooks job and plate up.

As I looked in the mirror last night I was brightened up by thinking that if those refugee 'children' in Kent looked 24 but were twelve according to the authorities then on the same basis if I move to Kent I could get back twenty years and pass for 43. All those millions spent by the cosmetic industry to make people look young again and fight off the ageing process and all you have to do is throw away your passport.

Yes, this is one of the 'children'.

Good news for all the hypochondriacs out there but bad news for the NHS is SAD, a new condition to add to the lexicon of illnesses, it is Seasonal Affective Disorder, seemingly if the cold, grey mornings, occasional mist, rain, snow, hail etc. you know, the stuff that comes with Winter, makes you feel down then you may be suffering from SAD. Now they may have a point there because on the mornings I know I have to go to the PO I am particularly sad and amazingly this does not affect me on the other mornings, go figure.

There is possibly a light at the end of the tunnel for SAD sufferers because it has been worked out, how do you get a job like that, that if the clocks were not tampered with twice a year we would find ourselves enjoying loads of benefits. People would have more time for jogging, football and tennis among other sports, so take that obesity, the elderly would be more likely to have a late afternoon stroll, business' would stay open longer, crime levels would reduce, the benefits are endless, why haven't we done this before. All joking aside would you be likely to do any of that with an extra hours daylight, no, nor me. Not only that but as usual there are two camps with completely opposing statistics for leaving well alone or changing and I cannot be fussed to bother with either, I got a lie in this morning, end of.

What about those Russians eh, trying to refuel their warships where they have been refuelling them for years, it's not as if they would run out of fuel on the way to the eastern Med and are now adrift, that'll teach them. We refuelled all over the world, I remember on our way to the Far East we fuelled in the odd African country which was a bit dodgy on their human rights and stayed a week in Apartheid South Africa without a hitch, twice, we took onboard everything we could as well as fuel. We backed the overthrow of an elected government in the Ukraine, we allowed nearly everyone on Russia's borders into NATO or the EU while telling the Russians to go sing, our press attacks them for bombing in Syria while we happily bombed Libya and are doing the same in Iraq. The press are warning about Russian flights and ships around us, they have been there since the '60's, I have seen them, we have also been sending troops to Poland and the Baltic states for exercises since those countries joined NATO, what's the big deal now? And as usual we are first in the door while our erstwhile NATO allies are not quite so keen as usual, I don't want to glow in the dark because the politicians can't get the job done or some mess in the Middle East.

When I was a kid you knew it was Halloween because you could get Monkey nuts (peanuts in their shells) in the shops, you couldn't buy a costume you had to make it, and if you did go out you usually got a handful of those Monkey nuts or an orange but you had to tell a joke, dance a jig or do something for them, not threaten the houseowner with mayhem. No one knew what a pumpkin was and if you carved anything it was a tumshie (turnip) which is a lot harder than a real pumpkin let me tell you. I hated it then and I detest it now. Of course we now have Trick or Treat not our own old fashioned Halloween, already houses are beginning to sprout skeletons, ghosts and fake spiders webs, it has been a boon for the big supermarkets and it isn't going to end anytime soon. Thankfully there are no children who live near me and we do not have the shop any more which was a big attraction for kids who thought we would be happy to give away all our stock to them and they came from far and wide, some taller than me sporting only a bin bag on their heads.

Ed Balls is becoming something of a reality star, I had expected him to crash out weeks ago but a lot of people are keeping him in this show so it can't be the Labour Party.