View From The Window

A bit sooner than I thought but it has been an especially fraught few weeks.

We had Monsoon rain recently, something I have noticed is happening quite regularly now, the upshot was that when I got up in the morning there was a film of greyish white filth all over the front drain heading towards the main road. I went to the outhouse at the back to get a spade/trowel and saw the same muck around the back drain, it was toilet paper, ugh! The bottom line was that the pipe leading to the main drain (under the main road) had cracked and caused a blockage which had come back up my drains, it had also got into the little storeroom at the back and soaked about a dozen of the new carpet tiles, thankfully only muddy water and not sewage, but bad enough, oh and not my sewage not that that makes things any better.

After a frantic morning cleaning up and phone calls we got someone out from United Utilities, not in the top 100 companies you want to deal with. He identified the cracked pipe but as it was in the road he couldn't do anything so another crack team would turn up in the next ten minutes or three days, guess what I put my money on. I was wrong and they turned up the next afternoon, a dim, uninterested young man who I thought was looking for an excuse to leave. They walked back and forth, hummed and hawed, tried to open a manhole but couldn't then decided to flush using my front drain, as they moved the truck to get closer to the awkward drain they uncovered, a manhole! Problem solved, flushed and now a second wave of uninterested United Utilities men will be here within 28 days to repair the cracked pipe, yes my money is on 28.

We have been getting on almost first term names with Debenham call centre people. They phoned the missus to tell her she hasn't paid her bill, asked for her details and then said she was not who she said she was so they couldn't take the payment, despite the fact she answered the number given to them. She explained that they had the wrong date for her day of birth, which had been taken down correctly at the original store but had been inputted wrong. They said she had to phone them, no, she wasn't going to do that it was their problem. This carried on for over a week and each time they would not listen nor let her pay the bill because they were not talking to 'her' because she gave the wrong birth date. It took one person with commonsense to eventually sort out the mess by changing the date to the right one, why should Britain tremble.

But then you have a right to tremble, the Army has now reduced its physical fitness test to be more gender neutral, which of course means more women can now pass as combat ready as well as men of a certain type or maybe even men who are women or the other way around. The upshot of course is that our troops will not be as tough as anyone who actually wanted to invade and take charge of the whole mess. Honestly why would anyone want to invade us, what would they be getting?

It's the little things, I got up on the wrong side of the bed the other day, things just annoyed me, I went off to Carnforth for some shopping, I decided to cheer myself up and went to Gregg's and got the missus a caramel/chocolate doughnut, I saw a chocolate eclair and thought, that will hit the spot, off I toddled with my little box to enjoy with afternoon coffee. At half two I took the coffee's into the Post Office (not busy), the missus took our her luscious doughnut and passed me my cream doughnut......what, where's the eclair, the anorexic, tattooed, steel pierced assistant had put the wrong thing in the box, aaaaagh!

I was off shopping early again this morning, as I came back through the village a Tesco van passed me and I noticed the driver was not looking in my direction, had one hand on the wheel and the other clasping his phone to his good ear. Small children were on the way to school, the main street was chock a block with parked cars and the road busy. Not this time thought I, I got the number and phoned Tesco, I got their national call centre, not my local Tesco, I was informed that my call was important and that it was being recorded (does anyone ever sit and listen to these), I also had a choice of six numbers none of which was pertinent, I chose the catchall one at the end. I went through the same routine of how important my call was (not my time obviously as I had now wasted about ten minutes) and how wonderful Tesco was and did I want to know about some football thing in 2019, I chose the last number again. I got a human this time, who tutted when I complained about the driver then said he would put me through to the complaints department, I found myself back at square one with six choices, nope, I was not going to be a good citizen because I didn't have the willpower or the time.

Now, armed with a pack of Border Biscuits Chocolate Gingers I am off for a morning coffee in the again unbusy PO.