Chronic Pain
I wish I had thought of this reply when arguing with the Dept. of Work and Pensions before I retired.
If the drier goes can the toaster be far
behind?
A couple of years ago I upset the Gods of
Gadgets and everything went belly up within a short space of time. One of those things was the boiler. Fortunately a nice little man fixed it. Now, however, it has packed up again – this
time for good. (He did warn us his
fixing would only keep it going twelve months or so). Yesterday the tumble drier groaned to a halt
as well. No heating and no tumble dryer
and cold rainy weather. Not a good
recipe for getting clothes dry. What concerns me even more is that this
could be the start of another spate of gadget deaths. I wonder how I offended the Gadget Gods this
time – it certainly wasn’t consciously done.
Pensby
I live in Pensby on The Wirral peninsula in
Cheshire, England, the UK. Pensby is
non-place in that it has few facilities and little history (having in the 18th
Century simply been a scattering of a few houses, farms and a Hall). Its two
main facilities are the Library and the Post Office.
This month the library opening hours have
been reduced by 50% so that it is now closed on a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
The
number of books available is also being gradually reduced.
When Partner-who-loves-tea and I went into the
Post Office this morning there was a questionnaire on the counter asking for
views on changes to Post Office opening hours.
To my amazement they are planning to increase the number of hours the
Post Office is open. Having checked that
the Postmaster is happy with the proposed changes of hours I shall give them my
support.
However, one of the main things
I get from the Post Office is special commemorative stamps. If the changes go ahead as planned they will
no longer be available from our Pensby Post Office. The counters will also be open and no longer
screened. Whilst I like that idea in theory
I worry that the large amounts of cash in a Post Office could invite the sort
of armed robbery that has occurred in our local off-licence. People are rarely physically hurt in these robberies
but the mental and emotional anguish they cause the staff is considerable. Ah well, perhaps I’m just being an old fogey
and worrying too much. I hope so.
A Parcel from Li
A student from China, Dai Li, has become a
friend of mine over the past year or so and she is kind enough to remember to write
me postcards even when on top of Mt Fujiyama on her holidays. In December she sent me a parcel which
arrived yesterday.
It had a photo of her, taken on Christmas Eve, some lovely
postcards (including a wooden Giant Panda), pretty envelopes (also featuring Giant
Pandas) and two stuffed toy Giant Pandas.
Part of the delay in it arriving was caused by it having been opened by
the Chinese customs. Perhaps they took
the ‘Contents – Giant Pandas’ literally!
It makes you :-)
I'm Watching You!
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