*May contain strong language and material that some people may find offensive!*
Date: Friday 8th May 2020
Quarantine: Day - Who knows they're all the same anyway.
Location: Leeds
Specifically: Fleet Road, in the direction of Woodlesford. Lying on my bed in the ‘upstairs bedroom’ listening to people (who I swear materialise out of thin air) moaning about my parking on the road just because they have to walk through a couple of cow pats, scrape their head along overhanging tree branches and tear their clothing to shreds on blackberry bushes; picky picky! (though probably not until September).
VR: No time for hiding away under a VR rock today.
DIY
Arise at my scheduled time of 7.30 a.m (give or take a few minutes searching for the willpower to get up and wondering if I have the energy to swat a fly who is showing off by rubbing his legs together to show that, just because he spends his life chomping shit he can still stick to the sanitation guidelines better than I can) and examine my phone for signs of Rachael.
Nothing. Awwww
Blast it! I knew I shouldn’t have asked her to help me establish a regular routine (bran flakes would have done the job just as well!). She has enough to do as it is without my expecting her to kick start me into action. I message her instead..
“I’ll be OK with my routine now sweetie. Thanks for the boot up the arse!!”
Which is what I need actually because I discover that today is a bank holiday! Silly me - I should have known that a) Rachael would never let me down and b) with all the current upheaval today is actually bank holiday Monday!
In truth I’m disappointed because her influence was working a treat, in fact it’s the only thing that has worked since I bought Hymie. But I feel too guilty to expect her to carry on.
CARRYING ON!
I believe I’ve found a solution to the dispute between Alex and myself. The way I look at it; Alex has never had to share a house with another human being, at least not since he left the parental home. There have been a couple of very brief dalliances with Cat, the most recent of which lasted all of four days. Apart from that - nothing. It seems to me we are OK when not living in the same house. Solution - don’t live in the same house.
I message him..,
“Morning matey - think I’ve got the solution. Seems we’re OK as long as we aren’t sharing the same living space. Answer - don’t share the same living space.
Genius yeah!?”
If I expected a ‘Eureka!’ or even a bog standard agreement it wasn’t forthcoming. What I got was a rather cryptic......
“Enjoy your day in your nice place”.
Thus is Alex’s way of simultaneously buying thinking time, avoiding the question and generally being a twat (he won’t mind the expletive you should here the names he calls me)
Forget it, might as well move on.
‘The moving pencil writes and having writ moves on’, I’ve been wanting to squeeze that in for ages (said the actress to the bishop!) ........ so....
MOVING ON!!
I realise that I haven’t messaged sis in a while (Concetta that is, as in honorary sister not the biological one). So I message her - bet you didn’t see that one coming! (said the actr..... ENOUGH! Give up now!)
..... just to check she’s doing OK. I’m sure she is but it never hurts to let people know you’re thinking of them. So few people ever do it though. It turns out that she’s taken voluntary redundancy and set up her own business, which stopped before it started, courtesy of the Coronavirus.
NOTHING IS JUST BLACK AND WHITE
Turns out my friend Marie has been set a challenge on Facebook - to illustrate her life in black and white photos over the course of a week. I post my response.....
“I love black n white photos! Very often certain subjects work much better and look more dramatic. I once did a series on rainfall - went down a storm!”
Well the joke didn’t because either Marie didn’t get it or she thought it too crap to bother with. Either way she didn’t respond to it. Best move on eh?- yet again!
So I thought you might like to see a few of my black and white photos....
oh? ........
You wouldn’t .....
OK well flick past them and go on to the next exciting instalment of (ear splitting fanfare!) Hergé’s Adventures of Tin Tin!
ahem
Or in my case - ‘Captain Victory’s yada yada yada moho something or other...
Ah bollox! Can’t get going at all - Todays weather forecast indicated it was going to be cooler than yesterday (I assume that’s what a little cloud means). Good can’t stand bloody hot weather. Sitting there like a sweltering beast of the farmyard lapping up ‘water’ from a trough consisting of rainwater, bird shit and fag ends.
That shit is bad enough but then I’m hearing the usual rubbish from outside ”stupid place to park”, “not bloody right” “yd fink thid leaf a bit moor room”. I was sure I had left plenty of room for pedestrians but then again it was dark when I pulled up (though that night have been due to my not pulling the blinds back before setting off).
Still, best to be safe. I nip out to have look thinking that maybe Hymie had sidled over to the hedge to fulfil an urge to extrempostulate during the night; but no, there’s enough room to drive a Sherman tank through the space as well as a battalion of infantry and one of those mascot goat things that they like to drag around with them.
Conclusion.
Miserable bastards.
In order to get away for a while, and because it’s cooler outside than in I decide to take a walk up to Lidl. I need water and I need sellotape if I’m going to stand any hope of sending out the packages I’ve been trying to post all week. I take an ice cream along as well - why not? Not much happening at the moment in terms of thrilling days out. Might as well make the best of it.
En route to Lidl I find a bench in a cool breeze (as opposed to on the pavement where they usually are) and sit down with my ice cream. I also take the opportunity to do a bit of writing.
Suddenly, to my utter astonishment, three things happen all at once!! ....
... all of them as boring as fuck so I’m not going to waste time telling you what they were.
But!!!
One thing I did find slightly amusing was a publicity poster on the side of a bus. It was for a new movie ‘The Invisible Man’ with the tag line “What you can’t see can’t hurt you”. Well they must have seen Corona coming because you sure aren’t going to see The Invisible Man for ages yet! and you won’t see him then either er....because he’s invisible.
LIGHTBULB!
Londis is just across the road! They are likely to have the things I need i.e water and sellotape without standing in a stupidly long queue! Water no problem, sellotape sold out but the smiling assistant suggests insulation tape. Clever chappie!!! I add a bottle of ‘this delicious and nourishing beverage provides one of your five a day‘ fruit juice and head for the checkout. £5.50! Would have been less than two quid at Lidl! Then again it might have been forty quid at Harrods so who’s complaining.
PARKING
Not wishing to stay on Fleet Lane longer than I have to (it is a main road after all) I decide to nip across the road with my drink and do a bit of writing on the bench (which hopefully won’t get me into trouble) followed by a trip up Eshald Road where (from a brief look at Google Earth) there seem to be some decent parking areas where Hymie can sit quietly in the shade.
I’m in luck! The road is quite narrow in parts but there are plenty of passing places. More to the point I pass about five suitable lay bys which can easily accommodate Hymie and, at the very end of the road, a sizeable parking area that would fit about six motorhomes! (Turns out it barely fits mine + a small bicycle but I'm not shifting now).
BZZZZZZZZ
A message! Jodie, who purchased the Dr Q projector from me on Monday. She wants to know if I managed to post it yesterday. I have to confess....
“No n today is a bank holiday. But! I did get some insulation tape (that stuff that goes round wire to stop you getting a 240v slammer and being blown through the attic window) which means I can actually wrap your package and get it out tomorrow morning. So sorry about this, I don’t normally have this much trouble. x”
Fortunately she’s OK but I need to get that parcel out ‘cos I fear she’s not going to be OK for much longer.
Sorry - the black and white photos??? You must be wondering where they’ve got to...
Oh
You weren’t - nae worries you passed them way back anyway.
Never mind - I’ll look some out for tomorrow.
Stay safe, everyone!
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