Frantic Friday

It’s been a bit of a rush today – shopping on the way to work as we haven’t been planning too well lately. The bakery section in the new Lidl at Bingham is good, so we had croissants for breakfast and sandwich baguettes for lunch. Probably a little bread-centred as a day goes, but as I said – we didn’t plan it too well.

Lidl was like a zombie convention with people of all ages doing their best to keep me away from the things I wanted to buy. It amazes me how many young people exist in a dream. I know we all slow down as we get older, I certainly am, and I’m not quite as alert as I was, but there’s no excuse for getting in my way when I’m in a hurry.

They even had a film crew in one aisle blocking my way to the jam. Well, a croissant needs jam, even if it is full of sugar. Then at the checkout (where they normally fling your shopping at you in an attempt to get rid of you quickly) another of the living dead was on the till.

Then it was the Garden Centre as Julia has plans. They include 30 seed trays and I am afraid to ask.

Men in Sheds put a donated garden shed up for us and re-roofed it. They are also making the Breadfest Project, which I may have mentioned before. I just had to add “Breadfest” to the dictionary as the spell-checker was trying to substitute “breastfed”, which would be a completely different project, and probably not one I’d be allowed to organise.

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The Community Payback team have rebuilt one of the Keyhole Gardens, which was dismantled a while ago by a keen but misdirected volunteer. They have also emptied the compost bins and rescued a litter of mice, which they put back after uncovering them. I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering why, but I suppose all compassion should be given credit. Even compassion to vermin.

I’ve emailed forty more schools to drum up some business, read a number of fascinating emails that offer me a chance to get to know exotic women better, or help them move millions of pounds by sending my bank account details and finally had to walk half way through the village to find the ASDA delivery man who, amongst other things, brought chocolate doughnuts, diet coke and garish iced buns (though that’s not what it calls them on the bag. I fear our healthy eating message is being diluted by the cafe. Not that a man of my size can take the moral high ground on the question of diet. I’d run out of breath trying to get up there, for one thing

I’m rushing to get this finished because I have to set up for a group tomorrow and get Julia home before setting off to see my uncle, who is down visiting from Lancashire. If he can travel 180 miles to see my Dad at the age of 86 I should be able to travel a mere 60 to have tea with them. It would be nice if they didn’t want tea at 5pm (which would give me more time to do my jobs), but that’s what happens as you get older – mealtimes become less flexible and bedtime moves forward.

Not that I’m one to talk – I may not organise my life around going to bed for 7.30, but I am often asleep in front of the TV by that time. The real difference between me and my dad is merely 30 years. We’re deaf in the same ear, have gold caps on the same teeth and, according to my wife and my late mother, are irritatingly similar in many ways.

At eighteen, this would have been a distressing thought, but at 58 I’m not that bothered. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to irritate Julia before going to practice being an amiable old buffer and listening to stories I’ve heard before.