It was a better day today.
The tree is topped, the pigeons are inspecting the result, and the neighbour across the road has said she is already missing the view. She liked it as it was. This proves you can’t please all the people all the time.
The tree fellers have done a good, tidy job, despite there being just the two of them. (If you pretend to say “tree fellers” with an Irish accent the last line will make more sense. That same accent also explains why Leicester Tigers’ Billy Twelvetrees was known as Thirty Six.)
To make things even better, they worked quickly and charged less, so it was an economical sort of day.
Work went well, starting with me getting there early and taking loads of photos for the presentation. It’s only five or six days away, depending if you count Monday as one of the days.
That click you may have heard then is the sound of tension moving up another notch…
After work I had to go shopping. I lost the stylus that goes with Julia’s tablet, and she can’t use it by using a finger tip like I do. Did I mention I lost the stylus? She did. About a dozen times a night for the last two nights. It was getting to the point where I either had to go shopping (which I don’t like) or commit murder. I’m pretty sure they don’t allow WordPress in prison so I decided to go shopping.
The first shop stocks them, but had sold out. The second didn’t stock them. The third only had one left. At this point the full horror of coronavirus struck home – when China sneezes the whole world of cheap consumer goods catches a cold. (If it develops into a pandemic, with people falling dead in the street, this will probably seems like an unfortunate turn of phrase, but at the moment it seems apposite).
Magpie, shortly after being bested by a Gull
In the car park of the first one I saw two Magpies engaging in a tug of war with a packet of crisps, and reached for my camera. By the time I had switched it on a Black-headed Gull had swooped and taken the bag. The Magpies are looking shiny, and the Gulls are developing their (chocolate brown) heads. Spring cannot be far away, despite the plunging temperatures.
I have found out why hand gel and soap is in short supply – local school head teachers have, it seems, being laying in massive stores of it. Because nothing averts a pandemic like panic buying and hand gel.
Well, I hope you don’t get the coronavirus. Not sure if a mountain is being made out of a molehill but it does mean the roads have been quieter of late.
Sorry about the tree but if it sways less in the wind….
I’m pretty sure that we’re looking at a mountain being made from a molehill. However, I’m trying to keep an open mind as I could be wrong…
Indeed!
I am happy to see that the presentation is proceeding smoothly on schedule. Plenty of time left, no worries.
I had a lengthy routine about the tree fellers in a pantomime I wrote for school many years ago, I thought that it was very funny.
It’s a classic. I’ve been finding it funny for sixty years. Glad to hear you played your part in perpetuating it. 🙂
Hope this doesn’t make you feel too bad, but oh that tree was so lovely before it was topped. Doesn’t look horrible now that it’s trimmed, but…a pox on those neighbors. 😉
We are on the top of a ridge and it has been bending alarmingly in storms over the last five years – just too big for the space. 🙁
Ah, well… In that the case, the topping should help.
🙂
I really enjoyed the nick-names link. We have to like Nobody best because we have a nephew called John Eales. Son Sam at 6’2″ and built once posted a pic of him sharing a platform with the Aussie legend who made him look a shrimp. I also liked Uncle Fester.
I had a similar experience when I stood next to Tom Burgess. https://www.rabbitohs.com.au/teams/telstra-premiership/south-sydney-rabbitohs/thomas-burgess/
Some of the nicknames were highly inventive, weren’t they? 🙂
🙂
The tree does look neat. Bizarrely here we have panic buying of toilet paper, you can find none on the shelves and hand sanitizer no hope at the moment. It had not occurred to me that I should stock up on toilet paper but given the panic buying I am wondering, do others know something I don’t.
We had panic buying of toilet roll last year amid the Brexit fears. I bought extra myself. I could not face a future that didn’t include toilet roll, particularly as we no longer have a daily paper.
I tried to replace my hand-gel the other day and could get none ‘for love nor money’. The tree looks very neat; I hope your next-door-neighbours will be satisfied with the results.
It’s annoying when it’s something you normally buy. I’m hoping to get the virus as soon as possible, recover and get on with my life.
They won’t be happy, they seem to have set their hearts on total removal. 🙁
Beasts!
🙂
Glad today went well, Quercus! 🙂