Interesting day in the shop. It started with me arriving early to find all the parking had gone, and as I parked to cause maximum possible inconvenience to the people using our spaces one left, which left me with a dilemma. Continue to cause maximum inconvenience, or grab the slot and secure a parking space for the day with no need to move or argue.

I decided to park in the newly available space. As it was, we had a customer later and he blocked the bad mannered parkers in, so the woman in the big black car was still put to some inconvenience when she wanted to move. This is good, as it may make her think twice about parking outside the shop again. However, I know it probably won’t, as most people who park in our spaces think they have some sort of right to do it. Like the one who told me “I pay my taxes . . .”

Until then I didn’t know you could pay a tax that allowed you to park where you want (I am, of course being sarcastic here, as we don’t).

Bamforth comic card

The photo has nothing to do with the subject of the blog but I saw it whilst searching and thought I’d put it in.

We had a couple of questions – one surprisingly clear and one, unsurprisingly, the ramblings of a man who appears to think e can fill in the gaps with our mind-reading skills. He wants to know if he can offer us £50 for a coin. Well, I can’t stop him. What he really means, in his woolly-headed way is is if we will accept £50 for a coin. Confused? Me too. Traditionally questions like this come with a little more information, like which coin. He has obviously got one in mind on a drop down menu. Coins on the menu start at £35. I would be happy to sell him a £35 coin for £50, but I don’t think that’s what he has in mind. Most of the coins on the menu are £85 to £100. I imagine that is what he is thinking of. If we were making so much money we could afford to offer that level of discount I’d have retired years ago.

Harlow Carr Gardens – this may be too ambitious as a retirement project, but you need to have ambition.

At this point my thoughts always turn to winning the lottery and installing bollards that go up and down so we could keep people out of our spaces. Of course, what I always miss in this scenario is that if  won enough money to even think about retractable bollards, parking at work would no longer be an issue. Actually, I just checked. You can buy a cheap bollard (retractable or folding) for as little a £60, though I wouldn’t really trust an eBay dealer with my security needs. Around £100 labour to fit, they say, but it’s probably more. It’s always more . . .

There are, of course, more expensive choices.

However, getting back to the main question – if I won a significant sum on the Lottery would I let it change my life. Yes, I certainly would. Now that I’m on the verge of retirement I am getting impatient. I’ve just been looking up garden sheds, greenhouses and raspberry canes. Once I get a flat and easy to maintain garden I am going to take more interest. There are too many steps and slopes in our current one.

It’s strange what a difference a few months makes. When I first realised it was looming I grew afraid of retirement. Now I can’t wait.

Fat Rascal at Harlow Carr. In retirement I am going to do more baking. I may even buy a mixer to do the difficult bits.