Tag Archives: sarcasm

A Day the Same as Many Others

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Today I thought I’d write a list of everything that happened today, to prove that a day could take 5,000 words to describe and that what we discuss in our blogs is a very small part of what happens to any of us in our daily lives.

I got up, had overnight oats with two sorts of fruit (discuss overnight oats, lazy cooking and the concept of bananas for breakfast). Watched Tv whilst eating breakfast, can’t remember what was one, had toast, despite vowing to cut calories and carbs, put shoes on (which was quite easy today despite my knees being resistant to bending) and left the house. Noted evidence of overnight rain in garden, reflected on the large bill for roofing and new guttering, reflected on the poor state of the house – a direct consequence of me buying  a house that had been bodged up by an amateur property developer and the surveyor I employed not doing a very good job.

Got into car. Employed sarcasm to Julia, who had filled the back of the car, and the field of view of my rear view mirror, with a lilac tree she wanted for the gardens. It is pot bound and it has stopped flowering. Then moved on to criticism when I started off and found it wasn’t properly secured. I spend half my life with soil in the car because of things like this and she never learns. However, it pays to overlook this sort of thing if you want to stay married. Pointed out how lucky she was to have an easy-going man like me as a husband. She seemed to find this amusing.

The Boredom of my Day

The roads were clear again as everyone seems to be away on holiday, though I did suffer from  snarled up junction at one time and selected an alternative route. Chatted bout her work. Discussed the reasons for “builders’ bum”. decided it was the poor cut of modern trousers. I avoid it by wearing long vests and suitable shirts. I am a paragon of considerate dressing when it comes to things like this. Someone we both know has a habit of showing far too much rear cleavage when bending.  A vest in this context is an American “undershirt”. Carried on to chat about some of Julia’s workmates. For reasons of manners, and the law of libel, I will treat this as confidential.

Used the ring road today, so discussed other drivers, several cyclists, electric cycles and their use as a chicane on the footpath so that blind people can’t get past. There is a general lack of consideration for others, abandoned electric bikes from out city trial is just one manifestation.

That’s 445 words, we hve just reached Julia’s work and I have spent 450 words on it so far, and not even really discussed any of the subjects, just noted them.

I think this proves a point I have been considering for  while now – blogging presents a biased picture of small slice of our lives. I have often called by life tedious before, but until you read the list of things i talk about did you realise quite how dull it really is? The air was so wet this morning that as I left Julia and drove by a sports field I could actually smell wet grass. My journey to work was fairly uneventful apart from a couple of lorries getting a bit close. At this point in the writing I realise I have failed to mention that we discussed traffic lights, the removal of road works and the driving of a man in a Ford Fiesta.

Sometimes I compose poetry in my head in this bit of the journey. This didn’t happen this morning, but it didn’t matter as I usually forget it anyway, or it never seems as good as I thought when I originally thought of the words.

There we go – 650 words of trivial drivel and I haven’t even got to work yet . . .

My Orange Parker Pen

Day 118

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I picked twelve empty stalks from the Spanish poppies today – the season’s total so far. There are five more in bloom today and they seem to have lasted better than most of the blooms do. I think one or two must have lasted two days now. late last summer we were lucky if they lasted six hours. I must monitor that this year and see if they follow the same pattern.

The Welsh poppy is looking good, and has a number of buds ready to take over the job of flowering. I’m not sure how long they last, but have always thought of them as quite tough. Again, I will have a chance to observe. I must make sure I end the season with enough seeds to ensure it spreads.

Meanwhile, having resisted sarcasm yesterday, I couldn’t hold it back this afternoon on the shop. There was an incident earlier in the week where one of my co-workers was, I thought, rather wasteful with some packaging. Well, today he excelled himself. Twelve items, twelve plastic sleeves. Then a board backed envelope and then two pieces of card. I maintained silence. I am, after all, just a cog in the machine. Then the printer started. He was printing three sheets of paper with screenshots of the goods he was packing. He could simply have put Banknotes (12) on a compliments slip but that wouldn’t have been wasteful enough for him.

“Why,” I asked, “don’t you just nuke a forest while you’re at it?”

He took offence at this.

My penultimate news is that my vaccination seems to have passed without incident. I had a slightly sore arm last night and woke up at about 6am this morning when I rolled over on it. It’s still slightly sore if I touch it, but, as I used to tell the kids when they did such things – don’t touch it.

Finally, cattails is out. I am on pages 83, 86, 118, 170, 173, 174. The last one is just a repeat of 170, which is the Editor’s Choice in the tanka prose section. Just thought I’d mention that as I slip from the page.

 

Day 117 (Part 2)

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The first question they asked me at the vaccination centre was “Have you come for a booster vaccination?” I would be asked that twice more. And each time I had to fight the impulse to say “No, I was just passing and thought I’d see what was at the front of the queue.”

You should never be sarcastic to people who are armed with needles. Well, you shouldn’t be sarcastic at all, I suppose, but I find it hard to be nice all the time.

So far all is going well. I have no soreness in the arm, and no other symptoms. This lack of reaction might be a good thing, or it might mean that it is having no effect. It might also be because my cure for side-effects, eating a Belgian bun, has worked well.

Two more Spanish poppies today. It’s a slow start but I’m hoping things will pick up.

We also have a new self-seeded flower in the driveway – a Welsh poppy. I’ve been hoping one would pop up, because other people have them along the street and they can be quite prolific. They normally seem to grow down the sides of houses, which seems strange as I always associate poppies with sunlight. It seems, when I look at the link, that they like shady places. I feel like I should have known that.

Not  a bad day really, the blood sample was quick and painless, the vaccination was easy, the cake was good, and we have a new self-seeded poppy. This gives you some idea of how interesting my days are.

 

A List, and a Letter I Will Never Send

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Next time I write a to-do list towards the end of the evening I am going to include Number Eight – fall asleep and sleep past midnight in my chair, Number Nine, wake up feeling like rigor-mortis has set in and Number Ten – make sandwiches in the early hours of the morning.

If I’d done that I would at least have achieved three of my objectives.

As it was, I didn’t even reach Number One – write sarcastic letter to TESCO. We had a delivery at just after 8.00.  It gives us time to relax and cook before bringing the shopping in from the door. There were no brown cobs with this delivery, and  a few other bits and pieces of omission or change that I found a little annoying, but that’s the price (plus £4.50 for packing and delivery) that you pay for not jostling with the germ-ridden denizens of our local supermarkets.

The prize for the most bizarre substitution ever, and the reason for my planned outburst of sarcasm.

It was going to be along the lines of –

FAO CEO TESCO

If you opened your sandwich box in the Executive dining room, looking forward to a lovely cheese cob, only to find a mere heap of cheese and pickle, because your grocery supplier couldn’t be bothered to supply any bread rolls, and had failed to find a suitable substitute, I bet you’d be disappointed, and wonder how people can stay in business if they can’t even supply bread rolls.

If you then reached for your delicious finale – an easy peel citrus (as they call small oranges these days) and bit into a lemon, I imagine you would become quite annoyed.

I am, I confess, more than quite annoyed that you substituted lemons for my order of easy peel citrus. I was tempted to pack one for my wife’s lunch to see what happened, but am, frankly, too frightened.

Remembering last week’s non-delivery debacle, I think I will be going back to ASDA. They are useless, but not quite as useless as you.

I am, yours etc…

Of course, I won’t send it. I never do…

 

A Diversion, an Early Start and Some Sarcasm

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On Mondays Julia works at the main site instead of being in the garden. This means driving through town rather than round the ring road. Really, I suppose, it ought to entail using  a bus but as it takes an hour longer, involves two buses and would mean getting up at 6.00 I have cynically suggested we should be selfish and use the car.

I haven’t flown at all in the last 32 years (and that was for work, not pleasure) and she has flown just once in that time. I think we can allow ourselves a few car trips.

As British Gas is digging up the road on our normal route we used a different route today, and allowed a little extra time as I suspected there would be other people doing the same thing. It appeared not to be the case and, after a swift and uneventful trip through the centre of town, I got her to work 20 minutes early.

When we start off at the normal time we have been anything from ten minutes early to twenty minutes late. I can’t wait to see how things progress.

Work is scheduled to end on 29th May.

Last time there was major work done round here they over-ran by two weeks on a six week project. If they do the same again, in percentage terms, they won’t finish until August.

My cup, as they say, runneth over…

Could do better…

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Sorry, I seem to have lost focus this week.

I have written several thousand words, but none of them were suitable for a blog. It’s interesting to me to indulge in biographical musings and a polemic about the waste of time and trees involved in the typical grant application, but it’s not so interesting for the people who have to read it. (I’m just having to print out a load stuff for a grant application that could easily just be submitted as links to various internet pages).

Similarly, the new outbreak of hostilities between me and the Farmer’s Sister, whilst giving me a great arena in which to indulge my sarcasm and vitriol, is not a fit subject for publication. Quite apart from the possibilities of a suit for defamation, it’s rude to talk about people behind their backs.

So, in the absence of masterly prose, I will bung in a load of photos.

Swan at National Arboretum
WLA and Timber Corps memorial – National Arboretum
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It’s also bad policy from another point of view;  if I ever describe how to make a bomb from agricultural chemicals it won’t seem so funny as it comes up in court and moves from being “a blog” to becoming “the evidence”.

Even my email box fails to inspire me, with the same old ungrammatical notes purporting to be from banks and credit card companies, and one very persistent accountant, all wanting details and money. Come to think of it the accountant could be for real – as he keeps lecturing us and adding more penalties each time he writes. Ah well, he should write a more convincing letter.

Once in a while I did get an imaginative letter from the widow of an African politician, but they seem to have dried up lately.

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Poppy and chamomile
Puffin and Kittiwake
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Instead of agonising over my lack of output, I’m going to promise to do better next week.

I usually manage to get out of trouble by doing that.

Let’s see if it works this time.

(The title, in case you haven’t guessed, is a quote that appeared in many of my school reports over the years. They probably have to be more upbeat these days but in the 1970s teachers were still allowed to be cynical.)