Monday 16th November 2020 Day 236
6.45 I am quite glad that the weekend is over, not the best of weather to be stuck in lockdown, although from what I gather there were plenty of people out and about in the towns. The highlight of my weekend was walking Audrey when there were a couple of pauses in the weather and even a bit of blue sky on Saturday. The only person I saw was a man with I assume his young son. The man was carrying a long French bread stick and they were off for a picnic. Thank goodness I saw Audrey just in time as she approached the bread stick which he was holding low! Luckily, she stopped in her tracks when I whistled her.
Yesterdays walk was spectacular. The woods were flooded and a couple of times we had to retrace our steps because foolishly I only had short boots on and some of the paths had turned into torrents. Of course I had to have a little go at removing some of the branches and debris which were holding the water back further up the stream. Next weekend I shall take my grandson Bill with me, then I will have a much better excuse for playing in the water. It’s a bit like when you get carried away building magnificent sandcastles on the beach and turn round to find your little helper has long disappeared to another part of the beach and left you there like an overgrown child with your bucket and spade.
9.30 My youngest daughter phones me on my mobile and for a change we get a decent enough signal not to have to keep shouting ‘hello hello can you hear me? I can hear you fine’ etc as we do on mobile phones, usually getting louder and louder as if that would make any difference to a poor signal. She remembers that she has forgotten to tell me that my house phone must have a fault and has been like that for the past few days! I thought it has been a particularly quiet weekend, apparently the phone rings and rings but actually not in my house.
11.30 We go for our walk and I collect a bag full of twigs for drying in the boiler room and using for kindling. Audrey likes twig collecting days because she gets a lot of ball throwing. We meet several dogs and in fact one man with five border collies which in my book becomes a ‘pack’ and as they are a bit growly and have their hackles up, we change direction, Audrey is very happy to be moving away from them as am I.
13.15 I must contact my phone provider which I have been putting off, remembering other times when I have phoned and been kept waiting for such a long time to get through, so it is a nice surprise to be put straight through to a charming young man called Will who tells me ‘how nice it is to get my call today’. Really? Then adds ‘that’s brilliant’ and ‘that’s lovely’ and ‘that’s perfect’ to every reply I give him.
“I’m just going to get your fault raised Penny, I won’t keep you waiting long”
“Ok fine” says I
“That’s perfect” says he
“When did you first notice there was a fault?”
“This morning” says I
“That’s brilliant” says he
Is it? I didn’t think it was particularly brilliant. He and his colleagues have obviously studied the book of how to be over-the-top polite and he finishes off by telling me how nice it has been to talk to me today and is there anything else he can help me with? Well I suppose he was doing his best, better that than saying how he really feels which is probably that he doesn’t give a flying fig and he doesn’t know how he is going to keep these pleasantries up with the next fifty callers. Good on him. Of course I give him straight tens for all the questions on the texted survey at the end, it’s all about keeping his job I guess.