Day 3

7^th September (Day 3)

Took the dog for an evening walk in the nature reserve to the south of the village. It’s usually quiet there. It had a bad reputation in the local press as a dogging location (nothing to do with animals). You now only find the small car park there littered with MacDonalds wrappers, cans and bottles, shopping trollies and burned out benches.

Which reminds me, Nigel Farage has launched his own brand of gin. Did I get that right? I’ll need to check. There was a picture of him in the press pouring from a gin bottle. If anyone deserved to be smacked round the head with a bottle it is him. Has Covid done this to me? I seem to be more intolerant of politicians in general than I ever used to be. Is Farage a politician? Or just more generally a dick?

Six hour waits for holiday makers in Calais to get back to England. Who cares? Well they do obviously.

Local cub pack were out hiking tonight. Brats. Although they liked the dog and spent ages patting him. Adults leading them in song. ‘If your happy and you know it…..’ The stuff of nightmares.

All day long on TV, Truss and her first PMQs. Well, at least she sounded dull and boring, which was a relief given what had gone before. Announced a price cap for energy. Still trying to work out what that means although the local chippy seems to think that they will be out of business in six months if the gas and electricity bills keep rising. Putin on TV supposedly saying that Europe can freeze in hell. Not being fluent in Russian I can’t really judge whether that was an accurate description of what he said. He deserves to be hit round the head with a bottle as well.

Still no one back in the office. One hundred and twenty desks and there are about five or six of us in each day. I work from there in the morning and usually finish of at home in the afternoon. To be honest, it is a pain when people are in. I have got used to the silence to get on with work and get it finished. A colleague was in earlier and he spent the full morning on VERY LOUD Teams calls. It does not work in an open plan office. I felt like telling him to fuck off home. Is that the Covid effect as well? No, we would all have sworn at each other in the office pre lockdown, so not much changed there.

They are resurfacing the office car park and putting in electric charging points. I have an appointment at the Vauxhall garage to look at and price up an electric car. Tempted, but we will see. There’s a nice green model in the showroom window  – such are the ways in which decisions about cars are made – price (kind of), performance (nah), size (maybe), colour (yes).

Police back on estate. There’s been an assault in the social housing. Or was there? That was the rumour on the Facebook page. And only a rumour. The social housing is getting a bad name amongst some of the ‘we-paid-a-fortune-for-ours-and-theirs-will-bring-the-value-down’ house owners. Doubt it. One of the three bedroom semi-detached, bought for £178 000 four years ago, has just sold for £240 000.