Now, as you know, I am not one to complain

In fact this has always been one of the most noticeable things about me, my easy going nature. In fact, when I consider this, I can tell you folk are always saying, "You're not one to complain, oh no, not you!" This is something that happens to me all the time. As I write I recall a place where we had a small printer that produced long thin strips on which we printed relevant identification for the produce. One day one young chap was so impressed with me he used this machine to print 'I'm not one to complain' and stuck this on my white coat. This goes to prove how long suffering I have always been.

However, today I was once more in 'Somerfields' and was able to remind myself of the incompetence that marks this store out from all the others. The store has several checkouts, all running in the usual long line. Naturally only two are open at busy times, and today only one was being used. I took my two items to the cigarette (cough, choke, ugh) kiosk in the usual way to avoid a queue. Of course there were two people ahead of me, both carrying baskets stuffed full of goods. They were also female!

The first was slowly putting her goods into the bag she brought with her. Such folks always bring their own reusable bag in a vain attempt to save the planet. This bag is then placed in the boot of their 4x4 gas guzzler and proceed to drive the half mile to their driveway polluting all and sundry in between. However, this rich hippy finally managed to pack up and proceeded to put her payment card back into her handbag. As we waited for her to move aside to let the next woman in I almost informed her that "HURRY ALONG. IT'S MY BIRTHDAY IN JULY!!!!!!' but managed not to. Female two placed her basket on the small counter along with her handbag (why oh why do women NEED two bags?) and the dork behind the desk began the slow process again. While this was happening a second lass arrived and opened the other till! This one is clever, clearly a girl going places. This I can tell as she appears to be alive, unlike so many of her associates. I placed the two (TWO) items on the little space woman two allowed me, under her hand bag lay the plastic bags I needed. A subtle hint (grabbing the bag and shoving it in her direction) enabled her to make room with a whimpering "Sorry." But I still could not get the plastic bag. When I did the thing ripped as I opened it. I threw it in the direction of the checkout girl muttering something Jesus would never have imagined. By this time the clever lass was holding out my change and expecting me to take it. I ignored her. As I grabbed a bag she did too saying "Take the change and I'll pack it." So I let her.

Now imagine the scene. A small counter, two tills and the bags left on the counter for customers to use. But surely numskulls, if you just put the goods into the bags yourselves then you would have more room on the counter? The customer would leave quicker. We could get home before dark and folks would be happier! Why is it that something so obvious is beyond this company? The larger checkout are smaller than Tescos or Sainsburys and the situation with the bags there is totally inadequate. How come a company with so many employees cannot run itself on common sense grounds?

All that is needed is better use of space, employees with half a brain (an improvement on what is there now) and a common sense approach to moving the people along. This is the lower orders store around here. You know, neds, chavs and those who left school at fourteen like I did inhabit this place. (Hold on, something not right there!) Two of the girls are quite bright and the rest were clearly dropped on their heads at birth. Why do companies allow themselves to be run in such a consistently poor manner?

To make matters worse they would not give me a part time job when I asked!

A Mixed Saturday

Getting up early this morning I decided to wander around Sainsburys for the weekly fruit and veg. I knew that with it being a holiday weekend, and with snowflakes attempting to fall, that the market stalls would not turn out today. Naturally, as I left the store, I could see the usual veg man trying to erect his stall in spite of the wind fighting valiantly against him.
I then attended to the clean up and washing and all the other things that must be done on a holiday weekend when some folks are enjoying a break and I am plodding around looking for Somerfields own brand washing powder. Well it is actually a kind of purple liquid but you know what I mean.
Smugly satisfied with myself I then turned to the main project of the day, attempting to complete the reinstalling of XP that I began yesterday. All day I spent downloading, installing, scratching my head, installing, querying, and installing till the candle was near the end of its life. Naturally my work had not been completed, I still had to connect to the web and reinstall OE. Today that was accomplished, and some hours later Outlook Express finally allowed me to use it. It is one of the wonders of this computer world that instructions for a wide variety of computer hard and software come incomplete! However I had wisely kept the secret hidden away and, once I remembered this, Success was achieved.
The word success does not include sound of course. No sound whatsoever can be obtained at the moment. 'No audio device' it claims, although I do get a buzz every so often - not like that - so something makes a noise. Oh yes, and the 'floppy' still wants a disk inserted in 'A.' So that is lost also.
However I managed to make an almost uneatable soup out off a wide variety of near penicillin veg that I had lying around. That I used tonight to take away the taste of the 'Flanders Curry' that I had for lunch, with oatcakes. The dole office have never suggested I take up cooking for a living, which is just as well. I once fed beautiful young lass who worked for the environment folk at the council. She closed down my kitchen! While doing this I listened to Sky Sports as the season begins to draw to an end. My ears were anxious to hear the good news of our mighty hammering of Falkirk at Tynecastle today - it never happened. It seems instead we had a dreary nil-nil draw which does not suit us at all. There will now be a moment for sympathy.

Thank you.

An unusual thing did occur tonight mind, I laughed at 'You've been Framed!' One of the sequences had me in tears of laughter and that has not happened for a long time, tears of woe and despair oh yes, but laughter - no! Mind you some folks blogs have come close to it in recent days. Usually deliberately!

But as I looked out of the window I realised just how much I love Spring. The birdies flit cheerily through the trees, singing happily while they begin the breeding season, maybe that's why? The chaffinches and robins, dunnocks and blackbirds pour out their song brightening the dawn. One advantage when I was a postman was to hear the dawn chorus beginning as I cycled to work, marvelous that was. High overhead a kestrel may circle or hover while seeking out the tiny speck that is a mouse or vole far below. Wood pigeons coo irritatingly loudly outside folks windows long before the alarm clock has threatened them into life. Massed ranks of rooks or crows,(who knows the difference?) caw loudly high in the trees, and somewhere a thrush takes time off from listening intently for the worm and instead sings beautifully while announcing that this is his patch so clear off. Among the trees covered in budding leaves are masses of bluebells showing through the darkening floor. Daffodils can be seen in many places, and snowdrops and little blue flowers begin to appear. Lovely, just lovely. The sight cheers the heart, a lightness within accompanies the lightening of the skies above, and the sun climbing higher each day, ensuring the sky is that little bit deeper blue, and the whole world appears a better place. No wonder folk in Norway and Finland who suffer six months darkness each year go bananas! That is enough to turn anyone into a Viking invader!

Admittedly, being Easter, the weather would turn a tad chilly. There is a slightly cold front moving from the north, starting at the north pole and passing through Iceland picking up snow and ice on its way. Kind hearted as it is the front is leaving Spring snow all across the highlands and down the east coast of England. Some of it has been plastering itself against my window all afternoon! To be honest it is bright and sunny at the moment but I can see in the distance another huge dark gray cloud heading towards us. From the light blue sky above small sleet like flakes are drifting by, doing their best to grow up into snowflakes. Now in my humble opinion, if the ice flows are melting, glaciers shrinking, and the Maldives and other places beginning to flood maybe it would be a better idea to keep all this white stuff up there in the north where it belongs? Could we not persuade the weather folk to do something about this?
Clouds have always fascinated me in some ways and I can see why Constable put them in his pictures so often. I doubt he realised just how large a cloud could be. In the far distant past I flew home to Edinburgh and the whole journey was above cloud. Later that night the weather forecast showed the size of the cloud. The picture revealed one single cloud that stretched for thousands of miles from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic to the centre of Asia. What a size! Add to this the variation in the clouds, what the meteorologist will understand from them, and what they comprise, it just leaves me wondering in the same way I do when confronted by other elements of creation such as the sea, or mountains. Fascinating. Wonderful stuff, but I would really rather get sunburned somewhere in the Mediterranean!

I am however suffering that guilt that turns up every so often. The guilt caused by talking to my mother! My Mum is a wonderful person and does so well for someone who is 93. However while I want to keep in contact I really find less and less to share with her. My conversation is limited at the best of times, and she is trapped indoors too much at this time of year, and after discussing the weather, the 9 year old, what she eats, and nothing else really there is nothing to say. Women need to converse in a way men don't, and all to often this is plain boring, and add to that my life being very different for the family up north, and indeed everyone else on the planet, it is a very trying time. Until my sister died things were OK, she would call and talk for hours about nothing, and she was just around the corner, not 400 miles away! It is so frustrating, and made worse by here deafness. I am not going to spend all night shouting down a phone!
So nearly every time I call I end up full of guilt, and angry! I want to do more, and I don't want to spend time talking about her dinner for an hour-again! Excuse me, I am just off to gas myself!

Somerfields

Yesterday I went to Somerfields. I go there in the middle of the day because it is always empty. The poor quality of the goods and the cheap, off hand staff make it by far the least of the supermarkets in the town, if not the country! However it was mid morning when I turned up there. Lo and behold it was stuffed full of staff, all running around like headless chickens shelf filling! Never before have I seen so many workers in Somerfields.
The customer count was high also, with some folks doing the weekly, or is it monthly shop that morning. Imagine, buying every thing you need from this store! Jings! But here once again the true nature of the store showed through. While the chickens filled the shelves no-one bothered to serve the customers! Only two tills were opened, both staffed by unsmiling snails. Here also Somerfields absurd checkout system shows its weakness. The far too small, and clearly cheap, bags hang on rails at the end of the far too small checkout. While the goods pile up folks struggle to fill the bags and get on their way. This is excaberated by the fact that most are female, and as you know, slow at everything that requires simple logic
I headed for the cigarette kiosk where small baskets can be served. No quicker, and the glum fat sixteen year old, more intent on getting home to watch some imitation Oprah type programme, was doing her best while other staff bundled around beside her helping no-one and doing less.
Somerfields, the down market, less classy store! I wonder if they ever ask themselves why Tesco make a £billion half year profit eh?