The Old Boathouse

The weather was a little more glorious first thing than it was later in the morning. It was also attended by an easterly breeze that was clearly just learning how to blow first thing because it got better at it as the day went on. The encouraging number of customers that we had seen over the weekend seemed to evaporate today, perhaps seeking shelter from the breeze in some less windy spot.

I had laid on a bit of excitement for my morning which meant the Missus covering for me. I softened the blow by promising to change the bucket on her digger up at The Farm. She had told me last night that she had problems trying to do it herself. It must have been this that had her downstairs early doors, encouraging me to head to the big metropolis with my broken false ears in hand.

News travels fast and I was much encouraged when I got to the high street, to see the other reader there, waving me on. How very thoughtful. 

On Saturday, speaking with a very pleasant lady at the optician that does ears, she had told me that I would be able to drop them off and they would take care of, hopefully, replacing them. Unfortunately, on arrival I was pointed at a not so very pleasant chap who seemed keen to justify his employment by asking all manner of impertinent questions.

He asked me to sit down because he wanted to check them. I asked was that because he did not believe me when I said that they were not working. It perhaps was not the perfect way to an ongoing happy relationship. He turned them on, pressed them to his ear, listened as they whined some feedback at him and looked at me questioningly. There, I said, they turn on but do not amplify sound once they have finished their start up routine. This is very hard to determine just by holding the unit to your ear, so I knew it was impossible to challenge my assertion. Short of calling me a liar, he had no option but to believe me.

“What caused them to stop working?” he asked as the first of twenty questions that became increasingly tedious and irritating because they were all the same. I told him that if I knew of something, I would have told him and also not done it again after the first time they stopped working. Had I got them wet? No. Had I stepped out of the shower and put them on without drying my ears first? No. Perhaps I had left them somewhere too hot, too cold, next to something electrical or maybe they were affected by the electromagnetic radiation from a passing alien space craft. Not to my knowledge.

Seeing that I was becoming slightly agitated he took a passive-aggressive approach – which I think means that instead of punching me on the nose, because his customer service course told him that was bad - he told me that he was only trying to help understand. I suggested that asking me the same question twenty times, albeit slightly differently, was not helping him understand anything. Actually listening to my answer that I gave to the first question, that I could think of nothing that might have caused the fault – other than the NHS probably chose a cheap and shoddy alternative supplier to the ones I had originally - would have been the most helpful he could have been.

I think he could see at the end things were not going to improve and told me he would send them off. I can see how this will end up, with ‘fixed’ ones that will fail again in three months and the cycle repeating itself again. In the mean while I will practise lip reading and maybe do without them altogether.

Returning quickly to the car park, quietly seething, I pondered on the reason why the much maligned council had removed the car park system of paying on exit. There were machines that could calculate how long you had been there and charge you according and a camera on the exit that opened the barrier if you paid. It is now a pay and display car park with expensive new machines and an attendant who presumably visits every now an then. 

I would like to presume that the lease had expired on the machinery, or the maintenance contract had suddenly and unexpectedly increased in price, but this is the much maligned council we are talking about. It is just as likely that someone on the car parks team got fed up with the colour of the old machines or the car park attendant’s union was giving someone high up a hard time or a holiday in the Maldives. Whatever the reason, I seem to recall parking there being a tad cheaper than it was this time around. Well, someone has to pay for the new machines.

With the extra funds, perhaps someone could give the parking space lines a bit of a repaint. Where I was parked they were completely invisible, so I parked in line with the parking spaces in the row ahead of me and guessed I was far enough back or forward. Others had decided that the spaces were slanted and parked at an angle. There was nothing, other than my memory of it, to say they were wrong, although I strongly suspect that they were dicing with a parking ticket for doing so.

While it was tempting to stay there to get my money’s worth, the Missus would have taken a dim view of my cost efficiency, so I moved on. I had to stop at Tesmorburys for fuel, so I also called in to get ABH some more dog food trays. We still buy dog food for her even though she does not eat it – or not very much of it. We put it down with some cooked chicken, beef or lamb, which she will eat, in the hope that she will have some of the dog food too. Very occasionally, that works but more often she will very carefully pick the meat out and leave the dog food. We throw away much more than she eats but oddly still persist.

My chores complete, I headed to The Farm. In the short time I have been gone from there, the flora has exploded all around. Very shortly, the lane will need a trim and in the field itself, the tractor is surrounded by big, bushy nettles. There are buttercups all over the near part of the field, and the hedges are overrun with countless and nameless wild things. Thankfully, the entrance to the tool shed is clear as was the access to where the digger was parked. 

The Missus had told me that the bucket she was using had come loose while she was using it. It seems that the split pin holding the retaining pins in place came out or was not there in the first place and the upper retaining pin had dropped out. She had tried to replace the original bucket but could not align the hole on the arm and the bucket. We had a spare split pin, but she was unable to get the lower retaining pin out, which is why I was there.

I substituted the use of a mallet that the Missus had with my lump hammer and a metal pin and by imagining a suitable target to thump hard, had the pin out in no time. To fit the slightly lower second bucket - I am sure there is a professional name for it – I had to make a minor adjustment on the digger arm. The two retaining pins slipped in without resistance – there is not much resistance when using a lump hammer – and I secured them with our split pin. 

I did not delay very long but while I was there, I had a look at the handiwork the Missus had been at for the last month or so. It all looked so much better in the sunshine that had broken through while I was there. The pea and bean frames are a wonder but are already sporting some weeds growing in them. I suspect that the Missus will have her work cut out for her keeping them at bay during the growing season. 

There is a fence all around the frames to keep the bunnies out. It has worked quite effectively for the other growing areas we have previously used and the Missus has perfected how to do the fencing after several iterations. Our correspondent from not so frozen Vermont, very far west of Camborne, tells me that she has to hoist her growing pots and suspend them in the air. Her predators are groundhogs, which while looking incredibly cute are a bit more of a challenge than our humble rabbit. I do not think that the Missus’ fences would do more than provide them with an interesting climbing frame to sharpen their appetite before they got to the beans. 

I got back to the shop not long after the Missus would usually be heading for The Farm, so my little escapade cost her no time at all. She also wasted no time at all in packing up and heading off to do another full day or diggering. Having finished the new growing area outside the greenhouse, she intended to clear the area to the rear and the west of it. Currently, that area is all overgrown and certainly at the back of the greenhouse it was important to clear it out to reduce the ingress inside. 

Back at the shop, I revelled in the arrival of the first newspapers of the year. It was not perfect as we were missing the Daily Mail, one of the biggest sellers. I reserve comment because it is possible that I left that title off my list that I sent them. I would not be able to check until later when I went back upstairs to view my ‘sent’ messages. It was a simple enough task to add them to my list and we will start getting them from tomorrow. I also added the Financial Times as I do not want to miss the product of my interview.

I had specifically asked that the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company not send any magazines. I asked that last year and they sent two boxes worth. The problem is that the ones they send are all from the previous week and therefore out of date. I have to send them back almost straight away and in the meanwhile, pay for their rental. What I prefer to do is order the specific titles using the online system the company provides. That way I get what I want, and they are current when they arrive, although many of the old weekly magazines are now bi-weekly. 

I was already on the system to add the Daily Mail and the Financial Times so I used the ‘magazines’ tab to start ordering those. I knew something was amiss when I searched for the more popular titles and the system came up with ‘not found’. After selecting several titles and not finding them, I sent off a message to the helpdesk.

It was not until later in the afternoon that I had a reply. The helpdesk not very helpfully informed me that my access to magazines had been suppressed and that I would need to send a request to the same people that I had already sent a request to, asking for newspapers and the ability to order magazines, to unsurpress me so that I could order magazines. Here we go again, I thought.

I am not sure what happened today; it was exceedingly quiet. After the busy weekend the lack of customers was more obvious. Radio Pasty had told us this morning that the day would brighten as it progressed; it did the opposite. Coming onto five o’clock, there was a big dark cloud over the bay, threatening rain. I’m not sure we actually got any but at least it would have watered the tomato plants outside. There were certainly no customers to be chased away, so it was most welcome to do what it wanted – which was brighten up toward the end of the day.

Even the beach was largely deserted. I could no longer blame the wind in the afternoon because it had gone. There were also no waves our side of the bay, so at least the surfers were as disappointed as I was. Over on Gwenver things were looking better and even on Escalls Be-ans (still not sure how to spell that), usable waves were rolling in. It made me wonder, then, why two surfers were sat at the back this side of North Rocks at the absolute flattest part of the bay. 

The Missus was later than usual coming back from The Farm. She was keen to wrong every last minute of use out of the digger rental. She intends to get up to The Farm early tomorrow to use it a bit more before it goes back. She obviously did not intend to cook but instead volunteered to drive to St Just for a Chinese meal from the take-away there. Who was I to argue. 

Due to the lateness, ABH did not get an after tea walk because after tea was too close to last knockings walk. Life is suddenly getting complicated.