My Thermostat Is Broke!

Now, before Bernard reads any further ... It's nowt to do with the gas boiler. In fact, this post is entirely for 'wimmin'.

Now, we all know I received lots of lovely booze and choccies for Christmas. The grumpy old man is still munching his way steadily through the chocolates, and I've made a bit of a dint in the alcohol. But, alas!! Not nearly as big a dint as there should be by now.

I appear to be unable to drink at this specific moment in my life and this has to be the worst symptom of perimenopause - for me - yet. We have already covered most of the symptoms before in my blog [memory not gone yet]. Oh heck I've just looked at the date I wrote that post ... HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO LAST?

Is it not bad enough that I'm sat shivering and muffled up to the eyebrows one minute, then stripping off and throwing caution to the wind - and a 'don't even think about it' glare at my GOM; watching with a twinkle in his eye - the next?

Then there's the mood swings, I spend two days bawling and blowing my nose into a snot-stiffened tissue every time an advert comes on the telly for poorly donkeys and starving babies. So I turn the telly off and listen to music - while I work - to take my mind off all the depressing things in the world. Only then I find that I've gone into reminiscing mode and start blubbing over every dead dog, cat, budgie, pigeon, hedgehog, rat, mouse, fish et al I've been in contact with.

Of course straight after this episode I popped over to Bernard's lovely blog which was happily on about parrots and parakeets ... then I got to the comments. That set me off again, I pictured this poor little bird sat by the side of the road hour after hour - oh bugger, I'm off again, where's me hanky? - waiting for its lifelong mate to get up after it's been flattened.

The following day I was in a vile mood, I told a scrap man to p**s off just for daring to knock on the door - and he was ever so nice - he told me to have a nice day, that just made me want to throw something - non-metallic - at him.

And now, back to my 'drink problem' or 'lack of drink problem'. I just can't do it. One little dropsicule and I end up in a major sweat with a dreadful headache, which no amount of pain killers will shift. I even had to go back to bed on Tuesday after only one hour's work.

I'm not about to give in though. I've finished all this week's work ... so tonight - after total abstinence since Monday - I'm going to let my hair down, have a drink or two and no doubt take all my clothes off ...

See Hear

I was just finishing my usual morning routine - this is before I get up - of reading stuff on the Android jobby. I catch up with tweets on twitter, the latest info on Facebook - I still don't like the openness of Facebook, it gives me the jitters, however it can be a useful tool. Then I read the news for Derbys, Notts, Lincs before finally arriving at the 'most read' news items at Aunty Beeb.

By now, it's very nearly time to get up. The bikkie crumbs have been wafted onto the floor and the coffee has been slurped. Yawn, s-t-r-e-t-c-h ... What is that noise now? I leant out of bed as far as the cat allowed without glaring at me. Nope, I can't see owt.

Dedicated nosiness required that I get up, sigh. Thus, not only was treated to a slitty eyed glare, but there was a distinct movement of paw with claws as I went past madam ... in her futile attempt to keep me in bed.

One of these days we're having words about this morning moodiness and day long idleness. She got picked up and unceremoniously chucked out last week because she belted me around the chops - no claws - for daring to get close while she sunbathed snoozily on the windowsill.

Heck, I haven't a clue what I'm writing about ... it's gone, lemme see ... ooh arr, I remember:

The noise that was assailing my early morning - okay mid morning, have it your way - senses was a zuzzzzing sound, so either grinding or cutting, and was coming - presumably - from one of the Asda units.

I asked my grumpy old man if he could hear it ... 'No.' was the expected reply - I don't really know why I bothered asking him - 'Well, stand over here and open the window' ... he obeyed ... 'Nope, nothing'.

We exchanged further pleasantries along the lines of ... 'Yer deaf owd t**t.' and ... 'Less of the old' ... before I lost interest and started pairing socks up that had finished airing overnight. Grumpy was still standing by the window listening really, really hard. Then he crossed the bedroom, put his glasses on and went back to listening.

'I still can't hear anything.' he declared ... Hmmm, well maybe if he put his hearing aid in, he'd be able to see what I'm doing and pair his own socks up ...

A Langley Mill Eyesore

Oops, I've just twittered about this - and been retweeted, thanks Sarah - and then realised that I'd not yet published my blog post on the subject, and ahem, this was written on January 9th. It didn't get published then because I wanted a photo of the eyesore. grumpy went and took one or two but the camera focused on a lamppost that was in the way. I then got sidetracked  by other stuff - as you do - so now I've whizzed across Asda's car park and taken a few snaps myself.

We've just passed one of Langley Mill's most grotty eyesores, namely a car-wash. It sits on The Railway Tavern car park at 188 Station Road. It's ugly, shabby, and as far as I can tell ... illegal.

They did apply for - AVA/2009/0538 - and receive, a TEMPORARY 2 year consent for this pile of green, yellow and blue garbage - aka a portacabin and portaloo - to sit on the car-park, but the permission for it ran out in June 2011.

I quote: 'This permission is valid for a limited period only, expiring on 30 June 2011. On or before that date the use hereby approved will cease, the building(s) approved shall be removed from the site and the site shall be restored to its former condition, unless a further application has been submitted to and approved by the Local Planning Authority'.

I can't find any more applications regards this site, so why are they still making Langley Mill look even shabbier than it needs to be. I'm not saying they do a bad job, on the contrary, they probably do a very good job and they must work hard as they always seem to be busy. But the very nature of their temporary permission has created an unnecessary long term eyesore.

Rant over for the day ...

Bad Manners Maketh The Post Office

A visit was made to our local post office the other morning, you know the one I mean - next door but two to Asda. The place was absolutely thronged with ... one customer, aka my grumpy old man.

He'd gone to renew his road tax. He shoved his envelope containing all the necessaries through to the nasty b***rd that works there, and he shoved it back saying 'you're not disabled are you?' ... This didn't bother grumpy in the least - he just took out the contents and passed them through individually. Because unlike the rest of us - with slightly thinner skins who'd rather go 2 miles out of our way for the services a post office has to offer - grumpy just ignores him, declaring that he's the same with everyone.

He went on stoically to exchange pleasantries while he was being served - as this is the kind of person he is - but clearly this type of behaviour is frowned upon in this particular establishment, Grumpy remarked that it was cold in there (zero heating for customers) and you couldn't hang around. Mr post office replied 'well we don't want you to hang around.'

Definitely time for this grumpy post office person to bog off into retirement so the place can get some custom back. Other post offices in the area are aware of this, ahem, gentleman's deplorable customer service methods, and are quite pleased that we all go further afield.

Langley mill post office was for sale last year, with the price being dropped at least twice. All seems to have gone quiet on that front which is a damn shame, because we could really do with someone who wants to do the job - maybe even with a smile ...

Update 9th February 2012:
The post office is still for sale ... now at a much reduced price of £175,000 ... will someone please buy it!

Cromford Road Car Park

Before I get onto my next proper grumpy whinge, I just thought I'd mention that it looks like Cromford Road car park is for sale. Or something? ...