I have had a visitor.
Social contact is an unusual event in my solitary little life. Usually the only social interactions in my day run along the lines of: What time d’you finish? and Bin Busy? followed by ‘Ow much?
I do not mind this in the least. I am perfectly happy to tootle along quietly, tripping over the dogs and not talking to anybody, indeed, interruptions can be quite irritating if I happen to be occupied with something, but today I had a Person in my house.
He was an engineer, come to organise something fibrous for British Telecom.
I do not have the first clue what it was, which would make me a perfect target for a villain seeking rascally ingress, were it not for the fact that BT have not stopped emailing and texting me about it for some weeks. The engineer, they declared, with the air of confidential friendship, would be called Kyle, and he would be happy to deal with my queries.
When Kyle turned up he was not happy to deal with anything at all, certainly not the BT line soaring in to the second floor of the house somewhere above the conservatory, nor the post at the end of the alley, which was, apparently, un-climbable without the aid of a special mechanical ladder.
I thought that was being a bit negative, actually, probably I would find it un-climbable now, but thirty years ago I am quite sure I would have given it a jolly good go, and he looked pretty hale and hearty, but he was having none of it, and sloped off outside to hang about in the alley and wait for the chap with the mechanical ladder.
In the meantime he contemplated how he was going to circumvent the conservatory, and seemed to have no ideas. In the end we thought that perhaps he could put a ladder in Mark’s garden next door, and climb up from there. He thought that might be a good idea, since whatever fibrous business he had ought also be accomplished for next door as well, because sooner or later, he said, we were all going to be fibred, and we could very conveniently share a fibrous box.
I nodded knowledgeably, and said we would go round and see Mark next door.
Mark wasn’t there, only his girlfriend, who peered curiously around the door at the unexpected visitor.
The BT engineer launched into a long explanation of the fibrousness of his intentions, which was a colossal waste of time, since I did not understand a word, and Mark’s girlfriend, whose first language is Nigerian, looked just about as blank as a human face possibly can look. In the end I interrupted and said: He wants to put his ladder up in your garden, and she smiled and nodded, and waved us along.
Whilst he was making drilling noises in the back yards I turned to my Project of the Day.
I was extremely cross about this.
This time it was not firewood about which my ire had been aroused, but the fact that the council, without a word to us, has this very morning gone along the back alley and painted a long white line across all of our parking spaces.
This means that they don’t want us to park there.
I was under the impression that we lived in a democracy, or at least in a place where consultations were supposed to happen. They jolly well should have told us, and I was not pleased. I have been parking my taxi in that space since 2007 and I have got no intention of stopping now.
I telephoned the council and said so.
The lady on the end of the phone held the telephone a little way away from her ear, and eventually agreed that usually people are consulted before such changes are made and promised that she would accelerate the problem with the greatest urgency.
This afternoon I got an email from them.
It said (and I have copied and pasted this):
Hi Sarah Ibbetson ,
We’re pleased to tell you that we have assessed your enquiry and we’ve identified the appropriate action(s).
Kind regards,
Westmorland and Furness Highways
That was it.
I am going to ignore the white line and carry on parking there anyway, and I am going to write to Nigel Farage. He is the champion of the underclasses.
Let the council do their worst.
