Reticent

So, you have no income and the dishwasher decides to go tits up; it only happens when you're down.

I hoisted a theory at Roger on Thursday. We're all dead and this is hell. Of my wilder theories this seems to be the one that has more people nodding in quiet agreement. The only real worry is if we're just on an increasingly worse kind of hell and next time we come back we all have to live in a bucket of shit and eat whelks... Obviously some people might like whelks and one of my dogs would happily live in a bucket of shit, but each to their own and all that...

So I haven't got COPD, but I have got potentially serious airways damage due to smoking things without filter tips for 30 years. I have new medication; an exercise routine and the carrot of my lungs not being shot at all and therefore with the right treatment and not starting to smoke again I might actually improve my condition even if I can't cure it completely. I've set myself the task of walking 5km a day until I get a job and then we'll see what I'm doing and what I can do.

We're coming up to the first anniversary of the (no longer in force) hosepipe ban; I wonder if it's going to rain to celebrate the fact?

I think I need to explain something to some people, whether they read this or not; I donate money to animal charities and only when I can afford it. I do not give to any other charities and that is because a) I'm a curmudgeonly old bastard, b) we shouldn't have to have things like Children in Need if governments were to do their jobs properly (that's any government), c) we donate enough overseas aid to save the NHS, therefore we shouldn't be expected to fork out extra charity money for domestic issues when the government (this or any previous) could eradicate domestic poverty by taxing the rich and the corporations, not giving millions of pounds to Brazil (which is now one place ahead of us in the world rich list) and ensuring that we have a fair country. As horrid as it might sound, charity should begin at home.

Yesterday I thought I pulled a muscle in my back stretching. When I went to the doctor's I mentioned this and she said that I might not have pulled a muscle, I might have slightly dislocated one of my ribs from my spine!!!! Then she said this was relatively normal and it will pop back in and I'll barely notice it - probably after a good night's sleep. She might have been right.

My plan, I think I mentioned, for the last week was to get some work done in the garden. I did, but nowhere near enough and next week, as soon as it stops raining, it will be Operation Buttercup, because at least two of the main borders in my gardens have been completely overrun by those bastard yellow flowers (although not yet, obviously). We've lost so many plants through the last 12 months, most of them drowning or rotting in the saturated ground - but not the weeds; the weeds could live under water without sub-aqua gear for months.

Fuckwit might be facing a dilemma in the coming months. I think I told you about him getting the local Dids to chop the tops of the leylandii trees in his garden - a seemingly pointless exercise it seemed - well, the wife pointed out this morning that the two stunted trees are looking very yellow around the edges. Now, this would suit us perfectly if they died (we might even be able to scrounge the trunks as fire wood), but I get the impression that Fuckwit would be reluctant to spend money having them removed - he can have his car valeted once a month, but I'm thinking DLA must pay that, but I'd lay odds that he wouldn't pay for the trees to be removed because of all the extra costs that would be entailed; partly because of me.

When we got the new dogs, I had to ensure they couldn't escape the garden and one of the things I did was nail two fence panels to the leylandii, with big 6" nails and lots of them. I did it partly in the hope that it would help with the killing off of these eyesores, but that was 5 years ago now and if the trees came down, it would be his responsibility to replace any fence panels that get destroyed or ripped up as a result. I don't think that man would put his hand in his pocket if it meant that one of his neighbours would benefit from it. This is a man who, as I said, has his car valeted but when I suggested to him a few months ago that we go Dutch on replacing a couple of well-dodgy fence panels down the bottom of the garden pleaded poverty. I should have asked him how he pays for his car to be valeted, really (or if he ever passed his driving test on account of him being unable to parallel park).

I might do more later in the weekend. I might not. It could be a surprise.