Charlton Heston said it!

Yes a wonderful saying rather pertinent to today's post.  It was on Michael Parkinson's chat show when he asked Charlton Heston what the secret was to his extremely long showbiz marriage.  Without hesitation Heston said "Just 3 words" he paused long enough for everyone to think of the obvious then to applause and laughter said "I - was - wrong".
So in response to protestations from a work colleague, lets call her Julie, "I - was - wrong" she did not give me the orange sausage which featured in the last post!   Who did then I have absolutely no idea!

And so begins a week off from the trials and tribulations of working at the shop.   Its raining right now and is forecasted to carry on for the next few day so it looks as if I might get a fair bit of "the book" done between the other tasks I might find along the way.

Oh "Crumbs" it a "Black Mark"

Such a rich vein of tittle tattle from work I dont know where to start!  An apology I suppose to anyone reading the blog who is not party to the idiosyncrasies of working at the local sainsbugs.

The title then first to set the scene, a shop with thousands of people coming and going and a little band of workers trying not to have murderous thoughts to the brat in isle 16 screaming its head off, to the unknown black sticky thing in the middle of isle 20 which needs removing!  

One of our "leaders" has taken it upon himself to rid the world of dirt or more to the point, "black marks on the floor", well maybe not the world but certainly the floor of the shop.  You can imagine the things that come in on customers footwear and all manner of bits and bobs that get ground into our wonderful tiled floor.  "Dave there are "black marks" in isle 12 get them cleaned up"  This is a litany that Dave the cleaner hears only too often.  He only starts at 11:00am and dreads approaching his little cleaning cart and seeing messages stuck to it from the "Leader" already directing him to the black marks in the shop!  

We, normal mortal colleagues are not spared this tirade and the "fresh" crew were on the verge of mutiny the other day after receiving instruction from the "Leader" about removing black marks from their isles.  I listened to an impassioned flabbergasted fresh "colleague" bemoaning the impossible task in front of them.  I concluded that they should affix a green abrasive pad to the bottom of one shoe and a mop type pad to the other and viola! problem solved.  I did however caution that they should not "scrub and clean" while talking to customers as this might bring on reports of an outbreak of St Vitus dance in the shop!  The reply was unprintable so onwards and upwards. 

I did notice that in the veg isles they had taken the job "seriously" and cleaned off all the "black marks" but then put those yellow signs everywhere making the isle look more akin to a giant slalom course, and did i see a bucket by the bailing machine with a sign on "Black Mark bucket" well maybe not?  

"Crumbs on the counter", is a scourge that befalls the bakery department, strange that it only seems to have developed into a scourge lately.  It seems that not long ago it would be a normal part of the activity of slicing hundreds of loaves a day that crumbs would accumulate and be cleaned away periodically .  Maybe if they collected the crumbs after each slicing and put them in  loaf tin then when it was full dropped in a bit of flour and water, viola!  a crumb loaf, we could sell thousands! I must "Tell Justin"! 

I came across a red faced bakery colleague, lets call her Julie, in the warehouse recounting how she disliked a particular manager type which the shop seems to be full of at times! lets call him Craig, she was bemoaning the fact that he only talked to her when "he wants something doing".  Now correct me if I'm being picky but isn't that the main way of communicating?  

She did however regain her composure later long enough to hand me what I thought at first was meant as an addition to my lunch! (box) Mmmmmm

The battery in the pic is purely for size comparison you understand!  Anyway it seems that Julie was handed this by a person in the shop foyer, I must confess if it had been handed to me I'm not sure what I would have said.  It turns out the person was from the "Arthritis Research Trust UK" and the "thing" is a foam rubber item which if you squeeze it with your hand will bring relief!  Mmmmmmm. 

I couldn't resist approaching both my Team Leader Molly and boss Tracy to go through the "hoary old chestnut" of "is this an Arthritis item in my pocket or am I really glad to see you".  Molly laughed Tracy mentioned having seen something like it at her Ann Summers party the previous evening, I did point out however that my sausage does not need batteries!
And finally - - - Some time ago we were banned from putting bread stacks in the isles, "because it made the store scruffy".  I now understand why this came about, the isles for the last week have been full of stacks of 4 pack tinned tomatoes, proclaiming that they are "Half Price" at £2.44!  so if they were full price that would make it £1.20 a tin, once more then £1.20 each tin!!!!! .  I even fell for it at the weekend ensuring Sally bought a couple of packs only to notice on Sunday that the Sainsbury's branded product was only £2.08 a 4 pack!!
 Drat foiled again mind you it go's to prove that with "Sainsbury's" "You can live well for less!"

   

I can bail but I cant Bonus!

And so back to work for another week.  Before I finished my last weeks toil I was trained to be able to empty the bailer, a noble cause in the pursuit of the mighty sainsbugs dollar.  The place has to be kept spotlessly clean and safe from the fire risk of course so emptying the bailer helps this along.  Alas though last week we had a miserable MCM this is where a company spy enters the shop as a customer and tests how they are treated by the "colleagues". 
One observation was that a colleague didnt move out of the way as the spy was moving along the display shelving!  If we all "moved out of the way" for customers the store would rapidly take on the look of the set of "Stricly come dancing"!  The cafe apparently scored a big fat zero! the "fresh" had cardboard on their shelves, a henous crime especially as more than half the products come encased in the stuff? This hideous oversite was seen so serious that the 2 i/c of the store gave the whole section "advice" or was it "counseling"?  A good old fashion bollicking would have been sufficient!
The place however is a buzz with the news that theres not to be any bonus for the last years work because we failed .  It must be said though we failed miserably, totally, utterly missed it by a mile, nowhere near it, not even anywhere near it. 
We in fact missed the target by .1% thats point one of a percent.  Makes you laugh really though so many people are incandescent with rage that they are not going to bother about MCM & MAC ever again!
Get real peeps! we fluffed it, missed it, failed it, didnt make the grade! if you dont like it shape up or ship out and stop F------ whining! welcome to the real world! 

15 Peaks Training begins in earnest

I had been wanting to start training at the end of Feb once we had returned from holiday but had a bit of an issue with my left knee.  Mid February I was at work and took a small step backwards and immediately had a severe pain in my left knee.  I couldn't move it for a couple of minutes because of the pain and it felt like the cartilage had moved out of alignment.
 The pain subsided a little and I was able to move my knee but for a couple of days my knee was quite tender.  The worrying legacy of this was that whenever I ascended stairs or had to raise my left leg my knee joint would make a quite audible click.  By rotating my knee to the left or right I could stop the clicking but had no idea what was going on.  Around the beginning of April the clicking stopped and last Thursday I walked around my local training walk, it’s a 6 miler with just over 200 metres of climb and everything was fine.   
Here's a pic from the route, quite steep here and the middle of the ridge straight ahead is where i'm headed 

complete walk pics at    https://picasaweb.google.com/hakuraman/15PeaksTrainingWalks?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNHi1r-0k_37cg&feat=directlink 


Sainsbury our young cat continues to bring mice into the house and I ejected number 4 this morning after catching it in the humane trap.  He (sainsbury) runs around like a lunatic whenever we are outside yesterday was no exception.  I had gone out to bring in some firewood and he was in the garden looking back at me, I bobbed up and down in and out of his view a couple of times and he raced down the garden and onto the woodshed sloping roof which was covered in frost.  He skidded to a halt just short of the edge, then shot off back into the garden.  I was emerging from the wood shed and out of the corner of my eye I saw him sliding down the frosty windsurf sale which covers the Defender, he reached the end shot off it and bounced off the bonnet of the white van which was parked in front of the Defender onto the ground.  He had a rather quizzical look on his face and probably wondered why I was laughing at him!  

Eeeeeeek! its a mouse

One of the joys of owning cats is their unerring generosity, one of ours "sainsbury" will spend a long time sat on our old neighbours (Sharons)  wall staring down into the long grass that passes for a garden.
He will then without fail dive into the grass and bring home a rodent.  Could be a shrew could be a vole normally a mouse.  The generosity bit is that he will always bring it into the house to play with it, if i'm in it invariably ends up being rescued and put back into the garden for some more sport later.
Now and again he will bring one in when we are away lose interest with it or it will escape to hide in the house, deep joy.
It was obvious that something was under the kitchen units the other day as Sainsbury sat for ages staring at or underneath the edge of the washing machine.  He has no love for this appliance since his "Wash & rinse" episode. (see blog 08/12/2011) so i concluded a rodent was in residence.
I removed the plinth edge on the bottom of the kitchen units wherupon Sainsbury crawled around underneath scratching a particular part of the false wall.  - - - - I had a "cunning plan" and laid a trap, one of the humane kinds that catches rather than kills the beast, bating it with a choice piece of irish blue cheese.  I then replaced the plinth edge to keep out Sainsbury
Sure enough this morning the trap had closed and the pesky rodent was trapped, i released it into the top of the garden warning it that the Irish blue cheese was all but consumed so, "Dont come back for more". I did think of marking it to see if it was caught later but determined it was a pointless excercise as following my shout it turned and had an "I'll be back look" in its eyes.  - - - Freaky!

I was (falsely i might add) accused of passing wind the other night while watching telly, this is normally not beyond the bounds of possibility but in this instance i protesteth like a guilty man!  On investigation later it transpired the smell was coming from either behind the book case or from underneath the floor.
Yesterday then i emptied one bookshelf unscrewed it from the wall and the other book shelf and investigated, all the time being observed by Sainsbury.  Sure enough there was a second pesky rodent curled up in the wall cavity looking like it was asleep but smelling like it had expired some days before. I had removed the skirting board to allow the bookcases to fit flush with the wall and this is where it had escaped to.  I removed the corpse and disposed of it and sealed the gap before replacing said bookshelf and books.

Ah the joy of owning a cat!

Sainsbury on the left with the silly grin Tom on the right trying to sleep

Snow Joke!

After predicting rain early yesterday due to us adopting our Summer Configuration in furniture and seating arrangements it came as no surprise that it rained almost all day from about 1145.
Last night I could here the "rain" up on the greenhouse where the webcam is from around 0330 so presumed we were getting the tail of the storm that dumped the snow up in Scotland yesterday.
Looking through the window at 0530 I could see snow lying on the kitchen roof outside the bedroom window and huge flakes travelling horizontally from the North in the wind.

Here's a pic form the top of the garden at 0800 its still snowing but quite wet.

The daffodils are taking it lying down!

Sainsbury jumps on top of the Freelander and uses the windscreen as a slide!

The light are flickering now so maybe we are heading for a power cut - - - oh deep joy

Update 0945 Sally returns from the attempt to get to work.  The road on top of the valley is blocked by an overturned lorry.  Back down here the electric is going on and off, thankfully at the moment on!

It "will" rain now!

The papers and the news programmes seem to be full of the weather.  The papers seem convinced that we are going back to the ice age with a headline in the Express not long ago "2000 will die each day from the cold",  at least 3 times every week from the TV we are treated to some prediction that its going to be very cold with the pospect of snow "anytime now".
Of course this is probably because its been the driest March since Adam was a lad and in the south of England there is already a hosepipe ban.  There's even a "drought" been declared in Yorkshire lately, plenty waters in the reservoirs but the rivers are running dry.
I do however remember looking at our webcam when we were on holiday in February and seeing it raining, with a smug grin on my face as I sipped my sundowners champers on the beach at Kurumba.  So in effect around here at least its not rained any appreciable amount for ages.
I will predict though that it will rain quite soon!!  I base this prediction on the Dakin family tradition of going from winter to summer configuration in the 2 main rooms in our cottage.  In winter we have 2 enormous leather armchairs around the log burner which is in the "front room" this is separated by nothing but a space to the "back room" which is where the dining table is, it used to be the old kitchen come dining room until we moved the kitchen into the lean to conservatory which was the back yard in the old days.
So! the dining table moves into the "front room" and the 2 armchairs move into the "back room"  into the "Summer Configuration" this then is the signal for it to rain and go cold again.  Bring on the headlines!!!!!!!