I Told You So, I Knew It Would...

The picture above was taken about a month ago from the roof of this old house. Dad built a hatch here about 30 years or so ago so he could get out onto the roof from the inside to repair it instead of clambering up the outside. I spent a considerable amount of time up there revising for exams when I was a kid. It was a bit easier then as I was a beanpole, this time I was barely able to squeeze my shoulders through, hence the precarious angle of the photo from holding my arm aloft as high as I could. There isn't a gradient there at all in real life.

If you look mid-right you can see my sister's two idiot horses, Max and Oscar. I haven't ridden since I was a teenager because I've never particularly seen the attraction of it but I know the basics and I could probably do it if pushed. I love the horses though, they're wonderful beasts. We've only had Oscar here for a few years, he was a dressage champion, something you can see in his gait when he trots. He's very well mannered, usually, and he'd been stabled for much of his life before he was given to my sister, I think after his owner sold up and went travelling. He loves the wide open field although he's a bit wheezy now and isn't ridden. Max, the nearest one, with the cropped neck, is a bit special because he's very much a part of the family. He's something like 25 now (Oscar's a bit older) and was born here. His mother, a lovely old Dartmoor called Baby Lou, was grazed in these fields from about 1969. And apart from a few months when she was bought by a neighbour, this was her home until she died a few years ago aged in her late 30s. In the summer, Lou would often lay down and have a midday nap in the middle of the field so I would sometimes grab a book and prop myself up against her belly and have a read while listening to her digestive gurglings. Strangely comforting and I often dozed off only to be woken a short while later by a gigantic fart. Horses are quite bereft of manners. Very bucolic.

Not for long though. This was always going to be a short term fix and my hordes of loyal readers will already know that Sharon and I didn't actually throw everything away when we separated last year. While it's quite obvious to us both that we each have something the other one wants, we don't want to risk going through all this mullarkey again by actually living together. At least not at the moment anyway. The other day I heard that I'm being offered my own little house courtesy of our old housing association. A few bits of paper to sign and send back and it'll be all mine, hopefully in about 6 weeks, maybe even sooner. Crewe doesn't just have golden sunsets, endless beaches and world class cuisine, you know. I'm off up there tomorrow for a few days to reacquaint myself with its charms.


That's not the only bit of good news I had yesterday. I've not had much luck on the work front since I gave up the warehouse in a fit of conscience-driven principle a month ago. I've now got all my security clearances so I'm able to deliver letters in a temporary capacity for the post office in any town of my choosing. In fact, had I not been going to the dentist this morning for pointy things to be ground into the lower pre-molar nerve that's been making my life a misery these last 6 weeks, I would have been doing such in New Romney. They obviously didn't dig too far or investigate this place much in their search to uncover any nefarious past. Had they done so they would have noticed that on more than one occasion I've been very unkind to that nice Mr. Crozier, both on these pages and on the comment threads of any other blog foolish enough to hint at his business acumen with regard to post office closures. You'll be happy to know that he's still very much a totla cnut. That won't change.

And my good fortune didn't end there! Worried about my finances, this morning I logged on to my bank in order to transfer some savings. This was upsetting because this is my moving fund and I didn't want to touch it. Yet there, laying in my No 1 account since yesterday was a modestly substantial amount, just enough to honour my immediate requirements, bearing an unusual reference. Cautiously I phoned the bank: "Yes, Mr S. That's a lovely shiny tax rebate, spend it NOW before the bastards ask for it back." Done!! Things are looking up.