Peppery hedgehogs

Peppery

Now that it’s officially winter, I am officially enjoying official wintery foods. Tonight’s tea will be copious amounts of black peas, a Lancashire delicacy that I was introduced to for the first time only last week. Trump is such a dear, she’s had the things soaking in water overnight so all we have to do is boil them up once she gets in from work.

They’re just about the weirdest peas I’ve ever had though; you cook them with bicarb so they go all mushy – a bit like mushy peas, only they taste a little like refried beans. Anyway, they have to be enjoyed with lashings of vinegar and lots of white pepper (and salt if you’re me, or not if you have any of your taste buds left).

I’ve just had a cup of hot Bovril with lots of pepper. Yes Bovril, the beef extract. I was stunned when I heard that the manufacturers were going to stop using beef products altogether. That’s just not right, what would they call it then, Vovril? Anyway, it seems that good sense has prevailed and the proper stuff is available again. My nose is dripping from the pepper, but the hot Bovril drink is something that is slightly addictive. I’d get another cup if it was a bigger jar. I think Trump only bought the smaller size to test it out.

I’m at her house now, eagerly awaiting her return from work. She knows I’m here, I’m not like a weird stalker or anything.

Car share

We’re being encouraged to car share at work. Apparently, if you car share, you get preferential parking spaces on the level of the multi-storey car park that’s immediately below that which the rest of us environmental vandals have to use. A whole level lower! It doesn’t really make that much difference when the car park is on the corner of the site that’s the furthest possible from where most people work. So you still have a ten minute walk to your office, you just have to go down fewer stairs.

Dicks.

The scheme is being advertised with colourful posters that say things like “be kind to hedgehogs, car share!” I still don’t follow the logic behind that link, especially since we’re in the centre of a big fuck off city and the nearest hedgehogs are about eight miles away.

Dicks.

I tried car sharing for a while and it’s a complete pain in the arse.

• You agree a time that you’re going to pick somebody up.
• You rush around your house like a mad thing to ensure that you don’t leave late.
• Half way to picking up your passenger, you realise you’ve forgotten something important (like tampons), but you can’t be late, so you keep going.
• You need a poo, but didn’t have time to have one so you have to trump in the car. You have to open the windows despite the gale force winds and torrential rain.
• You arrive at your passenger’s house on time.
• You expect them to be waiting on the doorstep for you. They’re not, so you have to get out of the car and knock on the door.
• They let you in the house where you wait while they finish doing their hair, packing their bag, smoking their cigarette.
• You leave ten minutes later, but not before they’ve gone back into the house to check that they shut the bathroom window.
• You hit bad traffic – traffic that wouldn’t have been there had you not made the diversion to pick up a passenger twenty minutes earlier.
• They make conversation about the bad traffic and how much better it would be if more people shared their journeys to work.
• You bite your tongue.

I don’t really like having passengers in my car, not strangers at least. I like to be able to listen to my music, sing along if I like. How can I shout and swear at other drivers if I’m trying to be polite? I need my fart space.

So, be kind to hedgehogs, stay off work with a bad back!

Talking of which.... An edit and dedication to Her Majesty the Queen

Her Majesty has had to cancel a number of public engagements over the past week due to a bad back. She has my sympathy. But I can't believe it's taken her so many decades to discover that you can get out of your job by claiming to have a bad back.

Well done, Ma'am.