We didn't "do" Christmas; that was partly on account of the snow, but more because our grand-daughter, aged five, spent the whole holiday period in hospital. Somehow, jollifications didn't seem in order, and the usual tidying up didn't happen either. I've been ignoring it for months. Not putting it off, simply refusing to acknowledge that my house needs re-organizing.
Suddenly, this morning, I feel compelled to pack unwanted clothes into a bag for recycling. Also, I hear the tractor start up outside. I look through the window, and there's my husband, driving the front-loader which is pushing his very very vintage Nuffield down the yard. Only two wheels out of its four are still capable of rolling - no danger of a runaway there, then. He gets down every now and again to adjust the steering so the Nuffield turns towards the workshop doors. My God, he has finally decided it's time for some restoration!
I had better get him up into the bathroom NOW. Otherwise, though Spring may have provoked us both into re-organizing and restoring, it could be summer before he gets the shower mended.
Sue Millard - Jackdaw E Books. Horses, history and humour (not necessarily in that order) and general witterings; some vaguely literary, mostly rural. I live in Cumbria in Northern England.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
there are fairies at the bottom of my garden
I was packing up a couple of books to post to America when a pickup parked on the front layby and someone tapped at the door.
The young man on the doorstep had a photocopied map in his hand and a very large wooden gatepost in the bed of the truck. He had been sent, he said, to repair our gate on the footpath through the hayfield. Was it dry enough to drive the pickup in? I told him it was, and away he went.
By mid afternoon he'd dug a hole, sunk the gate-post, driven the hinges, righted the three fenceposts that had been lying down, tacked-up the sheep netting and hung the gate. Complete with little sign saying "Public Footpath - please close the gate." This last is redundant since the sheep have access to all the fields, but we hope that walkers will use their common sense and leave this gate, at least, as they find it.
I can't work out how replacing a fence and a gate in a gap that was originally thirty feet wide makes it easier for walkers to traverse our field, but it hasn't cost us a penny, so thank you, whoever you are, who sent the young man along. You have restored my belief in fairies.
The young man on the doorstep had a photocopied map in his hand and a very large wooden gatepost in the bed of the truck. He had been sent, he said, to repair our gate on the footpath through the hayfield. Was it dry enough to drive the pickup in? I told him it was, and away he went.
By mid afternoon he'd dug a hole, sunk the gate-post, driven the hinges, righted the three fenceposts that had been lying down, tacked-up the sheep netting and hung the gate. Complete with little sign saying "Public Footpath - please close the gate." This last is redundant since the sheep have access to all the fields, but we hope that walkers will use their common sense and leave this gate, at least, as they find it.
I can't work out how replacing a fence and a gate in a gap that was originally thirty feet wide makes it easier for walkers to traverse our field, but it hasn't cost us a penny, so thank you, whoever you are, who sent the young man along. You have restored my belief in fairies.
Wednesday - the Co-op awakes. At last.
I emailed the Co-op on 25th January, and my email was forwarded (thank you) to Penrith Co-op. However I heard nothing back from them - not even an acknowledgement.
So I sent another, concise, enumerated email to the main customer relations department on 4th February. This time I didn't hold my breath. Today (16th) Ah! A response! The gentleman who has emailed me appears to be based locally (by his telephone number). He thanks me for my email and comments which he says "just came to his mailbox" yesterday. Eleven days for an email to arrive in his inbox? Do I hear the grinding of the mills of God?
He will take up my comments "directly with the store manager" and will let me know the outcome in due course.
It's not necessarily the store manager who is responsible for the inconvenient shop furniture, though, is it? I get the impression that the ordering is done much higher up.
So I sent another, concise, enumerated email to the main customer relations department on 4th February. This time I didn't hold my breath. Today (16th) Ah! A response! The gentleman who has emailed me appears to be based locally (by his telephone number). He thanks me for my email and comments which he says "just came to his mailbox" yesterday. Eleven days for an email to arrive in his inbox? Do I hear the grinding of the mills of God?
He will take up my comments "directly with the store manager" and will let me know the outcome in due course.
It's not necessarily the store manager who is responsible for the inconvenient shop furniture, though, is it? I get the impression that the ordering is done much higher up.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Tuesday - Mud Angels
Mr T the Fell pony is a chauvinist. If there is food, he claims it. If there is danger, he graciously lets his stablemate Ruby go first. Today, on being let out, what he most wants is to roll. He chooses the wettest part of the yard and his waterproof sheet changes from navy blue to black, leaving a mud angel when he gets up. Ruby is grabbing hay from the half-barrel by the stable door. T strolls over and scowls, and she shrinks away and goes to roll on the spot he selected. Now I have two ponies wearing matching black sheets – but they have clean bodies underneath.
I’m at the computer congratulating myself on my forethought when the cat hurls herself at the handle of the back door, which opens. She stalks in and leaps onto my knee, covering me in muddy footprints. You can’t win.
I’m at the computer congratulating myself on my forethought when the cat hurls herself at the handle of the back door, which opens. She stalks in and leaps onto my knee, covering me in muddy footprints. You can’t win.
Foot in Mouth
Monday
It’s the evening of 14th February. Valentine’s day – Orton Scribblers meeting – and I am on TV in an Inside Out documentary about Foot and Mouth Diaries. Which do I look forward to most? The writers’ group of course. Sorry darling.
We are meeting at Jackie’s house so she can pop through every now and again to look after her husband. We listen to readings from each other’s work in progress – a short story, the start of a chick-lit, the opening chapter of a historical novel. We offer comments to make our fiction more convincing. Tea and biscuits help of course!
The biggest fiction of the evening turns out to be the TV programme. My husband says it introduced me, not as a retired university lecturer, or a writer, or a web designer, even a grannie (all of which I am) but as “a retired horse trainer.” NEIGH.
Knowing how the Cumbrian grapevine works, those 20 seconds of fame will take me at least a year to live down.
It’s the evening of 14th February. Valentine’s day – Orton Scribblers meeting – and I am on TV in an Inside Out documentary about Foot and Mouth Diaries. Which do I look forward to most? The writers’ group of course. Sorry darling.
We are meeting at Jackie’s house so she can pop through every now and again to look after her husband. We listen to readings from each other’s work in progress – a short story, the start of a chick-lit, the opening chapter of a historical novel. We offer comments to make our fiction more convincing. Tea and biscuits help of course!
The biggest fiction of the evening turns out to be the TV programme. My husband says it introduced me, not as a retired university lecturer, or a writer, or a web designer, even a grannie (all of which I am) but as “a retired horse trainer.” NEIGH.
Knowing how the Cumbrian grapevine works, those 20 seconds of fame will take me at least a year to live down.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Letter to the Co-op
Letter to the Co-op
Monday morning. I drive 8 miles to the Co-operative in Shap. It is the only large food shop in the triangle from Penrith to Kirkby Stephen to Kendal, apart from the delis at the motorway services (yes, delicious, but too expensive to form the basis of everyday life!)
I have my shopping list to hand. It’s cheaper that way. Although I still sometimes forget an item or two I don’t come home with impulse buys that neither of us will actually eat.
Most of what I want is on the shelves. The moisture cream bath has been on offer and its place on the shelf is empty, but that’s OK because the price label’s still there, so it will probably be back soon. More frustrating is the persistent lack of my husband’s two favourite yogurts, of the raspberry or plain Greek varieties. I’ve always been able to buy them at Shap, pace a shortage of raspberries being acceptable in the depths of winter. The Greek yogurt is a Co-op own brand, so when I take my trolley to the newly installed tills, I ask if I can have a polite request: when will it be available?
The assistant behind the till (I won’t give her a name, to spare her embarrassment when this gets to Head Office) makes a glum face.
“I’m really sorry but we get our orders sent to us from Manchester, and we don’t have a say any more in what they send us.”
Despite the fact that it’s lunchtime, there are several empty car parking spaces outside; something that was unheard-of before the revamp.The things that “they” send seem to include upmarket nibbles and chocolates, but not lunchtime sandwiches. A connection, perhaps?
I unload the goods through the rather small space allocated on the counter, and the assistant scans them and moves them across to another small space on the other side of the till, through which I struggle to put them into bags. There’s an annoying sort of shelf thing with gums and other outers, that sticks up and gets in the way of my elbow, so I pat it gently and make a comment, and get another glum face.
“I know. People catch their sleeves on it and drop things. A lady hurt herself on it the other day.”
I survey the shelf thing and offer the observation that, if I worked there, I’d be at it with a screwdriver. She sighs and says she would like to, but it’s as much as her job’s worth to try. “Everything’s cramped. If I’m working at the till you can’t even open this door behind me.” Which, being perspex, I hadn’t noticed till she mentioned it. I sense I’m not the only customer to make comments about a lack of common sense in the refurbishment.
“Haven’t they given you permission to use the island till yet?” That’s behind me, in the middle of a big empty space. All set up with conveyor belt and ready to accept trolleys.Last time I asked – New Year’s Eve – I was told they weren’t allowed to use that till unless they were really busy. Which they were. “I don’t understand why. Does the motor burn too much electricity? Don’t tell me ‘they’ bought you a till with a belt that you can’t control.”
She shakes her head. She doesn’t know why that till is out of bounds.
To be honest, I haven’t seen the staff looking happy since the shop was refurbished. The shelving is nice and the new position of the photocopier makes a lot more sense, but the huge plastic baskets, with the pullout handles and the little granny wheels, are too heavy to carry when full, and too wide to negotiate past other customers even when empty. When you get one to the till, you have to perform endless floor-to-counter lifts with the goods to be scanned, which is not much fun if you have toddlers, a bad back or dodgy hips. And if you do happen to be muscular enough to lift the full basket onto the counter, the assistant can’t reach into the bottom of it without contortion because there is no niche to accommodate it at a reasonable height.
I used to teach computing students about the processes involved in the design of business systems. “They should send someone to observe you working with this. Then they’d realise how frustrating it is for you.”
“Yes, they should.” She looks a little less demoralised. “They'd hear what the customers have to say, too.”
“I’ll put in a complaint for you if you like,” I suggest. This time she reacts as though I’ve offered her water in the desert.
“Go to the web site,” she mutters. “There’ll be somewhere you can do it online.”
So here I am starting my one-woman campaign to improve the efficiency of Shap Co-op, following its “improvement” just before Christmas.
1. Open and use the island trolley till.
2. Replace the “new” counter, its silly perspex door and its obstructive outers shelf.
3. If the big hand baskets are to stay, the counter needs a niche to accommodate them at a convenient height for both customer and assistants.
4. Please stock the foods the customers want, not the ones you think we want.
I hope this makes her day.
Monday morning. I drive 8 miles to the Co-operative in Shap. It is the only large food shop in the triangle from Penrith to Kirkby Stephen to Kendal, apart from the delis at the motorway services (yes, delicious, but too expensive to form the basis of everyday life!)
I have my shopping list to hand. It’s cheaper that way. Although I still sometimes forget an item or two I don’t come home with impulse buys that neither of us will actually eat.
Most of what I want is on the shelves. The moisture cream bath has been on offer and its place on the shelf is empty, but that’s OK because the price label’s still there, so it will probably be back soon. More frustrating is the persistent lack of my husband’s two favourite yogurts, of the raspberry or plain Greek varieties. I’ve always been able to buy them at Shap, pace a shortage of raspberries being acceptable in the depths of winter. The Greek yogurt is a Co-op own brand, so when I take my trolley to the newly installed tills, I ask if I can have a polite request: when will it be available?
The assistant behind the till (I won’t give her a name, to spare her embarrassment when this gets to Head Office) makes a glum face.
“I’m really sorry but we get our orders sent to us from Manchester, and we don’t have a say any more in what they send us.”
Despite the fact that it’s lunchtime, there are several empty car parking spaces outside; something that was unheard-of before the revamp.The things that “they” send seem to include upmarket nibbles and chocolates, but not lunchtime sandwiches. A connection, perhaps?
I unload the goods through the rather small space allocated on the counter, and the assistant scans them and moves them across to another small space on the other side of the till, through which I struggle to put them into bags. There’s an annoying sort of shelf thing with gums and other outers, that sticks up and gets in the way of my elbow, so I pat it gently and make a comment, and get another glum face.
“I know. People catch their sleeves on it and drop things. A lady hurt herself on it the other day.”
I survey the shelf thing and offer the observation that, if I worked there, I’d be at it with a screwdriver. She sighs and says she would like to, but it’s as much as her job’s worth to try. “Everything’s cramped. If I’m working at the till you can’t even open this door behind me.” Which, being perspex, I hadn’t noticed till she mentioned it. I sense I’m not the only customer to make comments about a lack of common sense in the refurbishment.
“Haven’t they given you permission to use the island till yet?” That’s behind me, in the middle of a big empty space. All set up with conveyor belt and ready to accept trolleys.Last time I asked – New Year’s Eve – I was told they weren’t allowed to use that till unless they were really busy. Which they were. “I don’t understand why. Does the motor burn too much electricity? Don’t tell me ‘they’ bought you a till with a belt that you can’t control.”
She shakes her head. She doesn’t know why that till is out of bounds.
To be honest, I haven’t seen the staff looking happy since the shop was refurbished. The shelving is nice and the new position of the photocopier makes a lot more sense, but the huge plastic baskets, with the pullout handles and the little granny wheels, are too heavy to carry when full, and too wide to negotiate past other customers even when empty. When you get one to the till, you have to perform endless floor-to-counter lifts with the goods to be scanned, which is not much fun if you have toddlers, a bad back or dodgy hips. And if you do happen to be muscular enough to lift the full basket onto the counter, the assistant can’t reach into the bottom of it without contortion because there is no niche to accommodate it at a reasonable height.
I used to teach computing students about the processes involved in the design of business systems. “They should send someone to observe you working with this. Then they’d realise how frustrating it is for you.”
“Yes, they should.” She looks a little less demoralised. “They'd hear what the customers have to say, too.”
“I’ll put in a complaint for you if you like,” I suggest. This time she reacts as though I’ve offered her water in the desert.
“Go to the web site,” she mutters. “There’ll be somewhere you can do it online.”
So here I am starting my one-woman campaign to improve the efficiency of Shap Co-op, following its “improvement” just before Christmas.
1. Open and use the island trolley till.
2. Replace the “new” counter, its silly perspex door and its obstructive outers shelf.
3. If the big hand baskets are to stay, the counter needs a niche to accommodate them at a convenient height for both customer and assistants.
4. Please stock the foods the customers want, not the ones you think we want.
I hope this makes her day.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Are opinions libel?
Interesting problem. If a blogger publishes a critical opinion, having described accurately something that has happened, is s/he libelling anyone? I seriously doubt it. The defence against libel is that the facts are true.
Why then should someone ask for a blog to be "scrubbed" of recognisable names or further posts not published until they've been scrutinised and approved by that someone? Someone, I might add, who is not the blogger's employer?
I'm not the blogger involved, incidentally. The blog is probably just going to change to a private status.
But it does make me wonder.
Why then should someone ask for a blog to be "scrubbed" of recognisable names or further posts not published until they've been scrutinised and approved by that someone? Someone, I might add, who is not the blogger's employer?
I'm not the blogger involved, incidentally. The blog is probably just going to change to a private status.
But it does make me wonder.
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