***Beans in hot soup P45 shocker***
The damn farmer bloke* has not silaged the prairie and the grass stays damp all day long given these cool easterly's and intermittent showers. So Beans and I have been reluctant to go for jolly walk adventures with pictures..
Meanwhile, we arrived at a cross roads at the weekend. You see, muggins took the opportunity to sadly forgo pedalling for a few days and get on with the painting and decorating of our bedroom. This I resented as the weather was great but wet and windy would not allow us to leave the window open to allow the room to breathe and for the alleviation of gloss odours.
We elected to move the mattress to the living room and slept there for 4 nights whilst we did the job.
...and this is when the truth was brought to me - like a arrow through the heart, like the Eiffel tower falling over, like being run over by a Mini Metro in Shoreditch high street.
The pattern quickly emerged: Beans would stake out the mouse/mice he brought in to play with but relinquished and who escaped into the vents surrounding the inset wood burner. This is where the cat replacement facility was deployed:
View attachment 807439
Complete with a dark chocolate digestive biscuit (portion - I ate the rest of it).
So through each night, Beans would hold a stake out and on a number of occasions, Beans would clatter around the living room chasing a suspect to which there was no captures. 3, maybe 4 times per night. Not once ever actually catching a single mouse.
Broken sleep with Beans haring around the living room was all I needed after the long hours spent pulling the remains of the hairs on my head out painting...
So I said "Look mate, you get ten out of ten on the cute scale but 1 out of 10 on the catching and dispatching mice ability, so I am going to furnish you with your p45 and you'll be down to the job centre. I mean, what are you going to put on your CV?!".
Which is the thought I left him with.
*Special bonus: opinion of farmer digression story.
I went for a pedal. TWH and a bitter easterly out. On the return, I stopped by agricultural fabrication welder bloke's pad. This is a man in his late 50's who builds silage trailers and calf/sheep weighing equipment and repairs agricultural equipment solo. A hard working individual who doesn't suffer fools gladly. Meeting him results in profanities and wtf was I doing there and I was interrupting his work and we exchange insults followed by amicable, mainly agreeable, down to earth conversations.
On one occasion, 3 burly farmers, (thick in the arm, thick in the head?) were stood there and the radio mounted on a shelf on the wall was playing Capital one bang bang bang earache. I asked where welder bloke was and they said he had 'nipped out'. So I tuned the radio in to Radio 4. A week or so later, I found myself being shouted at in the middle of a local supermarket as he said he walked back in to the tune of the Archers. Perfect. Not many, if any spandex clad individuals stop by, so I was guilty as charged. He smiled.
Back to this evening... He said he had a dairy farmer calling him at 5am relentlessly because he had an urgent repair needed yesterday to some farm equipment. After much pressure, he yielded. Farmer bloke arrived at the fabrication unit and with arrogance, obstinacy and a lack of patience pushed welder bloke... well, too far but welder bloke had him by the dangly bits. When the dust settled and welder bloke did the job, farmer bloke said that it was 'alright for you, I have to get up at 4am in all weathers to milk Coo's'. To which welder bloke in total frustration at this comment and his actions thus far starting at an ungodly hour replied, 'Yes, and you know why you have to get up at 4am? You have to get up at 4am because you have to do everything twice 'cos you're that thick'.
Which is where i'll leave it.
