Smartshop

It was an interesting alcohol units count last week. For the first time since I was hospitalised twenty years ago I get under the Government’s latest arbitrary alcohol units limit. Only 11 units last week, thanks to no one being prepared to go out drinking with me. Mr Billy No Mates might have to advertise.

At Sainsbury’s today I grudgingly sign up to their Smartshop. I say grudgingly because by doing my own scanning I’m doing their job for them and for some unknown reason you don’t get a reduction for doing this.

I feel I’ve been forced into it because all the checkout staff now, almost without exception, treat scanning your shopping as a race. Rather than scan at a nice pace that you can keep up with they try to get you so far behind with your packing that you disappear until a pile of your own shopping. They are aided in doing this by the conveyor belt thing which stacks your shopping haphazardly to make it even more difficult to pack. They then sit there looking smug and asking you to pay when you’re clearly nowhere near being ready to pay.

To be fair to Smartshop, it goes ok and I will do it again next week.

Meanwhile L is in London but is back in time to dog run with Daughter, me and the boys. It’s almost like we have our own running club with the Lad as the run leader.

(Monday 14^th January)

Renegade Fruit Juice Habit

This morning I arrive for work at 10am, having left home two hours and twenty minutes earlier.

A car had broken down on the A52 near Derby and traffic had backed up all the way back to Bardill’s roundabout, just outside Nottingham. It had also snarled up the slip roads off the M1 and thereby the M1 itself. Quite an achievement.

It was also unnecessary. It was a tiny car which could have been pushed off the road in seconds but instead a police car had put cones round it and sat behind it with all it’s blue lights on.

L is also heading to Derby today, meeting her folks. Good luck with that one.

Shopping is again without a Nectar card. Just how long does it take to replace one?

Then I’m at the dentist where I get lectured on my general health even though the chap has no idea how my general health is. That isn't after all his job. I even get asked the age old question about how many alcohol units I consume per week and whether I am inside the new guidelines. I refuse to answer his questions and I have no idea what this has to do with my teeth.

I am also advised that if I am going to drink fruit juice in the mornings then this should not be done before brushing my teeth but I shouldn’t drink it afterwards either unless it’s through a straw. Life used to be so simple. Apparently it’s all to do with looking after the enamel on my teeth. Although he confirms that the 50 year old enamel on my teeth is fine... despite my current renegade fruit juice habits.

After that I’m relieved to get to dog training.

(Monday 25^th September)

The Fun Police

Back on the bike today and it was hard work. I’ve not got over Sunday’s evil run yet, let alone Tuesdays, but I coped.

It's dogging tonight then afterwards we have another pub to support, the Masons in Mickleover, and I meet L there. Obviously we have to go in disguise due to these new lower drinking limits being introduced, we don’t want the Fun Police finding out what we’re up to.

A blog I read (Velvet Glove, Iron Fist) has been demolishing the new guidelines and dug out some interesting old advice that in the 1960s, people were told not to drink more than a bottle of wine a day. By 1979 the advice had changed to no more than 56 units a week. This fell in 1984 to 14-21 units for women and 21-36 units for men. By the end of the 1980s it had become 14 units for women and 21 units for men. They have now fallen to 14 for both sexes. To presumably being phased out completely within the next ten years or so.

(Wednesday 13^th January)

Year-End Figures

Christmas is over and I’m back at work today. It’s a bit too cold and icy to bike, so I take the car to work. This takes a mere fifteen minutes rather than the usual one hour plus.

It’s nicely quiet at work, around half a dozen of us in but it’s well cold after being empty for four days. Even I turn my heat on.

L’s in work too, on her own. Her boss was put off joining her the moment she cough, cough, splutter, spluttered down the phone to him.

It’s so quiet at work I can take an extended lunch break to sort out my tax return. L also does her year-end figures e.g. weight, overdraft, alcohol units, books read...

My jaw hit the table at one of the numbers she quoted at me. 54 books! That’s more than one a week and more than I’ve probably read in my entire lifetime (slight exaggeration perhaps).

I swim after work, although I’m half convinced the pool won’t be open. L points out that I should have took my gym stuff, just in case but I haven’t. Unless they’ll let me workout in my speedos.

However the pool is open and it's so quiet. Even my Russian rival isn't there. If it was this quiet all the time I’d go every day. I meet L afterwards, whose been in the gym and I let her scrounge a lift home.

(Monday 29^th December)