Monday 23 May 2016

Easing into retirement

Today I had a day off. Tomorrow I have a day off. A little glimpse of retirement ? I had set today aside to put some lino down in the bathroom.
I have taken every Monday and Tuesday off until I retire .this leaves me with a certain lack of pressure in not having to get a job done. I looked at what needed doing and thought I will do that much today , that much tomorrow and those later .This is how I will spend my day a bit of this and a bit of that doing what I want.  Don't get me wrong I am married . I cant leave a job 'unfinished'. The bathroom is all back together the lino laid and the bathroom usable BUT there are jobs to do but I can plan them I can take my time and I can do them until they are the way I want them. .
 I went shopping for some DIY stuff. The Staff outnumbered the customers so I was able to ask questions like how come it says £3.98 on the label and £7.19 at the till? I am wary of having a go at staff unless they are obnoxious. After all they work there they don't make the stuff so I tend to be polite. However this particular store and I have a history of products that don't quite do the job . products where only their pipes , joints and connectors seem to fit their products and where the price at the till doesn't match the price on the label.I am always told that someone must have put it in the wrong place, So when a different price came up  I said That  is not what it said on the rack.
It must have been in the wrong place, replied the lady on the till .
I took her to the 'place' and demonstrated thatit had not been put back by a careless customer but was labelled wrong, I demonstrated that none of the label matched the codes and therefore the prices were incorrect or misleading.
 I got the item for £3.98 but that not the point it happens to often. I went back this afternoon nothing had been moved.
I went to a Builders Merchant  that had sealant on sale when I got to the till they wanted £6.87 . I protested as the shelf price was £4.87  and they said that is the price if you buy 3 !! But the discounted price was prominent the lower price which was the actual price was in small script.

I have some putty in the garage , there is a place for traditional products. It was a bit hard. A drop of linseed oil some very satisfying kneading and squeezing and it was all usable again. You cant do that with silicone sealant!! My uncle was a painter and decorator always smelt of his trade ,it was an indefinable but pleasant smell evocative like a new car smell, So the smell of putty or linseed oil imediatley takes me back to my childhood and Christmas when he would turn up with the sort of toy nobody else ever bought , a shooting gallery one year ,all enclosed in a clear plastic hood with pressed tin targets that spun and a gun that fired ball bearings , another year it was  clockwork tank that deposited circles of Talcum powder on the carpet every six inches when it fired the gun.


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