There was questions about whether we would (and could) refresh it during the day, but it didn’t look like they were going to sort it out any time soon, so I said “either you sort it out by 12, or I’m going home and you can wait until Tuesday morning”, and no one seemed to object too much to that proposal.

Garden centre and farm shop on way home. Garden centre to buy planty things, and farm shop to buy foody things. Then a couple of hours in the garden putting the planty things in the soil, and cutting the lawn.

I made some soup earlier in the week. Mushroom and wild garlic. It tastes ok, but is best eaten in a darkened room as it’s a not very appetising colour – turgid green.

Strange how you get sensitised to new things. Since CGF bought her new car a couple of weeks ago, I’ve suddenly noticed several cars of the same model out and about. The same occurred when I bought my car a couple of years ago – I never even knew such a model existed before. Last Saturday I was driving into Eastleigh, and noticed the car in front of me at the traffic lights. “There’s another model like CGF’s,” I thought to myself. Then I looked a bit closer: “wait a minute – that registration number looks familiar – it IS CGF’s”.

The car dealer was very disparaging about CGF’s old car. “The rocker’s going, the clutch plate is wearing out, and road tax and insurance are too much”. I have no idea what a rocker is, and only the vaguest notion about a clutch plate. He reluctantly gave a £300 trade-in for it. A week later he had it for sale for £750. That’s capitalism for you. I wonder if he will be as forthcoming about the dodgy rocker and clutch to potential buyers. But he does have a point about the road tax and insurance.

We watched part of the London Marathon last week (On TV – we didn’t go there). The commentator suggested that Paula Radcliffe is the country’s best ever athlete. Really? What about Dayley Thompson, Steve Ovett, Seb Coe, Roger Banister? Incidentally, The Aged watched (in real life) Roger Banister’s 4-minute mile.

A bit later, we saw another athlete – Jason Button. Athlete? He’s just a driver. By that reckoning, I am doing athletics every day I drive to work.

Election coming up – in case you’ve missed it. I’ve already voted. CGG Sprog 3 thinks we should vote for any party that allows an ice cream van to come down her road.

A lot of election talk seems to be around increases in taxes and/or cuts in spending. But they are really different sides of the same coin. If a government wants to spend more, it has to tax more. If a government wants to cut taxes, it has to cut spending. And if a government wants to increase spending in one area, it has to cut it in another. Your preference depends on whether you will benefit from the spending, or lose out from the cuts. The right-wing approach is to leave us with more money, but make us pay for more services; the left-wing approach is to leave us with less money, but provide more services.