Uncharitable

I’ve taken my last tablets! I’m very relieved, not least because it’s a chore to take that many pills at different times of the day, but also because my wee smells of chemicals.

This is the last day off before I return to work (there’s the weekend, but obviously that doesn’t count). It’s going to be strange. I feel I’ve been away for much longer than I have (just less than two weeks) and a project I’m working on has now missed the deadline. Part of me actually doesn’t care. What I do is important but it’s not crucial, and more importantly it’s not what I want to do. It’s going to be really difficult next week getting back on schedule, not because there isn’t a way, it’s just the will that I’m struggling with...

Yesterday I went to the post office and got my hair cut. Although it did wear me out and I spent most of the rest of the day sleeping! The nice thing about all this resting and being in bed, is I’ve got to watch some of my favourite comedies on the laptop for the umpteenth time – Wild West, Jam and Jerusalem, Black Books, Smack the Pony... unfortunately it’s also made me prey to the door-to-door people. The day before last I was up and down like a bride’s nightie. I had someone from the RSPCA (or rather, collecting on their behalf) ring my doorbell on two separate occasions before I had to tell them, rather firmly, to go away. There must be evidence that door collections and chugging (charity mugging on the street) works. There must be. Otherwise why do it? Except that I, and everyone I know, hates it. I would no more sign up for a charity DD on my doorstep than I would on my way to M&S to buy a chicken sandwich. And if you do acknowledge the chuggers and say no thank you, they take it that as eye contact has been made they can now follow you up the street haranguing you about clean bloody water. No, that’s stalking and we have laws.

All of the charities I give to mean something to me. I went to their website and set up a monthly DD and that was it. It took a few minutes and it most certainly did not involve street entertainers or people coming to my home. And the people that employ these out of work actors to hang around the streets with a clipboard tell them that they are making a difference. They’re not. They’re making us all very resentful that we can’t walk from one end of the street to the other without some numpty trying to make us feel guilty in some way.

The woman who was collecting for the RSPCA and who rang twice, on the 2nd occasion said; I just wanted to know which doorbell was for upstairs? Well, seeing as you rang the left hand doorbell and I opened the first time, and then you rang the left hand doorbell and I answered a second time, I’m guessing it’s the other doorbell. You fool!

Not that you should judge the RSPCA by her, they are a very good charity!

Gas meters are another one. I told the last one he couldn’t take our meter reading and he asked why. And so I pointed out that the last time one of his gas meter reading kind had read the meter, they had taken down the numbers wrong and it had caused months of hassle trying to get the correct reading registered. If you're only job is to write down a few numbers...

And no, illness hasn't 'softened' me. I'm as much of a curmudgeon as I was before!