Shave The Whales

Well, not exactly whales. Dogs are mammals though. And it’s a way to get a Dilbert reference in.

Due to lockdown, Charlie’s grooming appointment has been postponed twice, and with the new date pencilled in for the end of June, it was decided to buy some dog hair clippers and do the job at home. If left until June he may well have ended up looking like an Old English sheepdog.

You will be pleased to know I had no involvement in the shaving of the dog. Everyone else in the household had a go, well, apart from the cat, which looked extremely nervous whilst the dog was being done, just in case he might have been next in line.

At the end of the day we now have a Dalmatian lookalike, and a lot of dog hair. So if you know anyone who would like a genuine springer spaniel dog hair filled pillow, then let me know. I can do you a very good price. (N.B. it’s not going cheap, it’s going woof.)

Home grooming should save us money in the long run; well that’s the theory anyway. It has to be said that the finish is a bit patchy. You’ve seen all the memes about lockdown haircuts, well; it applies to dogs as well. It may cost more in professional groomer fees to sort out the mess when lockdown ends. As it is Charlie is reluctant to go out for walks, he’s obviously seen himself in the mirror.

Now, he hasn’t been on top form, leaving deposits on the kitchen floor overnight a few days this week, and Helen has been worried about him, and how she would miss taking him out for her morning walk / run / cycle. I’m worried too, but for different reasons, mainly that I’m going to end up as the replacement on the lead and I’m going to have to go out for early morning exercise. I’m not convinced my ball / stick chasing skills are up to that. (Update, the vet says he’s fine, which is a relief as I’m not sure the lead would be big enough for my fat neck.)

The weather has been a little bit changeable. Downpours, bright sunshine with not a cloud in the sky, thunder and lightning, more bright sunshine, then clouds dark enough to see in the apocalypse, and a hailstorm of such force it set car alarms off in the street while a rainbow could be seen over Crawley town centre. And that was all during one e-mail response. Plus I’m not convinced there would a pot of gold at the base of the rainbow, being in Crawley it’s more likely to have been a crock of something. It did look like the end may have been near Atlantic House.

No idea what happened on Saturday apart from a very nice couple of hours in the afternoon, but Sunday saw the weekly shop. For a change it was a trip to Asda. What a mistake. I noticed it was moron central when queuing up. I was the only single person in the queue; everyone else was in couples or family units. They have arrows on the floor to indicate which way people should go up and down aisles. Less than half of the people managed to go the right way. And they would push / manhandle my trolley or me out of the way. Which part of social distancing don’t you understand you bunch of utter effwits. I can safely say it was the closest I’ve ever come to have a complete meltdown, and it was the first time I’ve cried whilst shopping. Only to come out to find some utter tuuat in a BMW had parked so close to the driver side of my car (well over the dividing line) that I couldn’t have got a fingernail into the car from that side. I had to clamber in from the passenger side. If I had had a baseball bat the Beemer wouldn’t have had any intact glass. I won’t be going back to Asda during lockdown, and doubt I’ll ever be going back.

To say I was less than enthused to be starting another working week was an understatement and a half. I would like to extend my bucket around sociopaths and when they organise meetings to include anyone who invites me to a meeting. Just don’t. I hate you all. There’s more than enough cr@ppy work for me to do without having meetings to add to it. It appears the only reason I get invited to meetings is because someone wants me to do something. It was so sh1te on one call I ended up with bruises on my forehead from banging my head on the table.

I need a lottery win, or at the very least another job.

Other teams at work have been putting together videos of them in lockdown, some have created and performed songs, others have motivational messages on, and so it was only a matter of time before our esteemed leader jumped on the bandwagon for us to do something similar. I would ask the question that if the other teams were filming themselves jumping off cliffs lemmings’ style, would we be copying that, but we all know the answer would be yes. Selfies or short clips of us holding a sign of what we are proud of. Not something that is easy at the moment, as it feels that it’s a negative list – getting out of bed in the morning, not going postal, not telling everyone to eff off.

To be fair, although I have poked fun at our head of several times over my ramblings of the past few weeks, but she has been very good at reaching out to make sure I’m not too far on the ragged edge.

It is only going to be a three day week though. With the Mayday Bank Holiday moved to the Friday, we have also booked the Thursday off and have a four day weekend. It looks like it will be nice weather, so we can go for a weekend break and get away for a couple of days. What? Lockdown? Apparently we can’t, unless it’s the Costa Del Lounge, which I suppose is an improvement on the Le Merde De Kitchen.