This morning on the radio I heard the following story.
A woman (let’s call her June) had called in to discuss the stupidity of her local council. This is quite relevant at the moment because councils are having to justify every penny and save squillions of pounds in order to appease the Tory austerity measures. Seeking Stupidity has, therefore, become a bit of a sporting necessity.
June was ringing to talk about how her local council had sent a letter to her house claiming she could no longer park in her driveway unless she could do it without crossing the footway (their stupid word). The reason she couldn’t cross the footway (I really, really hate this word) was because she didn’t have a dropped kerb leading to her driveway.
Before I go any further, if councils are determined to call footpaths footways, I reckon they should at least have the common decency to call roads ‘wheelways.’
One might think it only fair that June’s council should so order her to follow the same rules that the rest of the country follow however, June explained, it’s not that obvious. Her road was built when the houses were originally erected in about 1930. All the houses have driveways but none have dropped kerbs. Everyone in the street bumps up, crosses the path and parks on their own driveway.
The person on the radio talking to her commented that this was not going to be too good for the car. June chuckled and replied that the kerb was only 20mm high and she hardly felt the bump. This prompted me to pay more attention because our dropped kerb, like everyone else in our street, would be about 20mm high. It made me wonder how on earth the council was going to create a dropped kerb when, to all intents and purposes, there was already one there.
June said it was going to cost her about £1500 to make it right and the work had to be carried out by a council approved company of kerb dropping professionals.
Apart from the terrible waste of time and effort, this story shows how ridiculously bureaucratic some councils are. And it’s not like it benefits anyone except for the kerb droppers I guess.
There were no such problems at our place as Gardener Dave and Michael turned up to work some magic. The garden always looks lovely just after they leave and they didn’t have to park across our dropped kerb because all the Crazies were off out somewhere, leaving four parking spots in the street.
In the latest Puppy News…Freya is still a bit sheepish with the use of her back leg. I took them both for a walk in the park after lunch and she was noticeably limping. Mind you, there was no way she was being left at home, she just walked slower than usual and ignored Emma more.
I think her season is almost over though when we ran into Rodney he was still very interested in her. Dave dragged him away telling him that we all had to suffer some frustration in our lives.
In the evening, we were on the terrace when a few skeins of geese flew over the house. Sort of like the six Chinooks the other night only a lot nicer. So nice, in fact, that it is one of Mirinda’s favourite things in the world. That’s the geese, not the Chinooks. I managed to get a skein on video.
To be strictly accurate, the video above features a ‘wedge’ of geese. It seems that a group when not flying is a gaggle, flying but not in formation it’s a skein and in a V shape, a wedge. Mind you, it’s a pretty sloppy ‘V.’
I wonder how many other creatures have multiple collective nouns?
I don’t care what it is called I thought it looked great have not seen that since I was last over there. I loved that bit what Dave said to Rodney he is so funny. I think Councils are idiots out here or over there .