My dear family & friends
There was a story this week on the regional morning newscast that Birmingham City Council was going to crack down on litterbugs by handing out £50 fines to anybody who transgresses the litter edicts. I think they’re being generous; you probably know my views on the issue – if I were in charge, I’d bring back whipping. As part of the insert, the news camera was sent out to follow some litter inspectors. They filmed a smoker casually tossing his burning cigarette butt aside once he was done. He was immediately accosted by the inspectors who informed him that he would be getting the £50 fine. And, you know, he had the absolute gall to declare angrily: “That’s disgusting!” (Actually he said disgoosting.) Can you credit it. He’s smoking, he’s littering, doesn’t give a fuck for anybody else, and then declares that it’s disgusting that he should be given a fine. That’s why I’d bring back birching – just for him.
In a similar vein, there have been angry letters in the local knock-and-drop newspapers about dog fouling in Victoria Park, Leamington Spa. These were followed up by declarations from the District Council that they were going to do something about it. No hint yet as to what they’re going to do. But that’s not what annoyed me. Every day you see council attendants picking up the detritus tossed aside by the park users who seem to be so annoyed by dog poo. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time watching one of these attendants one day. They’re not allowed to bend over you see, because that could hurt their back, and then the council would have to pay squillions to ensure that they live in pain-free luxury for the rest of their lives. Instead they walk around with long rubbish-picker-upper tongs, dabbing at a single cigarette butt for two whole minutes before they finally manage to capture it in the rubber pincers. Now, to me, this is the really funny bit – they have to transfer the piece of rubbish from the end of their tongs into the rubbish bag. But remember that the rubbish-picker-upper tongs are nearly half the users’ height meaning that he has to perform a gymnastic manoeuvre just to get the end of the tongs hovering around the mouth of his blue rubbish bag. All so he doesn’t have to bend over. And then you want to see how many times he misses, which means that the pantomime starts all over again.
What this is leading up to is that I received a visit from the Dog Warden while I was ironing one morning two weeks ago. The council had received a complaint that morning from someone in our road that I was allowing our dogs to foul (poo) on public and private property. This was the second complaint they’d received regarding our dogs which thus triggered the personal visit from the Dog Warden. Needless to say, I was absolutely adamant that it wasn’t my dogs. The complaint had apparently been made a short while before which narrowed the complainant to somebody who was still at home. So I went knocking on doors for the second time, just as I did after the first complaint. This eventually took me to Bill at No.1 who admitted that it was he who had made the complaint. His argument/belief was that it could only be one of my dogs because I’m the only person in the area who walks his dogs off-lead. By his definition, I must, therefore have been allowing my dogs to poo on his lawn. Moreover, my guilt was confirmed by the fact that I had ignored him when he rang our doorbell that morning – my car was in the drive, there was an open window upstairs, so I had to have been ignoring him, right? Right?
He started wavering when I offered to show him my receipt for a cappuccino from Cafe Rouge that morning which would have shown that I couldn’t possibly have been home when he was banging on our door. I had three points to make to him: 1) it was not my dogs, 2) it was probably the foxes, and 3) I would pay for any DNA test on poo he collected on condition that he would be obliged to pay me back when it was shown to be not from my dogs. Of course, I thought that was a good deal because I knew it wasn’t going to be my dogs. He was less enthusiastic because he knew it would probably cost him a lot of money and show him up to be the pratt that he is. We parted on difficult terms. It was perhaps thus very fortunate that I walked past some fox poo on the sidewalk two doors down. I spun on my heel and marched right back to his house, rang the doorbell and enquired with my most insincere smile whether he wanted to see what fox poo looked like. (It’s small, squidgy, red to black, smells terrible, and it’s often got berries in it at this time of year.) So there we stood examining fox shit, and a little voice in his mind began to tell him that he might have made a big mistake. He offered to show me the poo that he had collected that morning and which was residing in a plastic bag in his rubbish bin. You could smell it was fox poo the moment he opened the Tesco carrier bag.
Needless to say, I was fairly annoyed. I told him it was his duty to call the council back and tell them he had made a mistake. When I got home, I called the dog warden, Vicky, and told her – given that she had paid me a personal visit – that she was obliged to visit my moron neighbour and confirm that his complaint should have been laid with god rather than the council. I also impressed upon her my hope that the complaint would be expunged from the council records or, at least, have a notation added that the allegation was found to be false.
Now Bill and his wife wave wildly whenever they drive passed me while I’m walking the dogs. All I want to do is throw stones at them.
It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote and we’ve done quite a lot that’s fun and interesting. I’m not going to bore you to tears enumerating every single moment, but would rather leave you with some broad strokes of the highlights. You can see the pictures in the usual place at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.
First, about three weeks ago now, I met an old friend, Julian, in London for lunch. You may recall from a previous letter that I had tracked Julian down on the Internet with (I thought) some clever guesses. I met him outside the bank where he works in the City, and we went to lunch at Brown’s Brasserie. It’s funny how ten or twelve years can wash away in an instant. I met Julian in the army at the Castle in Cape Town, but we had both gone to King Edward’s School in Johannesburg. The friendship stuck. We watched each other’s girlfriends come and go; I went to Johannesburg for a while then came back to Cape Town; he met a young French lass, Sandra, and they moved to London a couple of months later – and that’s more or less where our contact ended until a few weeks ago. One of the main outcomes from our lunch was that Julian, Sandra and daughter Chloe would come up to Leamington Spa and stay the night with us the next weekend which they did. It was a splendid weekend and it was lovely to have them. We very much look forward to doing it again.
The next weekend (last weekend) my sister, Barbara, joined us from Portugal. I picked her up at Luton Airport on Thursday afternoon and drove most of the way home in driving summer rain. Barbara loved the rain after the dry, searing hot summer days of the Algarve. (I’ll swap you any time Barbs.)
On Friday, after walking the dogs, we took Barbara to Waterperry Gardens near Oxford, an old favourite of Barbara’s from when she lived in London. I later discovered – on Wikipedia – that the big house (with all the security) in Waterperry village belongs to the actor Rowan Atkinson. Barbara was blown away by the gardens – she said she couldn’t remember them ever having looked quite so spectacular. And they were absolutely stunning. Lucia and I had visited the gardens in late winter and we had been distinctly underwhelmed. The summer show, however, was breathtaking.
Our route, when we left in the late afternoon, took us over the M40 motorway which was supposed to lead us home – except we couldn’t help notice that the traffic had stopped and was jammed up as far as the eye could see. We scrabbled around for traffic reports on the radio and quickly decided that we would rather go into Oxford for dinner than join the Friday, accident-ridden, summer holiday traffic madness. I was about to join the main road into Oxford when I saw that it too reflected an image of Dante’s hell, so I pulled over to confer and decide what to do. It was just as well that I did. At that moment we noticed a bus doing an illegal U-turn off the dual carriage way and decided to follow it on the basis that the driver would know what he was doing. Well, he certainly did – at 60mph through cutesy villages and down narrow country lanes. Behind me a long queue of cars sat on my tail as if to say: “Don’t lose that fucking bus.” He got us into Oxford far quicker than I might otherwise have expected. Barbara wondered if the reason we couldn’t see any passengers on the bus was because they were all lying on the floor praying.
On Saturday, we went in to London to visit friends of Barbara’s and take in an exhibition at the National Gallery. On Sunday we walked the dogs up the canal to Hatton Locks and had a braai in the evening. On Monday Barbara and I woke with the sparrows to get her to Luton for her flight home. After waving her goodbye, I carried on into London (given that it’s just a few miles from Luton) to take in some more sights, sounds and culture. Here’s a tip. Stay out of London in August – it’s jammed full with tourists. So I went home. I decided to try the M1 because my satnav has always insisted that it’s the quickest way home. What my satnav doesn’t seem to take account of is that most of the people who use the M1 are horrible road hogs who just won’t get the hell out of the way. Rather use the M40 if you can – a far better class of person.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
