Some Enchanted Evening

I'd read the script, I'd got the Haribos in the Trick or Treat scary bowl that I'd bought at ASDA's or is ASDAs? I'd put the scary bug (see video)) in position to reciprocate; whether for redress or resignedly I'm not sure.

There was a slight delay while I texted Radio 5 Live to complain about them asking listeners to get in touch with them about the tricks they had played when there had been no treats. They hadn't got much response. I wrote 'Good to hear that Radio 5 Live listeners are more responsible than the presenters. If our sweets run out before 7 and somebody throws a brick through the window I'll be in touch.' I signed it as Anonymous as you never know if any Radio 4 listeners had tuned in during the pm programme.

By the time I'd written it they'd had many similar texts and became all defensive. They ought to know better than anybody that it's a politically correct world out there especially tonight with all that witch hunting going on.

Somebody must have been bussing in the Trick or Treaters. It was as if the pretend scabs I had put on my forehead had brought in flying pickets from both near and far. I had to drive to the garage to get more confectionery. These had to be bagged as unlike the originals they weren't in packets. I didn't want to spread disease and pestilence amongst the young despite the evening's evidence that like the home made jelly beans they were already well set.

I felt like an errant husband on an errand to buy garage flowers on the wife's birthday after a night on the tiles - on a serious mission of omission after an emission. (Please, it could have been worse. The Rogering Thesaurus comes out with discharge, release, outpouring, outrush, leak, excretion, secretion, ejection - the sort of words with post Weinstein hindsight that should have been describing past goings on by dicks and cheaters at Party Conferences.

The youngsters had obviously been around. One young fella on setting the bug through its routine said 'They had one of those in the Care Home' not only proving that ASDA isn't ageist but also reminding me that I'd met most of the residents the previous Saturday en route to the surgery for the Flu jab.

It was like that scene in the film Witness where a trickle of Amish became a flood though they were on their way to a barn not to a surgery and were moving rather more quickly than my generation who were hoping not to die before they get older nor fade away in a hospital corridor or in a queuing ambulance while suffering from whatever as yet unknown strain of Christmas flu is served up putting a further very well known strain on the NHS.

'You don't think people are trying to put us down do you? Just because we are still getting around.' I said to the missus. She didn't hear as her competitive nature had her sprinting past a group of ninety somethings to beat the queue. 'What did you say?' She shouted. 'Baby Boomers or not' I bellowed 'I'm off to ASDAs or is it ASDA's? to get my jab there. It may be a fiver but somebody needs to make a stand to stop this degenerational divide they want to exaggerate.'

She disappeared into the surgery. A few minutes later she came back out and said 'Can you get us a bottle of Prosecco while you're there?' 'Is that to celebrate your victory?' I posed. 'No, I think I might have a few symptoms later and I'll need to keep up my fluid intake.'

The Greenhouse Effect and April Fools

I intended to venture into the garden to get on with three jobs. The first was to carry on with planting the seed potatoes. Mine are Charlottes but she doesn't mind sharing. The second was to continue with the dead heading of the daffodils so we can have another show of daffs next year. Before you complain about the less than arduous nature of the task, it is accompanied by the planting out of the potted ones with lines of clumps of transplanted snowdrops in the green in the green (To be sung to the tune of Off [sic]To Dublin In The Green-The Dubliners). The third task of more biblical proportions would have been putting up a rescued greenhouse next to the present one(To be whistled to the theme of Twin Peaks).

Three things saved me. First and foremost (another seed potato described as cooks well, with a firm and waxy flesh when young, going slightly floury when reaching maturity, which sounds to me like Charlotte) the warning about not doing any strenuous exercise outside because of the pollution. Secondly I needed to reflect on and like Charlotte share my reactions to yesterday's April Fools. Thirdly I cannot resist responding to requests for reviews on my recent purchases through Amazon.

In reverse order then. It seems I am a reviewer of Amazon Kindle Touch Leather..., (I know it is stereotypical of me but I hate being labeled) can you help this fellow customer?
RON S. asked
"will it fit kindle d01100" . Sadly and ashamedly I don't know what a d01100 is. By the time I got around to attempt to say this, it seems that the discussion had ended anyway. Pity! It had potential, which is the sort of energy you're okay to use in these polluted times rather than moving on to the kinetic variety. If you think I'm ranting tune in to Radio 5 live at 9 on a weekday morning.

My review of the greenhouse glazing spring clips was as follows :- Zinc perhaps but more useful than Sterling or Kate, the Moss that kept most of the glass panes in place during the storms. However that Spring Clean found that some of the spring glazing clips had rusted with the sacrificial zinc having unexpectedly laid down its life after 30 years. The efficient and speedy delivery will enable me to replace them before the next high winds descend upon us like a Saharan dust storm. Luckily I haven't started yet as I need to clean the glass now as the plants in the cold greenhouse are not used to Desert conditions.

As for the overlap clips:- Simplicity itself.I love the way that the panes of glass slot into these clips. It is an art in itself. What pleasure!-like sucking the juice from the ice of a Clippo.The ones I removed from the old greenhouse were made of lead and although you that's me can bend them into position we that's you do need to think of our lead free environment so we that is we can leave room for all the other pollutants that we that is us are pumping out or is it in?

I felt a lot better after writing these reviews as I have always wanted to do something about about the declining state of the Amazon rain forest. Although I'm too modest to say it myself it bodes well for my intention to buy a wood burning stove that is self DEFRAcating.

Neither of my April Fools texts got the response I was looking for. Was I fooled by the article in The Times on how Statins can improve my love life? Whether true or not my texts said that after reading the article I had phoned up the doctor to complain that the surgery had not got back to me on my high level of naughty cholesterol and that if it wasn't for the fact it was Lent the missus would be seriously missing out. (Only joking, family).

So much for my textual relationships.Not that I would make such a phone call of course as I wouldn't want to extend the appointment queue in the 'Safe in our hands, you must be joking it's more like your hands in our safe NHS' or do anything to compromise the privacy of the Duke of Hazard when he next cuts the cuts-queues by being helicoptered to the back door of an A&E.

Posting a spoof parking ticket on a past neighbour visiting present neighbours didn't work either. She drove all the way to Wales with it on the windscreen. It was her husband who found it today so he couldn't continue the April Fool by giving her a bollocking as he doesn't want seven years of bad luck. I mean Lent is long enough.

I'm feeling bad about not going out in the garden but I might stick to my guns. We are still worried about the effects of that Radioactive cloud from Chernobyl that went over us on a sunny day in April 1986 when our less than one year old son was in the very same garden. I think we downed some potassium iodide tablets, or was it bromide? I'll check with the missus. She bought them.

That reminds me. I'd better take my vitamin C tablet with Zinc to accompany the other Russian rare earth exports that Charlotte may have picked before I go out into the rarified atmosphere that is described by the meteorologists as a rare event. Maybe I'll double dig the next rows of Charlottes. If I Keel over at least I'll have dug my own plot. Go for it. I feel in the pink. Oh by the way what do you think of the missus' new Reservoir Dogs sunglasses? (pictured) You can't say 'She should have gone to Specsavers' as that's where she got them from.