(4.8) Weight 110.0 Not sure I fully understand this new eating regime. I’ve cut out margarine, biscuits, snacks and cheese, and increased my intake of fresh and dried fruit, nuts and seeds . . . and all I get for my trouble is weight. In mitigation I have a set of scales that will give me different readings one after another after another – so I could blame my equipment. But Robbie the llama doesn’t care about my weight, he dislikes me whatever size I am. Another strangely off start to the day, the weather was lovely but the llamas were not – they were moody, indifferent, balshy, temperamental, and antagonistic but we muddled through and no blood was spilled, for which I was extremely grateful. I discovered another goose egg this morning and, unfortunately, with the brown one being the only br0ody one, she is now sitting on eight goose eggs. Speckledy Hen does help – but I just wish the goose would help. Because the ground was damp this morning (last night’s rain had some bearing on that) I used a spare piece of plywood to kneel on while checking the chicken’s ‘undercarriage’ and, getting down onto my knees, I promptly knocked over, and inverted, an un-capped 2-litre bottle of water into my lap. Incontinence is not one of my frailties but I would have had some difficulty in explaining the soaked crotch if I had been asked about it. I’d completely exhausted my supply of bird seed yesterday and a trip to the nearest ‘Domicile Discounts’ was necessary. They have the cheapest wild-bird seed (1.7kg for only 99p) and fat balls (6 for 49p). The trouble with ‘Domicile Discounts’ is that the nearest store is in the local city. The worst part was that the sun was shining so I was forced to ride my motorbike. I tried to get out of it, what with having put the car back on the road by fixing the brakes, but it just wouldn’t let me. Reluctantly I swung a leg over and, with a heavy heart, thrutched off in a Westerly direction. At least I had dried off by the time I arrived in the metrollop what is the local city. Being in the ‘big metrollop’ meant a compulsory coffee with the signmaker and another compulsory ‘putting the world to rights’ session. My life can be hard, you know, you just have no idea. I had taken no rain-gear with me on this intrepid journey – which was just as well as I don’t have any, but it did threaten some precipitation on the way back. However, a skyward gesticulation with my throttle hand put paid to any of ‘it’s’ climatological alterational intents, and I returned to the farm in a pleasant and arid state. After an incident-free tea time, my usual poo-picking regime, and a re-stocking of the haycrib, a memory stick full of unwatched episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus got the better of me so no progress was made with the netting of the fence. I was suitably endowed with the necessary tools and accessories but humour won in the end and I’ve just watched, with great enjoyment, six episodes back-to-back. Netting will occur tomorrow. . . I promise. The Business point? I met a guy on Saturday, his leathers bejewelled with rally badges and various biker trinkets, fixated and in love with his old 350 Honda, and he related an experience he had experienced with a motorbike shop situated not a million miles over the road from the signmaker. I’ve used this particular bike shop a number of times and have always found them to be friendly and helpful; but this lad had taken the fork legs off his old Honda and needed to have a couple of Allen bolts loosened so that he could carry out an oil change. For you car-drivers, the forks are the uppy-downy things at the front of a motorbike that keep the front wheel attached to the rest of the bike. An Allen bolt is a bolt with a round head containing a recessed six-sided hole in the top, into which a six-sided ‘key’ is fitted for the undoing. In order to change the oil what is inside the hollow fork-legs, the Allen bolts need to be removed as they also act as oil-seals. So mi’lado took his legs, and those of his bike, to the ‘over the road’ bike shop (they have a workshop at the rear of the premises) and the mechanics immediately said that they were far too busy to be bothered. Mi’lado remonstrated with those coffee-swilling mechanics, pointing out that it might only take a couple of minutes to loosen the two Allen bolts (the fork legs need to be gripped in a vice to facilitate the egress of each Allen bolt but mi’lado didn’t have any vices, none that we could see anyway) but the mechanics were adamant that they had no time available for this ‘rather petty’ job which he should be able to do himself. Still mi’lado pursued his endeavour at which point the senior mechanic advised him, forcefully and in no uncertain terms, to ‘Naff Off’. With his fork legs tucked underneath his arm, mi’lado traversed the metrollop to another motorcycle boutique where their mechanic said, “I am very busy, with about ten jobs to do before closing, and I am on my own, but tell me what you want”. Minutes later the bolts were loosened; no money changed hands; mi’lado felt taken care off; and this motorcycle boutique gained a new customer. At every opportunity this bejewelled-biker will praise the motorcycle boutique for the great service they serviced him with. The over-the-road bike shop just gets ‘slagged off’ – but all the time. What do your customers think of you? The Daily Llama
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:09:18 +0000
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