(5.6) Banged their heads, together. A gentle, easy-going, lackadaisical breakfast time with every animal in its place, and hardly a duck in sight (unlike teatime when I was faced with 33 of the little blighters!). A beautifully warm summer’s day; bordering on perfect. Sold some Llama’nure© to a customer in Somerset (and that should make the cider-apples glow!) so a trip to the Post Office was necessary – by bike of course. The Riderscan mirror is becoming a fixture on my bike but its actual location is something of a conundrum. Fortunately the suckers that I fitted allow me to relocate the mirror, almost on a whim, but its where I should locate it to which is a problem. Still, why rush?! Brother arrived just as I was disappearing down the lane in the opposite direction but he had a vital role to play on my return. Both of the ferrets needed their nails/claws clipping and it is almost impossible for one person to clip them. Twenty little sharp talons on an animal that is more wriggley than a sharp-toothed Wriggley. Ferrets are fantastic contortionists, and superb biters – one must have one’s wits about oneself during an exercise such as this. It took us a while and a number of attempts but the forty nails/claws were clipped (come on, work it out!) and the ferrets were released to get on with their breakfast. My nephew wanted to take a ferret for a walk, and this was his last chance really, as brother and he are returning to Cape Town in the morning. A harness was found and off the four of us went. Not 5 metres away from my door we had the first of our two cranium calamities and it didn’t knock any more sense into either of them. Brother, who should have known better, caught the chamfered-bit of a facia board when, having leant down to retrieve the ferret from a drainage channel below the facia board, he stood up! Young nephew was laughing hysterically, much to his father’s annoyance! Then young nephew, no better than his father really, climbed up a slide the wrong way (of course) and nutted a cross-beam getting into the ‘lookout tower’ at the top of the slide! He wasn’t laughing then. Fortunately for both of them there was no blood and no lasting injuries but, without doubt, they’ll have lasting memories – and it’ll all be my fault!! I’d left the bike in the car park on my return from the Post Office but it was so warm that I made a seven-mile detour, via civilisation, to get to the barn. As it was after 6pm I purchased a single portion of chips and an ice-cold Coke – and I didn’t feel the slightest guilt. I sat on the bike, at the side of the road, and watched as the one-house-town-world passed me by – and still I felt no guilt! Hunger satisfied and thirst slated I returned to my abode, alarming the local serfs as I thundered up the high street. And here I sit, with window and door open, not a breath of air to cool my over-worked brow (it’s a hard life in the country, you know) and the sky darkening by the minute. And I have another early’ish start in the morning, to do the airport run. The Business point? Health and Safety. Danger lurks, and it will catch out the unwitting and the careless, the non-lookers and the fast-walkers, the walking-texters and the phoning-talkers. Risk assess. Walk, in an imaginary-someone’s shoes, around your business premises. Trips, slips and falls can be avoided; make your workplace a safeplace. A biker died on Saturday, having ridden into some tyre debris from a blow-out on a truck. Everyone in your business should have the responsibility to make the business safe. Don’t walk past a fallen object thinking that it someone else will pick it up. Report a loose carpet, or a frayed cable, keep filing cabinet drawers closed (and my sister could tell a tale about that), avoid wet floors (and my brother could tell a tale about that). Don’t become a statistic. The Daily Llama
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 20:35:39 +0000
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