The joys of shopping.

All the snow gone. A bright start to the day. Back from the bakers to find the heating fuel delivery man  on his hands and knees on the lawn filling up the tank under the rose garden. '' Bonjour M'Ongoose. I reckon you'll only need 2,000 litres . Should see you through the summer ". He then climbs into the cab, taps something into the computer, hands me a printout and then , with a wave and a whistle , heads off down the drive. The heating fuel man is one of those people who seems to be permanently happy.

Happy is not a word you would use to describe the staff at 'Mr. Do It Yourself ', the large nationwide hardware chain. 'Mr. Do It Yourselfs ' employees clearly believe in letting the customer do it all themselves.  I ask a shaven headed young man in a maroon boiler suit where the fencing section might . He looks up briefly , then points ;  '' It's the third aisle down there on the left  if you'd bother to look ". 

Seventeen people in the check out queue. Angus naively suggests to the three young ladies behind the welcome desk that it might be a good idea to open a second till. Amid much pouting he is very firmly told that it's none of his business. He then has to stand in line all the while receiving angry glances from the three irrate young women. The occasional snippet of '' Who does he think he is ? " or  '' Some people are just so rude ". Could have been worse. They might have said ' What else can you expect from a foreigner ? '. Being on the welcome desk must be several pay grades above being on the check out till. 

Despite the best efforts of the wonderful people at ' Mr. Do It Yourself ' we now have enough chicken wire to stop Bob from throwing himself off the terrrace and Sophie from spiraling over the bannisters. Sophie also has a new bed in a rather startling pink.