Re: Christmas Eve 2014
Posted: Wed 24 Dec, 2014 10:17 pm
Hello all, and a happy joint birthday to Oikers and Ed. Hope it's been a good one!
I've been absent today, partly because of last minute shopping - gin for MsRemarx, of course, as well as pigs in blankets, indigestion tablets and treacle for the beef joint that I scored on Bury market early this week: it's bloody massive and came in at £20. Sounds a lot, but it'll feed all of us tomorrow, with plenty left over for curries, sarnies, cottage pie, etc. The treacle, by the way, is the marinade. I'm not arguing with herself; she appears to know what she's up to.
Most of the day, however, was spent delivering Xmas cards for the Labour party. It's MsRemarx' ward, and there's a new lad - he's 19, he's still a lad - standing in May next year as Pete the extant councillor stands down (voluntarily I should add, he always said he'd just do the one term). Any road up, the guy's a bit up himself and thinks that he knows an awful lot more than he does about the ward and campaigning, and has got on everyone's tits from day one. I've decided that he needs a bit of guidance and educating, so that's what today was all about.
MsRemarx, one of her fellow councillors and OurBundle went off to some estate to deliver there whilst I waited for the boy prodigy, who arrived hungover from last night. His look out. Any road up, he mentioned an estate that he'd previously indicated that he'd started delivering on, so I said point then, where did you get up to? It's then he admits that he hadn't actually fucking started at all. It's a big estate and it's 3 full hours before it's done, and a lot of it is flats over flats, so plenty of traipsing up and down stairs. Deep joy. It's the sort of job you'd tackle with half a dozen people, but everyone's busy with family or doing their own deliveries after the atrocious weather we've had round here: we're up against an obvious deadline.
Quick break for lunch; we chatted in the car about the ward and he was so blatantly at pains to tell me how well known he is there that I realised only too well that he knows bugger all about campaigning and sod all about the bits of the ward not immediately adjacent to where he lives. And, boy, does he show it. I impressed on him how Pete, MsRemarx and Sharon - the other ward councillor - were the people he should be listening to, and I suspect that the penny is finally beginning to drop. He's still hungover at this point, and because MsRemarx, OurBundle and Sharon have had to call it a day elsewhere in the ward, we'll have to pick up their work as well. So we end up doing another big chunk of the ward - this isn't the end of the delivering - up to one of the Bolton boundaries. It's a lot of walking and swearing (by me of course) and a lot of me treating the boy prodigy to my views on a variety of subjects.
I suspect that he may well have a very different perspective now than he did at 10am this morning.
In the end, we staggered, after nearly 5 hours, towards the last close on that part of the ward, at which he decides that, after all, it's Christmas Eve and you don't want to flog yourself to death on Christmas Eve. I smile and wish him a merry Christmas, and tell him that I hope he's got a big family or a lot of mates come Spring and the leafletting season. He wants to get 4-5 out across the entire ward. We haven't even finished doing Christmas cards, and that's a single drop. I finish the round and stagger off back to the car, dropping in for a pint on the way home.
Been that sort of day.
A very Merry Christmas to everyone on FTN. To regular contributors who make it such a great and varied site, to the lurkers who've signed up but perhaps never posted - you'd be made very welcome - and to those who come here to read and may never sign up, although I'd encourage you to! To all, whatever your faith, your beliefs, your vision of the world, a very happy holiday, and I hope that it's spent with those that you value. We've got three guests tomorrow and with any luck we'll be free of visitors by 6pm.
Time for another beer, methinks.
I've been absent today, partly because of last minute shopping - gin for MsRemarx, of course, as well as pigs in blankets, indigestion tablets and treacle for the beef joint that I scored on Bury market early this week: it's bloody massive and came in at £20. Sounds a lot, but it'll feed all of us tomorrow, with plenty left over for curries, sarnies, cottage pie, etc. The treacle, by the way, is the marinade. I'm not arguing with herself; she appears to know what she's up to.
Most of the day, however, was spent delivering Xmas cards for the Labour party. It's MsRemarx' ward, and there's a new lad - he's 19, he's still a lad - standing in May next year as Pete the extant councillor stands down (voluntarily I should add, he always said he'd just do the one term). Any road up, the guy's a bit up himself and thinks that he knows an awful lot more than he does about the ward and campaigning, and has got on everyone's tits from day one. I've decided that he needs a bit of guidance and educating, so that's what today was all about.
MsRemarx, one of her fellow councillors and OurBundle went off to some estate to deliver there whilst I waited for the boy prodigy, who arrived hungover from last night. His look out. Any road up, he mentioned an estate that he'd previously indicated that he'd started delivering on, so I said point then, where did you get up to? It's then he admits that he hadn't actually fucking started at all. It's a big estate and it's 3 full hours before it's done, and a lot of it is flats over flats, so plenty of traipsing up and down stairs. Deep joy. It's the sort of job you'd tackle with half a dozen people, but everyone's busy with family or doing their own deliveries after the atrocious weather we've had round here: we're up against an obvious deadline.
Quick break for lunch; we chatted in the car about the ward and he was so blatantly at pains to tell me how well known he is there that I realised only too well that he knows bugger all about campaigning and sod all about the bits of the ward not immediately adjacent to where he lives. And, boy, does he show it. I impressed on him how Pete, MsRemarx and Sharon - the other ward councillor - were the people he should be listening to, and I suspect that the penny is finally beginning to drop. He's still hungover at this point, and because MsRemarx, OurBundle and Sharon have had to call it a day elsewhere in the ward, we'll have to pick up their work as well. So we end up doing another big chunk of the ward - this isn't the end of the delivering - up to one of the Bolton boundaries. It's a lot of walking and swearing (by me of course) and a lot of me treating the boy prodigy to my views on a variety of subjects.
I suspect that he may well have a very different perspective now than he did at 10am this morning.
In the end, we staggered, after nearly 5 hours, towards the last close on that part of the ward, at which he decides that, after all, it's Christmas Eve and you don't want to flog yourself to death on Christmas Eve. I smile and wish him a merry Christmas, and tell him that I hope he's got a big family or a lot of mates come Spring and the leafletting season. He wants to get 4-5 out across the entire ward. We haven't even finished doing Christmas cards, and that's a single drop. I finish the round and stagger off back to the car, dropping in for a pint on the way home.
Been that sort of day.
A very Merry Christmas to everyone on FTN. To regular contributors who make it such a great and varied site, to the lurkers who've signed up but perhaps never posted - you'd be made very welcome - and to those who come here to read and may never sign up, although I'd encourage you to! To all, whatever your faith, your beliefs, your vision of the world, a very happy holiday, and I hope that it's spent with those that you value. We've got three guests tomorrow and with any luck we'll be free of visitors by 6pm.
Time for another beer, methinks.