Spring has ARRIVED - there's no doubt! And even here in East Hampshire there are, like, a billion, "harbingers" of spring. More than a billion, probably - they're almost legion, according to the local Onion News!
But you don't need Yours Truly to tell you that, do you, especially if you're addicted to ordering things off the Internet (!) - no names, no packdrill - and yes I'm talking SHORTS !!!!!
And you must have noticed all the sales in the shops too, I'm guessing! They're becoming so "legion", that at least one East Hampshire resident was surprised to see an unexpected omission, which came as a shock, but in a nice way, to put it mildly (!).
Surely, this is a good example of private enterprise at its best, here in local East Hampshire? Some go-getting carpet supermarket manager seeing a "gap in the market" and going for it hell for leather? And more power to his elbow - let's just hope his CEO doesn't "carpet" him for it (no pun intended!!!!)
[Why did you say it then! - Ed].
And here, in semi-rural Liphook, Hampshire, for me and my medium-to-long suffering wife Lois, signs of spring are all around us, and there's an unexpected extra sign today, which makes our juices start to rise, which is nice!
Yes, I think you've guessed already, haven't you? I don't need to tell you, I'm sure! Quite right, the spare freezer in our garage suddenly switched itself on today with a joyful brrrrmmmmmmmmmmmm, or something similar !!!! Recall that we had to call out the Curry's repair guy in January when we first moved into our new home here in Liphook, and found that the warning light was flashing on our spare freezer, that we had stashed away in the garage.
The repair guy concluded that it was "too cold in this garage for the freezer to switch itself on", and said something like "Don't worry Colin - come March, it'll just "spring" into life, no pun intended!"
East Hampshire today - and spring is just "busting out all over", which is nice!
This promise of spring and renewal, came as an enormous relief to Lois and me, because we feared that our much-loved but ancient Hotpoint was "just a bit clapped out", to use the technical expression. A little like us, in other words (1)
This was rewarding, because we had had a lot of trouble persuading the Curry's guy to come in the first place. Recall this ominous exchange of texts, do you? [Of course not! - Ed]
I think there was even a joke about this kind of a malarkey at last year's Freezer Engineer's Convention, wasn't there? The stand-up comic was saying "I got called out to fix a freezer this week. I won't say it was an old one, but there were only 9 digits on the bar-code!" (laughter).
I think the gag was featured in the BBC's annual selection of "Highlights from this year's Freezer Engineer's Convention", but the programme was on fairly late at night, due to the "off-colour" nature of some of the jokes, some of which reportedly got a pretty "cool" reception (no pun intended!!!).
[That's enough unintentional puns! - Ed]
this year's National Freezer Engineers Convention
where reportedly some of the jokes received a "cool" reception (!)
11:00 And today for Lois for me, the signs of spring just keep coming, which is nice. We've only been in this house in Liphook since January 3rd. Fortnightly on a Wednesday is when the council guys cruise the neighbourhood emptying the brown garden-waste wheelie-bins. Today is the first Wednesday that Lois and I have had a full brown bin of garden waste, thanks to my giving our lawn its "first cut" this week with our shiny new lawnmower.
This morning I put the brown garden-waste bin out on the kerb as an experiment, to see if the council guys call by and empty it or not - I don't know whether I should have paid the county council a "brown-bin supplement", so this is like a test. I'm hoping the previous owner of our house has already paid for the brown wheelie-bin service for 2025, and so it proves, when the council guys stop by and empty it, around 11 am, which is a relief.
And when Lois and I go on our daily walk this morning over old man Lowsley's Farm, we take the trouble to lift up some of the plastic tree-tubes round the new saplings, just to check that the 'Taylor Wimpey Builders' guys have remembered to put saplings inside them (!). Duhhhhhh!!!!!
Spring is in the air, here in East Hampshire, I can now exclusively reveal today:
(left) I put our brown garden-waste wheelie-bin out on the kerb hoping that the
previous owner of our house has paid for the county council's collection service
and (right) Lois and me walking over Old Man Lowsley's Farm, where
we check some of the tree tubes to see if Taylor-Wimpey guys have remembered
to put saplings inside them (!) - duhhhhh!!!!
By the way, if you've got time today, why not check out my popular internet "Colin the Countryman" "influencer" column, where I emphasise this spring, for the umpteenth time (!), that planting a plastic tree-tube won't, of itself, produce a tree - you have to have a sapling in it, for heaven's sake!
my "tree-quation": i.e. tree-tube (left) plus sapling equals tree:
copyright Colin the Countryman, incidentally (!)
And it's not exactly rocket science anyway, is it!
See my column (passim!) for further details. Incidentally, the "Colin the Countryman" (registered trade mark) website address is available on request - postcards only please!
Pretty much, yes. Well we have been diagnosed as "clinically old", so fair enough, we say!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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