Order in my life

The area around the pool is fenced in. The goose cannot walk in, it must fly, and there it was again this morning making a racket. In fact it woke Jan from her slumbers. Jan reckons that it must see the pool cover as water and head there through instinct. Our problem is not so much the mess that it leaves everywhere, that can be washed off, but if Max sees it he will scale the fence, a fence that, so far, he hasn't thought of climbing and either kill the goose, or at the very least, realise that he can get into the pool area fairly easily. If he can scale a 2.00+ metre fence then 1.65 m would be no problem. Anyway, I opened the side gate towards its house/pen and ten minutes later the goose had gone, disappeared. Hmnnnnn.

But that wasn't the end. I had to spend a couple of hours chasing it away from the house later this afternoon. If I shooed it away, it just waddled away slowly so, not to be outfoxed by a bloody goose, I decided to get Max in on the act. The bloody thing moved when it saw Max charging towards it. The only problem being that I was on the end of the lead, in slippers, being dragged through the air. Bloody goose.

***

So, we're on our way back from shopping in Sommieres when I asked Jan if there was anything she needed from Lidl. She admitted that we needed some bacon (they sell the best smoky bacon you've ever tasted) so off I went. I just love Lidl and all the aisles filled with things you didn't know you needed. My luck was in, I bought two great bargains. A band sander and a radio controlled clock. I have borrowed Bryan's band sander in the past and his Bosch machine costs 139 euros in Weldoms. Weldoms also sell a cheaper one for about 100 euros. My luck was in, Lidl's were selling this one for 40 euros. I tried to get Jan excited about my superb find but all she did was mutter something about it being really useful if I ever had something to sand down. Women just don't understand! (Maybe she really does understand? - Ed)

My next bargain was a radio controlled clock. Look, I admit that I have a thing about being able to tell the correct time. As I sit rocking slowly in the corner of a room, biting my fist, you can often hear me muttering about the need for some order in the world and demanding to know the correct time. I have a radio controlled clock by the side of the bed and it's controlled by a radio beacon. This beacon used to be near Rugby in England and even though it told me the wrong time by one hour, I was still a happy bunny. Anyway, they have recently moved the beacon up to somewhere near Scotland and, because it's much further away, my clock can't get the signal. I haven't been able to sleep at night worrying about this. The answer, however, was obvious, get a clock controlled by a local source. There it was, a clock controlled by a beam from Frankfurt in Germany, so, as long as we were within the 1500 kilometres range, I'd have some normality back in my life. It's a beaut, but it's very big, with huge letters. Suitable for a blind person I heard Jan say. It tells you everything you would ever need to know. I turned it on and waited whilst it 'found' the Frankfurt signal. And, there it was, the time, correct to a second every million years (how cool is that?), the moon phases (are they the same in Germany and France?), the day, the date and the room temperature. I still haven't figured out how they can tell the room temperature from Germany, but I'm not complaining. A great buy!