Four birds. One stone.

Wasted an hour of my life last night on the phone, but at least the house is now insured. I had thought, by filling in all the questions online, that it might have just been a formality. No. Every question had to be gone through again. And you can’t interrupt and say 'YES!' too soon. You must listen to whole question.

For several long minutes we were at cross purposes about the roof. He had not realised I was in a ground floor flat and so kept quizzing me about the % flatness of the roof. More or less than 20%? More or less than 30%?

‘How do I know? I’ve never been up there. Even when my knees worked I had no cause to go up and look’.

He repeated the question.

I made a stab at it. ‘20%?’

‘If you say your roof is less than 20% and we find out it’s more, your policy will be null and void…’

Then we both realised - me because everyone in the stair is responsible for the roof, and him because I was in a ground floor flat and wasn’t a silly old biddy in a bungalow who couldn't see if there were any flat bits on the roof.

Another beautiful, frosty, blue skied morning. A bit nippy but no wind. I decided to kill two birds with one stone. No, three birds. No - four birds.

Get a Nardini’s ice cream.
Bank a cheque.
Get a blip.
Give the knees a wee whirl.

All completed successfully.

It was glorious across the Links. Arrived at Nardini’s to find I only had £1 in my pocket. I asked if I could have £1 worth of ice cream (I have no shame), but the woman serving was confused, there was no such total on the till.

However, I did get money from the hole in the wall and go back. We had a conversation about the muzak. (Now there’s a surprise). She agreed the muzak was awful - they were 'testing' to find the best (it was the same screechy shouty pop stuff as last time we were in). She said she'd like jazz or classical. I agreed, though I did point out that peace and quiet was also an option, and that doesn't annoy anybody, and doesn't cost in licence fees and equipment.

It’s hard to take photos with an ice cream cone in one hand. And ice cream headaches seem worse in 3 degrees. I spotted a lady with a big camera taking photos of the autumn trees. Aha!

‘Are you a blipper?’ I asked as she was pointing her camera up into the tree. She nearly jumped out of her skin, but no, she wasn’t. I told her all about it and she seemed very keen. Up from London with a friend.

I chose the building photo. It’s some racket all day for the flats around the site. I like the colours. It’s major work they’re doing - building a new school. My father taught there in the 70s.

Valdek is coming to put up my pulley this avo. I’ve been lucky with the weather, being able to get all the washing dried. But you can’t beat a pulley.