Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[Hawkmumbler]

Got COVID.


Uuurrggghhh. I'm glad I'm vaccinated up because if this is what it feels like with a readied immune system I dread how insufferable it would have been without.
My dietary palette shall be of a liquid persuasion for the time being, I fear.

Wish you'd mentioned that before I got in a lift with you today!

I know that was my bad mate, I didn't even want to come into the office today but power was cut to the flat for maintenance and planning refused to grant me a sick day, word of a disciplinary.
Just another thing to hack me off today, I got complacent there and that was my mistake. :/

[The Legendary Shark]

I eat a clove of garlic every morning (yet another reason why I have no friends...) and the last really debilitating shivery-cold-sweaty-achy-dizzy-"please-God-let-me-die" 'flu I had was in early February 2019 (and before that in my pre-teens). Since then, I've just had a handful of minor sniffles - apart from the problems with the arteries in my legs, of course, and knocking lumps off myself with various tools and species of flora. Maybe the garlic is helping and maybe it isn't but I'll keep on with it anyway even if it is just the placebo effect.

My best wishes to everyone who's suffering, I hope you shake it off soon and forever.

[Hawkmumbler]

Tested negative two days on the trot, phew, must have had a weak strain on the virus.

What a relief.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

My plan for Sunday was to keg/bottle a batch of pilsner. Turns out I forgot to pitch the yeast. So I spent my Sunday disposing of a manky mouldy mess.

With no pint at the end.

[Dandontdare]

With no pint at the end.

the bleakest ending to any anecdote

[JayzusB.Christ]

My plan for Sunday was to keg/bottle a batch of pilsner. Turns out I forgot to pitch the yeast. So I spent my Sunday disposing of a manky mouldy mess.

With no pint at the end.

Aw, man.  Reminds me of when my sister's partner was planning to start a craft beer business and took a few bottles to my folks' house for market research - half of them erupted like vesuvius when opened and ended up all over the carpet. He never went into the craft beer business.

[Hawkmumbler]

Been trying to mount a TV in the living room of the flat for about a week now. Established where two wall studs where located either side of a trio of outlets (four times three pin, ethernet etc), confirmed cables did not run up the studs and said studs where in fact concrete (external wall) courtesy of the property developer. Even got a few t-bolt wall anchors to help carry the distribution across the rest of the frame.
Started drilling...NOT CONCRETE STUDS! Steel ones instead! I wont trust hanging solelely on dry wall anchors so that was a huge waste of my time and money. Fortunately nothing a bit of wall filler and a roll of white paint wont set straight but properly soured my mood nonetheless.

[The Legendary Shark]

Been trying to mount a TV in the living room ...

Maybe buy it dinner first...?

[Proudhuff]

Been trying to mount a TV in the living room ...

Maybe buy it dinner first...?

   

[Hawkmumbler]

Been trying to mount a TV in the living room ...

Maybe buy it dinner first...?

[Proudhuff]

Been trying to mount a TV in the living room ...

Maybe buy it dinner first...?

You say that like its a bad thing....

[The Legendary Shark]

Volunteers often come to help out on the campsite, dozens, maybe scores in the eight years I've been indentured here. Their reasons are various but usually it's to satisfy some species of visa or to holiday-work around the country. I don't remember most of them but a few stand out. Valeria from Argentina, who blagged my copy of 1984; Aurelian from France, who had two bedrooms at home, one for his bed and one for his comics; Frank from England, who stole my tub of tea candles. A few nameless volunteers also stand out; the Buddhists from Italy who left after a week because using spades and trowels was dangerous for worms, the couple from Switzerland who left after a few days because the husband was too long to fit in the caravan's bed, and the young girl from Germany who left screaming within an hour after encountering a British spider. The majority of them have been interesting, friendly and honest with very few bad apples. It's fun to meet them and, as they generally stay for just a few weeks, the volunteers aren't here long enough to get on anybody's nerves.

Three months ago, Dug* from the Isle of Man** arrived. He's fairly short, has a massive but neatly trimmed black beard, insists on wearing a shapeless woolly hat that make him look like a gnome, and thinks Bitcoin is going to make him rich. We should have known there was going to be trouble when he spent the first three weeks locked inside his caravan virtually 24/7 because of an alleged leaky window seal. Dug had to, he said, maintain constant vigilance in case the molecules of rainwater he showed us submerged the caravan's electrical systems and sizzled him to death in his sleep. He went through uncounted kitchen rolls and it took a full three coats of Heavy Duty Industrial Oil Rig Strength Waterproofing Compound before he was satisfied and finally got to work. And, boy, did he get to work.

His job was to cut back a hedge from the fences in the top field. Just a couple of feet, we told him, just enough to make room for renewing the fences. Armed with a handsaw and a pair of secateurs, he went wild. He cut back the hedges and trees so much it looked like the place had been bombed. He also picked up every branch and twig, piling them into heaps all over the place. And instead of piling the cut wood onto bonfires as he'd been instructed to do, Dug threw about half of it into the main ditch on the other side of the fence. When I pointed out the error of his ways he grumbled a bit but didn't argue with me.

And then the next day he carried on doing exactly the same thing. I asked him why he was throwing branches into the ditch and his reply was - no word of a lie - that the bits he was sawing off were too heavy to put over the fence. I made the obvious suggestion to saw off smaller bits and he went ballistic, storming off to his caravan to begin a two day vigil for drips. Then he stopped sulking and went back to work, doing exactly the same thing again only this time with the added bonus of tearing down a section of barbed wire because it was getting in his way. One would have thought that removing the fence would at least afford Dug the opportunity to pile his cut branches in the proper place but no, into the ditch they continued to go. It took Igor*, my fellow slave, and me nearly a week to tidy up after Dug and fix the fence. Dug didn't want to help us pull his lumber out of the deep main ditch due to health and safety concerns.

Now, for some unfathomable reason, the Boss has set Dug to clearing the fences around the campsite and he's just doing the same thing all over again. He's like the cartoon Tasmanian Devil leaving a trail of naked trees and devastation in his wake. I pleaded with him to do the job as he'd been asked to do it and he stormed off again, shouting that I had no right to talk to him like that. He didn't sulk for long this time but over the next few days brought every branch, twig, bramble and weed away from the no-man's-land between the wire fence and the drainage ditches. With these things, which he was instructed to either leave or put on the bonfire, Dug has filled every ton bag and wheelie-bin we possess. Now, running out of space, he's filled every empty coal sack and stuffed the woodshed with damp, rotten, oversized and pest-encrusted lumps of tree and thorny bush. I can't get at the wood in the woodshed for wood. And the bin men aren't coming for another six days.

I asked him why he hadn't put all this crap on the bonfire and he said it was because the bonfire was in a very muddy field he didn't like the look of. Prompted to elucidate, he mumbled something about health and safety and then conjured up another storm to sail off in when I tried to explain that all this unnecessary detritus would have to be moved. Honestly, it's like talking to a quivering hand-grenade.

Anyway, Dug's getting on my nerves and I just wanted to vent a bit.



TL;DR - Some people get on my wick.


*Not his real name.
**Not his real home.

[JohnW]

I just wanted to vent a bit.

Well vented, sir.

[Jim_Campbell]

Anyway, Dug's getting on my nerves and I just wanted to vent a bit.

Somewhere around paragraph three, I would have killed him and fed his body into a wood-chipper. Or perhaps skipped the unnecessary effort of killing him and gone straight to the wood chipper. Congratulations on your admirable restraint!

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

When I worked in the bars I knew a Dug. But to be fair he was only 19.

To this day, whenever I meet him out'n'about, he thanks me for teaching him how to read an analogue clock.