Friday. 6.20 a.m. It's another relatively mild morning on the weather front, but Storm Kathleen is on the way, with high winds expected. This, according to BBC Breakfast this morning.
7.30 a.m. I think I made a mistake. It might be mild, but there's been some rain in the night. I can see the pavements outside are wet, so that would indicate rain.
I have a load of washing in the machine. It takes an hour to do the wash, and then into the drier. Just as well we have a tumble drier, otherwise, it would be dripping clothes in the flat, on the drying rack, something I wouldn't want.
(Note: The title for this post is the title of a song from Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, 'The Mikado.' I'm trying to find quotations from various sources, which are appropriate to the content of each post. Not always successful, but I do try. The flowers are blooming all around Milton Keynes at the moment, so the choice of title is more than appropriate.)
8.45 a.m. On BBC Breakfast, they mentioned the fact that Abba won Eurovision 50 years ago this year. They had a reporter in Brighton, where the final of Eurovision was held in 1974. I was a D.S.M., working at Ipswich Theatre at the time and I had the radio on in my car and was driving home to my parent's house near Huntingdon and I heard the result of the competition on my car radio. It's just incredible to me that it was 50 years ago. I can't remember what show I was working on at the time. I do recall the first show I was involved in when I arrived, a production of 'Roots' by Arnold Wesker. I was put on sound operation. The sound deck was at the back of the auditorium, up several flights of stairs. I put together several sound effects tapes for several of the plays that were produced. At one point towards the end of the play, the central character, played by an actor called Jennie Quayle, puts on a record on a record player. I have a cue on my tape, which is supposed to come out of the record player. For some unfortunate reason, I had wound on the tape to the next cue (each cue separated by red tape, spliced into the recording tape.) The music that was supposed to come out of the record player was Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite, but, because I had wound on to the next cue, which was the sound of rain, that was what was played through the speakers on stage! I immediately ran down to the stage and apologized to Jennie Quayle, saying I had made a bit of a mistake. I think she was quite happy with my apology, but from then on, I was careful to make sure I had the correct cue lined up each time
10.40 a.m. I've been to Sainsbury's. The place seems to be falling apart. The travelator wasn't working, so I had to use the lift. It seems as if these travelators are always breaking down. There has been work going on with them for months, so it makes you wonder why they are always malfunctioning. I then went to buy some frozen veg at the far end of the store, and a whole row of freezers were empty and none of the frozen veg I had wanted anywhere to be seen.
When I came to pay, I pushed my trolley into the self-service area and then found that most of the tills weren't operating. There were a few ar the far end, and several people waiting to use them. When I eventually got to start scanning my shopping, the machine wouldn't work and the lady who is there to assist when there is a problem had to get the machine working several times. There should be far more staff to help with this problem. I think problems such as this are caused by Sainsbury's getting rid of too many staff and expecting customers to scan their own shopping instead of having manned tills. I think it is so they can cut prices and compete with other supermarkets for cheaper items. But, as a result, customer service suffers and the shelves aren't filled up when items run out.
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