Although I’m part of the human race – a declaration my son does occasionally doubt – I often find myself people watching in a rather detached manner. Wednesday, my son had to attend a ‘module choice’ talk in readiness for year 3, the final year of his degree. He was only going to be about half hour, so I parked up, had a wander around the shops in the area, then sat in the car to wait. Before long I received a text stating he’d be at least another 20 minutes, so I angled my car mirrors, and simply watched people going about their business. It’s a ‘hobby’ I’ve partaken of for many years, and whilst in uni, met a fellow aficionado and we would often sit together and simply watch others; not in a creepy way, just curiosity as to what people do, and wear. Wednesday, it passed the time, and before I got ‘bored’ my son had returned.

In that same vein, Wednesday night, feeling dissatisfied with the TV yet again, I watched some videos on YouTube. I often watch music from the 80’s as this is the music I mostly grew up with and can remember. I like a lot of the music from that era, though that night 2 videos in particular caught my attention: Genesis – land of Confusion from 1986 and Depeche Mode – People are People from 1984. The latter, the riff ‘I can’t understand what makes a man hate another man, help me understand’ rings so true for me, and more than 3 decades later the lyrics from both videos are still very relevant which I find quite sad and ultimately, nothing much seems to have changed with the human race. World leaders come and go, and the decades change, but it’s still the same old, same old. Individually, many people are nice, and are good people though as with anything, there are the outliers; those who deliberately harm or intend to harm others for reasons best known to themselves. Collectively people can also be good, and do good, though again, there are collective outliers too. People are strange in their own way… Don’t misunderstand, I’m not down or anything, just feeling contemplative.

To change topic, regular readers will know that I wanted to alter my water bill to pay 12 monthly payments, rather than the 8 the water company arbitrarily decided on. I took part in a live chat, and the man said he’d sort it for me within 24 hours. 3 days later, I couldn’t see my altered bill online, just a bill for almost £6. I left it a few days, nothing changed, so thought I’d better pay it. After doing so, I was invited to fill in a survey, which I did, and stated I didn’t understand why I had a small bill to pay, and by the way, where is my bill for 2019? A few hours later I received a phone call and was advised that the man I chatted with had closed my account and the £6 odd was to close my account. I stated I never asked him to do that and was told that they’d gone over my ‘chat’ and could see what I had asked for and obviously there had been a mistake. By then, it was too late to affect my bill for April, so by way of apology they’ve reinstated my account, given me April water rates for free, and have reimbursed what I’d paid, twice. In short, my bill was credited with almost £50 and I can now pay the rest off over 11 months. Nice! I’m happy anyway, and the man I chatted with, who messed up, will be reported to his manager. How anyone can misinterpret me asking to pay my bill over 12 months to mean please close my account is quite beyond me…

In other news I’ve been a canny little shopper, collecting points, and today did a shop in Morrisons. Between staff discount (family member) multibuys, and my points, I managed to get just over £22 off my shopping bill which almost paid for a nice bottle of whiskey that I shall enjoy a draft of tonight. The cupboards are well stocked in readiness for the Brexit madness they keep threatening us with; it’s getting tedious quite frankly, and that’s all I’ll say.

The weather has been splendid; not too warm (it is still March after all) with plenty of sunshine these past few days. The blueberry bushes are starting to flower, and elsewhere in the area, the blossom is making a fantastic show. The bulbs in the gravel bed show signs of flowering which will be nice though I suspect they’re ‘only’ grape hyacinth (muscari). Better than nothing, but a tad predictable. Hope you’re all enjoying some lovely weather too.

Have a great weekend, it’s almost upon us, and if in the UK, don’t forget to change your clocks Saturday night/Sunday morning.