Recently, I’ve been experiencing a wide range of emotions:

I’ve been gratified to see that the police that I mentioned in a previous blog have been (allegedly) fined for breaching lockdown rules, and that members of the Senedd (Welsh government) who breached rules, are being investigated and could lose their jobs. I’m not sure I’d fire them, however they do need to be held accountable: you can’t make and enforce rules, expect the general public to abide by them, and then metaphorically stick your 2 fingers up at the general public and flout those same rules. It doesn’t fly, and nor should it.

I’ve been irritated by members of the public who simply will not ‘social distance’, both times recently in a different supermarket, and one even had a young child with them. The rules aren’t just for my benefit, they’re there to protect us all. Even if you don’t agree with them, you should still abide by them.

I’ve been vexed by our scanners in work. For some reason, the ‘mapping’ is off, and whoever fixes them is off work this week. The scanners are sending us all over the shop, quite literally. I’ll be going down an aisle one way, only to have a colleague come the other way. Usually, we go around the store in a set pattern depending on what we’re picking. Going the wrong way down an aisle is so confusing, and no 2 picks are the same, even if both are, for example, a chilled pick. By the end of the week, I’ll be fit to tear my hair out!

In a supermarket car park, I happily noted there was going to be a coffee drive through. I haven’t had a cappuccino in almost a year, so I eagerly awaited this opening. Well, this week it opened, and what a disappointment it was. The coffee tasted ‘thin’ if that makes sense, and I’ve had a better pastry from the German discount store. It was an experience, though not one I shall hurry to repeat.

We had a pay rise late last year, and whilst it wasn’t huge, it was nice. Recently, I’ve found out that one of the discount stores pays its staff more per hour than I get paid (I work for one of the big chains), that they’re having a good pay rise, and that they also pay their staff for their break. Crikey! We have a break, but we don’t get paid for it. I’d look to move; however, I like what I do, mostly – when I’m not tearing my hair out lol – and I have a defined role. These smaller stores expect you to do everything and anything, and maybe that’s why they pay them more?

I’ve mentioned before that some days I have trouble finding a word, or words, that I want to use. This is particularly bad when I haven’t been sleeping well. As a teenager, I used to stammer sometimes, and if I’m particularly tired and having trouble with words, then I notice I’m stammering again. The last time I spoke with my kid sister I had one of those moments, and I was gobsmacked that she imitated me stammering and thought it was quite hilarious. I’d never do anything like that to her, or to anybody for that matter. It’s mean, and it’s uncalled for. I laughed it off at the time, but I was cross. I’d recently asked her for some details pertaining to our parent’s estate, and had passed on some information to her to stop her daughter falling foul of the law, potentially, and since then, I feel she’s been ‘off’ with me. I don’t care for it.

Apart from that, we’re good here. More snow which is a total pain. Wednesday it rained all day long, and as the evening drew in, and the temperature dropped, it turned to snow. By early hours Thursday, we’d had a good inch and like before, the council hadn’t bothered to grit the roads, not even the main road. I do sometimes wonder just what they do with all the Council Tax that we have to pay. They don’t grit, they often miss collecting the rubbish or collect it late, they don’t fill potholes, they don’t enforce parking restrictions… I don’t feel like we’re getting value for money.

Enjoy what’s left of the week. I’ll try and keep my hair lol. Take care, be safe.