Everything is carried about and often back again --226

I know I jump about a bit on my subject matter,labelling, but this old chestnut has not been brought up lately, and I cannot for the life of me see that it has changed much since it was first aired.

Take the down turn in the price of beef cattle just recently, and what do you find in Tesco mingled in with the British beef, imported joints with almost identical packaging with no (very small) Union Jack. ???  

British food grown and packed

Food comes in from around the globe, then packed and labelled here,

All put into bubble packs, then Britain gets a cheer,

Stick on the labels, printed here, a union jack the lot,

It’s only the packaging, but the contents they are not.

Packaging’s the thing right now, it’s wrapped and wrapped again,

Keep the food clean and fresh, or that is what they claim,

Bin through many hands, and machines to wrap and pack,

Getting older by the minute, a use-by date on pack will slap.

Everything is carried about and often back again,

Out to distribution centres, finding jobs for men,

Wear and tear on tyres and roads, burning up the miles,

Costs all added onto their goods, customer pays up and smiles.

British food grown and packed, genuine through and through,

A clear label telling us, so we know on what we chew,

Local grown just down the road, fresh as the morning dew,

We need to know, it’s only fair, right now we haven’t a clue.

Owd Fred

It was like being stuck in Alcatraz --225

This a story/letter I wrote to my daughter, of what happened just before Christmas 2013 when there was about two inches of snow on the ground. My house central heating boiler was giving off fumes into the house, and my bill for all the mowing baling and wrapping had just been paid 10 days before.

 It was like being stuck in Alcatraz

Dear Jayne,

 As you may know, the boiler in the office has started to give off some fumes, neither ya mum nor I can smell anything, we can see smell if its smoke but this was clear.

Two of mums helpers complained this last day or two that the office was full of fumes when the door was shut, from the boiler, so I got Mr.M (our baler man come plumber) to come and have a look at it, he came last night, there nothing leaking as he could immediately see, he put a smoke bomb in it and none came back into the room, the only thing he did was to seal round the chimney and the front plate on the boiler.

This morning I am told there was hardly any fumes detectable at all. Make ya wonder if this has been affecting ya mum.

On the talk after the boiler was done, Paul M. asked me if I had had his bill for baling and straw supplied, I said yes and I had paid it 10 days ago. He said he would check with his wife if she had seen the cheque. phone call came this morning to say she had not seen it, must be lost in the post.

I wrote another cheque and took it down to Eccleshall at around 10am, and as I came in site of his house, the postman was just delivering and had opened the electric gates and walked through, I like a fool drove through and when I had put my cheque through his post box the bladdy gates had shut. Well I tried for twenty minutes to open these sodin gates,

I rang his house number and knocked on all the doors and nobody was in, I looked round the farm and all was quiet nobody there either. Then I stared to look for another way to get out with he landrover, that was if he had not locked his farm yard gate further down the road, no it was only latched. So I back tracked back to the house, and a very narrow bit between some bushes and the house, with a bit of luck if I rush, it it should get through.

The disco (land rover) was at the far end of his house ,so I drove over his lawn round the conservatory round some flower beds round some bushes and dived at the gap, and got through, the feeling was like getting out of Alcatraz, free at last down the farm yard round the buildings and undo the gate and home.

At lunch time I rang him and Mrs M answered the phone, I told her I had delivered the cheque and put it through the letter box, she said yes thank you she had picked it up and also with that same delivery the postman had dropped thirty seconds before me was my other original cheque 10 days late not franked but delivered at last.

All that impatient agro for nowt

As a foot note the M. family about eight of them are off to Florida on boxing day morning for 10 days and they were all out in different directions shopping just at 10 am this morning.

As you always say Jayne, It was hard shit, on my part.

Love Fred