As I mentioned earlier, I am looking for a job. Or was. At my stage of life it's not that easy to land a job as prospective employers tend to have the passing thought that you might fall off your perch whilst on shift. Plus I don't have recognisable bits of paper that say I can use a computer, add up or string a sentence together (I did have some but they bore no resemblance to what is required nowadays and I've no idea in which house move they got lost.) But the glass is full to the brim and in addition my cup runneth over. I've landed a job. It's permanent - unless I do anything incredibly stupid - and it gives me enough hours to become more solvent than I've been of late.
And the job? I'm now working in the world of the fish supper, of sausages in batter and the deep fried Mars bar. Yes, I've got a job in the local chippy and very fine it is too.
At the moment I'm getting to grips with the sink - and the dishwasher which broke when I was only into my second shift - but I'm sure it weren't me, guv. Then I was briefly let loose on the till, but my more experienced workmates took over when we got incredibly busy and I went back into the nether reaches of the shop where the Marigolds live. Still, no doubt I'll get the hang of it all, hopefully sooner rather than later.
One bonus is that when I come home, with the aroma of chips preceding me up the garden path, my dogs (Mrs Mist, a Labrador/Staffie and Megan, a Retriever/Staffie) go into ecstasies over what they imagine is a walking meal. Instead of the usual glances, their expressions clearly saying 'Oh, you've turned up again, what time do you call this? And where is supper?', they rush to the door and demand a full account of the evening's happenings. They are very obvious.
'Oh, can I smell fish? And is that a sausage? Wow! With chips or just salad? And the shoes, check out the shoes. It's spilt batter if I'm not mistaken.'
When all they get for supper is run of the mill 'Doggo', their mournful faces say it all. 'What's the point of you working there if we don't get the benefit?' But they eat it anyway because they love food. Any food. And their absolute favourite is anything disgusting found on the beach.
'Dead fish? How dead? Three weeks? Yummy! And a decomposed bird? Whoopee! Wait till I get past the feathers, it'll be great'.
For some reason Mrs Mist also loves seaweed. Perhaps it's through a lack of iodine in her diet, but she scoffs it down like it's a prawn mayo sandwich. And this brings me to the main point of this post.
While I care about the state of the planet, it seems that we up here are not basking in the same warmth as the rest of the country. It would be nice to have the occasional respite from the cold, and I think I have an answer to Scotland's lack of global warming. No longer will the forecast say 'London 22 degrees, with full sun. Scotland, you're only going to get up to minus 3 degrees, but hey ho, think of the ski-ing'.
Yes, my answer is Mrs Mist.
Bear with me please.
It appears that the dinosaurs may have been responsible for their own demise. According to the latest thinking, with their consumption of whole forests, methane emissions from these huge beasts resulted in the climate becoming unsuitable for their own survival; the rising temperatures caused disruption to the weather patterns. And scientists attribute the same to cattle. They could blow us out of existence.
But it would be nice to have a bit of heat up here in the north, before the end comes. To look in the back of the wardrobe and find those long forgotten shorts. I know that hurricanes cause devastation, but couldn't we just have a small share in the global phenomena for once? To be able to sit in the garden without an easterly coming off the Russian Steppe would be so nice, just now and again.
If methane does cause temperatures to rise, then Mrs Mist - on seaweed - provides the solution. 'Thar' she blows' has nothing on my dog after a few brief snacks from the beach.
The effect wouldn't be so great, she's not very big. But on a local level it might give us respite from the nose-bitingly cold weather that has lasted since about November (apart from THAT week in March, and we weren't ready for it).
And there is cause to think it's working. She spent a considerable amount of time at the weekend chewing her way through the detritus on the shoreline and today we have a temperature in double figures, which is just as well as I've had to open all the windows.
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