I carted a large Ligustrum Aureum home from B&Q this morning in my seaside stripy trusty trolley. To you and me that’s an evergreen shrub. The largest small tree I could afford and carry. I was on a mission.
I’d sold my Sodastream. No gas bottle or pop bottles, just the unit. With a melty bit on the base at the back. I’d dragged it out of the shed and put it on the porch table when it was a melting plastic type of sunshiney day last week. Or maybe I’d knocked the electric hob on by accident as it sat on the supposedly heatproof hob protectors. It didn’t matter it was off on it’s jollies due to my latest Vinted obsession of selling everything I’ve ever owned for longer than 3 days. ( Do try it and you’ll understand).
So the SodaStream once securely wrapped and packed to withstand the ire of EVRI was quite bulky and I took my trusty trolley to cart it to the postal lockers on Hard Ings road. Who thought up that name? Hard Ings? What even is an Ing? They could have simply called it Maddriverfuckwit Road. The traffic and noise is incredible. You can feel your lungs and the climate depleting. The roundabouts at either end are the stuff of nightmares baring in mind the excellence of the driving skills in Keighley. But anyway needs must and the Evri, Royal Mail and DPD lockers are located outside the petrol station on the left. Across the road at the other petrol station are the INPOST lockers. You scan the barcode on the address label you’ve printed and attached to your parcel and as if by magic a locker opens and you pop it in and shut the door. Of course you do.
I generally grit my teeth and take a deep breath. There is a notice that you are on camera and I’m sure someone somewhere pisses themselves laughing watching the playback. As there is no logical or common distance that the scanner ‘reads’ the barcode it’s a basic pot luck of spastically moving a parcel about , swear words and low level stress. Accompanying shouts such as ”are you fucking blind I didn’t just run into the back of you” all help to contribute to the near mental breakdown at what should be such a simple task.
Trolley emptied I set off on my mission to find the biggest tree I could carry. I’ve spent over £100 online so far on shrubs and tree things. Things that are supposed to be like 4 to 5 foot tall but you can see clearly aren’t by the size of the box as soon as Yodel throws it at your front door. Because I need screening. Hedging. A fucking brick wall. So I don’t have to look at my neighbour’s ‘how to tell I’ve always lived in a council house’ shit tip of a garden.
The best bit is that her son in law who should really have a proper job by now keeps coming round, and she will pay him, to lop a few more bushes down. I asked him politely if he would not chop the only trees we have left that screen us from the comings and goings of the church grounds. He said he wouldn’t but still did. It’s because of rats you see. My neighbour wants the trees down because of the rats. The rats that come to the very trees that she fed the birds in for a year. The same rats that came to the same bird food she put out after her daughter lopped the first lot of trees to stop these same rats.
Blossom Hill Soft & Fruity give me strength.