Porklife

Am off work this week and bloody loving it.  I even took a jog around Kennington park this morning, accompanied by the steady hail of local squirrels dropping their breakfast nuts in disbelief.  Three startled pigeons slamming into tree trunks and an inadequate number of laps later I strode out of the south gate newsagentwards for my morning milk and Guardian.

Disaster, though - my favoured shop on Brixton Road had the former but not the latter.  I was forced to try the shop known to me and my girlfriend as Dog Piss Onions, after we reported to the owner that an enormous Alsation had just widdled all over his fresh produce and he responded with barely a shrug.  Rationalising that a similar attack on the newspapers would be easier to detect I braved it, and strode in brandishing my milk from the previous shop.

Me: "Just the Guardian please"
Dog Piss Onions owner: "I'll have to charge you for the milk as well"
Me: "You wag.  Here's the quid for the Gaurdian, cheers"
DPOO: "No, really.  You need to pay for the milk"
Me: "I just walked past you while holding it.  This plainly isn't your milk"
DPOO: "Sir, I NEED to charge you for the MILK!"
Me: (hotly) "You REALLY don't!"
DPOO: "Ha ha! I am joking of course sir.  You have a good day now"

This country.

Talking of this country, I spent last week in a totally different one.  The missus and I vacationed on the shores of Lake Garda in Italy, sharing our hotel with Germans wearing unironic moustaches and a frankly weird amount of lesbians.  Having accidentally booked a package holiday on lastminute.com we received a cultural overview of Italy on the coach from the airport ("Now, to order what I think we'd all call a "real" coffee...") and were given a welcome pack which included a definition of bolognese ("a meat and tomato based sauce").  Unfortunately the translations page omitted the Italian for "Thomas Cook are incompetent pricks", which would have been useful when we discovered that they'd taken our money and not told the hotel we were coming.  It's a real larf changing rooms three times in seven days, let me tell you.

Luckily the rest of the holiday was excellent, thanks for asking - sun, clear water, tasty food, foxy Italian wo many areas of historical interest.  And now I've got this week off too.  And a bank holiday weekend.  Lovely stuff.