Parking Vs Abandonment

Yesterday when I got to work there was nowhere in the carpark to put my car, the parking is terrible at the building, quite literally people park anywhere there are no red lines, and when I'm working a 12p-8p shift I have to leave 1.5 hours before work to a) find parking, b) walk from outer BFE to the actual building and c) find a desk and phone station when I get upstairs.

Sometimes there is nowhere to park at all, no spaces, no available places to abandon a vehicle (without the certainty of being clamped by the enthustiastic and somewhat sadistic guards) so I give up on parking anywhere near the building and park at the park and ride which is about a mile walk away.

We can park there for free and there're almost always spaces so it's not uncommon to park up and meet someone else from here that is on the same shift, walk back to the building together and exchange venom over the state of the parking. The downside to this arrangement is that the park and ride carpark closes, (gates locked, no way in or out) at 7pm. Can you spot the immediate plaw in the flan?

If you don't get to the carpark on your luncbreak and move your car back to the building carpark (where by that time you can get a space right by the front door) then your car gets locked in for the night.....£60 to retrieve it.

I've been working here for 4 days shy of a year.....guess what I did for the first time last night....? Yep, you guessed it. I completely forgot about my car, until I was putting my stuff back in my locker....at 8pm.

I had to call Chris and have him come and pick me up, we still spent the evening at his house eating homebaked orange and cinnamon muffins, drinking tea and talking about emotions, then he dropped me off at home again afterwards. I did feel really stupid though.

This morning I had to go to the hopsical for another jab, so mum and dad and Alex dropped me off to pick up my car on their way to the playpark (it's a hard life) I went and got my jab and collected my pill Rx and then came back to work.

I won't make that mistake again....I parked on the end of a row in the multi-story near the building. It's a slightly longer walk back to the car after my shift, but at least I can't possibly get locked in there....

Gone to the Dogs...

We decided to see Acapulco off in style, by taking a last minute trip to the dogs. The Acapulco team is disbanding because it's manager is leaving, the members are getting spread out amongst the other teams, so we had a last minute decision to go to the Blunsdon Stadium Greyhound races.

We arrived there in time for the 3rd race, I took £1 out of my wallet and put a bet on "Expeditious" to win. He did.

That set the theme for the night, I put £1 bets as follows:
Race 3: Expeditious to win. He won £2
Race 4: Horseshoe Jo Jo to place. He came 2nd £1.50
Race 5: Loopy Luce to place. She won £2.50
Race 6: Bornacurra Pearl to win. He won £6 [1]
Race 7: Tic Tac Sunset to win. He won £4.50
Race 8: Olgas Black to place and Milo to win. They did £7.50
Race 9: Figges Marsh to place. He fell -£1
Race 10: Trackside bet on Stride on Dubh to win. He did £20

After drinks I came home with £25 more than I had when I went in. Not a bad result.

[1] Had to bet on him after I had a tongue malfunction and his name came out "porn curry pearl" and was transmuted by Darrell into "porn curry pearl necklace"