Yesterday, I ventured on a short car trip to a local retail park. It was a frustrating journey, the type of which is never witnessed in the Utopian drives portrayed on car commercials.
This was no sun-filled, carefree drive at the wheel of the only automobile on a picturesque Alpine road. A journey where I’d pass shepherds and milk maids in lederhosen on the mountain side. A scene where we’d exchange disingenuous smiles and a wave, while I motored with abandon to nowhere in particular.
I realise that there probably isn’t a car advert involving Alpine milk maids and shepherds, but hey I’m trying to paint a picture here!
Below – The motoring Utopia of an Alpine high performance car ride – Exhilarating, liberating and …….. slow down you daft sod there are bloody roadworks and a speed camera around that corner!
No, this short distanced retail trek meant firstly having to navigate around school run vehicles on School Lane, followed by the joy of negotiating rush hour traffic.
The dark and the rain did nothing to enhance my driving experience, or mood. As I drove down School Lane, I felt for the parent’s as they valiantly attempted to hurry their dawdling kids out of the unforgiving precipitation into school.
I pondered whether perhaps they required the shepherd, from the car ad I alluded to above, to round up their excitable brood. Witnessing these drenched and harassed looking mums and dads made me thankful I didn’t have the job of taking kids to school anymore.
For a while now I’ve printed off my writing; as a consequence I’m utilising significant amounts of printer ink, A4 paper and ring binder files. With this in mind, looking to replenish dwindling printer ink stocks, I headed toward Argos on my arrival at the retail park.
Despite lots of vehicles in the car park, Argos had just opened and was mercifully quiet. In fact, the only people in front of me were a milk maid and shepherd in lederhosen purchasing a wooden stool, a hooked staff and rubber gloves. The milk maid seemed flustered and, in broken English, I overheard her complaining about the UK’s traffic volumes in comparison to back home in the Swiss Alps.
After securing my retail park purchases of printer ink, left handed socks and souls of the oppressed, I headed home. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long to gain liberty from the car park, which ordinarily is notoriously hard to achieve during the run up to Christmas.
Although, despite gratitude at not getting stuck in stationary traffic on my return journey, arguments with the souls of the oppressed meant I severely lacked Christmas cheer on re-entering casa Strachan.
To close, I’m going to share a joke I posted on Facebook this morning. I thought of the gag around 4 am, when I woke for the overnight curse of the middle aged man, a toilet break. As I can’t legislate for the tangents my mind disappears on, I’ve no idea why having a pee made me think of this gag.
I try not to add my Facebook posts to these narratives if I can help it. However on this occasion, as I was particularly pleased with this joke, I thought I’d include it in today’s literary offering. This piece of yuletide whimsy goes as follows:-
“For this years Christmas gifts, Karen has requested I get her the CD of ABBA’s Greatest Hits, a former X-Factor presenter’s album, along with a Mary Shelley book…… So this year I’m buying her Gold, Frankenstein and Olly Murrs. ………. How very festive!”
