I’m sitting at the desk, hands poised and ready to fly over the keys and produce another weekly masterpiece of wit and wisdom.
Ho ho!
As usual, I’ve got one eye on the garden and the view of the hills, and I can report that things are quiet and peaceful.
The family of collared doves (there were six, now down to two), have been for their breakfast and headed off to do whatever it is that collared doves do all day.
The resident group of gulls are on gliding exercise around their manor and the three regular ordinary pigeons, whose posh name I recently learned is rock dove, have yet to appear.
Then if when we take into account the regular miscellaneous bunch of magpies, starlings and sparrows, it all adds up to the miracle of nature that we can all too easily either ignore or take for granted.
It’s well worth every penny of what we spend on bird food on our regular trips to stock up at Sadler’s country supermarket on South Quay.
Sadler’s is a rare place to visit.
If you need anything whatsoever to do with farming or gardening, or for that matter, anything to do with countryside life, Sadler’s is the place to go.
Their range of stock is vast and their attitude towards the customer is a pleasure to experience.
Virtually all of my working life was spent in retail and I learned many important lessons.
For example, ’the customer is not always right but is always important’, and remember that ’a manager should always lead from the front and teach his staff by example’.
Your staff can only learn if they are taught properly and, believe me, Bobby Sadler knows how to preach the word.
He never forgets a customer’s name and, if you have to wait to be served, you can be sure that it wont be for long.
Customer service is sometimes a forgotten skill. How difficult can it be for a taxi driver to get off his seat to open the door for an elderly passenger who is carrying a couple of walking sticks?
Is it the end of the world if an able bodied person has to wait in a queue for a minute longer, while the slow moving customer in front stows away their shopping and change?
The older and slower I become the more obvious it is to some folk that I am in their way. Fortunately, these are few and far between.
A quick trip around Ballachrink, through Lakeside and into Groudle Road. There are two stops in Groudle Road, then a quick loop to the top of Royal Avenue and off again to the South.
My stop is the second one in Groudle Road, and this is what should happen.
Turn into Groudle Road, pass the first stop and, on cue, press the button to request the driver to stop at the second one which is only about fifty yards past our bungalow.
The red sign lit up and the bleeper beeped, but the bus drove straight on.
Now, because I am just an old limp short of a cripple, I have to remain seated until the bus stops. By the time that he realised that this elderly, stick-waving passenger was trying to attract his attention, we were rapidly reaching the limit of my personal maximum walking distance to number 26 Groudle Road
He eventually stopped the bus.
It transpired that the bus stop sign had blown off its perch and into a neighbour’s garden.
PS. I reported the missing sign to the bus depot at 10 o’clock the next day.
A man and his van arrived at 11.15 with a replacement. It had taken one hour, fifteen minutes. Not one driver had reported the lost sign.
The customer is always important.