Gods Reward and Punish at Their Whim

Warming Up

7959/20900

And lo, ye ftone Gods did see that their loyal fubject only had a few dayf to complete his tafk and fo did they did fend a ftorm to wafh away all ye foil.....

I did a couple of not-for-broadcast stone clears today. In the first I went into my real stone clearing field. The one I broadcast from is just a deception to keep the Stone Stasi on their toes. Like Tom, Dick and Harry in the Great Escape, I keep a few fields going, lest one has to be shut down. It's against all the rules of stone clearing, but then there are no rules to stone clearing.

My most impressive cairn is at the top of a hill and I don't go there very often because I am lazy, but the ground up there is littered with large stones and so I've built a cairn that is visible from the other side of the valley (and probably space). I doubt I will come back here again, even if I do return for the podcast. But only time will tell. If it's the last time, then I managed to add a few more impressive rocks. I was going to come down the lane by the side of this field, but it had turned into a river.

At lunch I took Wolfie up to the decoy field and the most notable thing was that the path on they way there (Duckett's Passage as I call it) had been washed into the road. All the shingle and a lot of mud. The road was thick with debris. And when I got to the field itself the damage was even clearer. The stone Gods had sent this downpour to wash away a lot of the top soil and what was left behind were billions of stones. Stones that would have been too deep for me to get to if it were not for the Gods' assistance. If this doesn't make you believe in the true Gods of this universe then nothing will and I feel sorry for you.

In a sense it just made my task look even more difficult. But in another wrong sense, it made it easier. And I cleared many stones and got muddy fingers and boots. Which is a good day for a stone clearer. I can do this.

Incredible to see the damage wrought by nature/gods though. I would have thought Stone Gods would be afraid of water, as that is the only enemy of the stone, slowly wearing them down, but it's not my place to question their ways.

I will miss having nature, brown in mud and shit, right on my doorstep, but the stones they must be cleared and the stones voices shall call me back here again. Maybe not up the hill though. I have my limits.

7960/20901

It was bin day, but as we've been packing and making decisions about what to keep and what to throw away, we had too many bin bags to fit in our bin. I could have just waited for the bin to be emptied and then refilled it - it would be emptied at the next collection and we're not going to be here much after Friday - but what if there was more than a bin worth's of rubbish?

I decided to surreptitiously get rid of my two bin bags in neighbours' bins. Only if there was room of course and I would only do this at the last minute. Still though, some people are very territorial over their bins (me for one - if anyone ever puts rubbish in my bin I will do time for them) so I had to do it in secret. Luckily I was up before 6am when no one was around. It was the perfect crime.

I was still in my dressing gown with nothing underneath and an always fairly dodgy belt on it, but I only had to go a few feet. I ascertained there was room in the bin across the road from me and picked up the first bin liner. It was heavier than I expected and was falling apart a bit. I had forgotten that it contained a load of full jars of food that were well passed their sell-by date. I am a voracious recycler, but even I couldn't be bothered to spoon out all the contents and wash the jars and tins. I had put a lot of the out of date food in the food bin and there wasn't any room anyway.

So I just had to nip over the road, open the bin, dump the bin bag and get away.

Sadly my life is a badly written sitcom, so of course the bin bag ruptured and a jar fell and smashed on the road. I got most of the contents across to the opposite pavement, but then the bag disintegrated and jars were rolling all over. Meanwhile my dressing gown fell open, so I was attempting to hold on to the half full bin bag whilst getting my arse and genitals back out of view of anyone who happened to drive by.  I couldn't tie the belt up one-handed so just had to try and pull the garment around me. Would my neighbours be woken by the sound of breaking glass and flapping gowns? Would the local vicar happen to cycle by and fall off his bike in shock?

It was the worst stealth operation of all time. Not only did I have to get my junk in the bin and my junk back in my dressing gown, there were cars going by and glass in the road so I had to clear that too.

It was an absolute embarrassment. Everything I touch turns to disaster. It was justice I suppose, for failing to recycle and for stealing bin space and breaking the rules of civilised society, but it continues to be the case that I am funnier by accident than design.

And neighbours, until our house is sold, you're welcome to use our bins. Even the garden waste one. 

Into London tonight for the start of the 30th series of RHLSTP. I thought we were restricted to a two hour slot, but it turned out there was nothing on after us, so I interviewed Peter Serafinowicz twice. It was lovely spending the day catching up with his recent work and the evening chatting to him.  At this stage of this long-running show I always wonder if this season might be the last, but ultimately that decision will probably be made by you guys, if you stop listening or coming to the shows. And once I'm back in that chair I always have such fun that it's going to be hard to stop (also I have two mortgages to pay at the moment so have no fucking choice in the matter)

Badgers and Plussers, news of another RHLSTP guest in your secret area. Substack paid subscribers will get the news in their secret video! It’s down below. You get to see me in the dressing gown. Will I show my junk? I won’t as long as you pay up!