Skint...

... and a bit grumpy! Well it is Tuesday!

I went to bed early last night... thinking I'd get a head start on my Tuesday and I was rudely awoken at half ten by a lorry outside delivering our community Christmas tree. To say I was miffed would be putting it mildly. Hence my email to the council this morning:

Dear Sir/Madam/Santa

Whilst I appreciate that this email will reach some poor soul who is responsible for checking the inbox rather than the people responsible for the cause of my complaint, I'm going to rant anyway, so apologies in advance.

I understand that lots of people celebrate Christmas. Most normal people celebrate Christmas in December. I realise that the switching on of the Christmas lights will take place in my area on 1st December. This is a suitable date in my opinion. Quite acceptable to prepare for Christmas in December. I also appreciate that the Christmas tree is required to be placed in situ prior to the date the lights are switched on else it would be a particularly stupid exercise having lights but no tree.

However, I do not appreciate being woken at 10.30pm on a Monday night in the middle of NOVEMBER by an HGV parking outside my bedroom window with their engine running for approximately 30 minutes while they put the Christmas tree in place. I'm not sure what the thinking behind digging a hole in our park instead of just using a stand as normal was either? Given the amount of money that has been wasted on the trams I'd imagine a few more quid putting a stand out every year wouldn't be a big loss. If you could send someone round to clear up the mess that has been left by whoever dug said hole, that would also be appreciated.

Let it be known, in advance, that I'd appreciate if the dismantling of said Christmas tree could be done at a reasonable time or perhaps I'll take my car round to our local Councillor's house at 11pm on a Monday evening and rev the engine for 30 minutes... I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be best pleased and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get away with that sort of behaviour!

I'm also well aware that ranting after the fact is utterly pointless in any sort of outcome other than to make me feel a bit better.

If there is someone who can explain the reasoning behind the brainwave of delivering said tree at that time of night, given there are several perfectly good daylight hours to do such work then I'd be delighted to hear their response.

Kind regards,
Tired Bah Humbug of Restalrig!!

Remember I said yesterday about needing help?! *coughs* I fear I may be related to Victor Meldrew!

Anyway... I'm not taking a photo of said tree because as I said in my email it is still November. So this is a picture I made a few years ago. I'd been collecting pennies for a while, only shiny ones though. Eventually I went into the business banking department of the Royal Bank to see if they had a stash. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them at that point. Just something. Anyway... the woman in the bank said that she could order me some from the Mint but it would need to be twenty quids worth. So I picked them up and this is the end result.

I varnished the tails side to make the word and keep them shiny and then filled in the rest of the space with the heads side and just let them tarnish. I think it looks quite cool but I'm a bit biased! I got a call from the lady from the bank a few months ago saying that someone had handed in another twenty quids worth and did I want them? It was good of her to remember me... so I have them in the cupboard, not quite sure what I'm going to make out of them so they're lurking in the dark!

Any guesses on how many pennies?