La Tosca Gelateria, the scoop.

Time flies when you are tired and busy. It is August the day after tomorrow and then it will be september, then october....and then what? That's what I say.

I just overheard an english woman exclaim to her (assumed) husband "hey look, a 99 per cent paradise shop!". Now, regardless of the fact that it in fact is a 99 CENT paradise shop and that is clearly written in english on the window, it made me wonder just how low her expectation of paradise actually is. What I mean is, if she holds any religious belief, will her eternal afterlife be stood in a slightly darkened room surrounded by barely noticeably imperfect handmade balsa wood key boxes and obscure eastern european perfumes...all at just 99cents?

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Another couple who entered a week or so ago amused us also....the husband looked at the selection, the wife asked "a small cone of lemon for my man here please" (I add the please as a gesture of hope in mankind's graciousness towards shop people....but I find myself doubting whether it was there at the time...). I pick up the cone and then - the barefaced cheek of it - the husband asks "do you have coffee?". "Oh" says the wife, "you are changing your mind!".

For once in my life, and I apologise to you all for this, I did not say out loud what I thought, I wish I had done...but sometimes things are best left unsaid. My comment was along the lines of no, he is changing YOUR mind!

Poor man.

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Weston-Super-Mare pier burnt down over the weekend...one of England's big seaside tourist attractions (one of?). Today, 3 days later, the beach is full of people scavenging the seafront for salvage. One lucky punter was quoted as having found "A can of peaches and 3 pound coins!". Presumably all the taiwanese cuddly toys went up in flames together with the fake breast tee-shirts and the candy rock breakfast sets...amongst other things washing up on the shore were large bits of charred timber with rusty 6 inch nails sticking out...These then partly submerged in the sand just under the tide line.

But hey - free peaches!

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This morning also (busy day) I saw a car driving along with both indicators flashing...presumably having been parked badly somewhere it should not have been but using hazardlights as a universal get-out-of-jail-free card as we all have done in the past. Then the driver had pulled away and driven a while without turning them off.

This is a bit like fog-light man who still has fog lights on 4 days after it was foggy.

Now, sometimes I leave a light on in the house, or forget to lock a door or varied other miscellany and I am sure this is just what happens to these hapless drivers....

But then again, I do not have an illuminated panel at arms length to remind me about the bathroom light or the back door. What you need to remember when you see these people driving, is that for the period the hazards or foglights have been left on - for the whole period, which could be days - that driver has not looked at the dashboard. So he has no idea how fast he is going, whether the handbrake is still on, a door is open, how much petrol he has, oil water etc etc etc.

How scary is that.