Sharp Practices

The Suffolk lanes are filled with East European drivers trying to deliver parcels for Christmas but unable to find their destinations. As I returned from hand posting cards to my neighbours up and down the lane I heard raised voices coming from behind the thick hedges and trees surrounding Sarah's house, a male Polish-sounding one and the other a tinny American woman. The man seemed to be talking to a machine, and after several minutes of increasing querulousness on his side she told him to "have a nice day now", her sing-song drawl reaching me clearly. He made his way along Sarah's drive and across the lane to me. His name tag told me he was called Stefan. "These parcels for you," he told me. "Is Red House Farm, no", indicating the house behind me. It wasn't a question. "No," I said anyway, "that's Red House Farm", pointing. "No, machine says this Red House Farm," and he tried to walk past me. "No, really, this is not Red House Farm," I insisted, but he showed me his screen firmly placing his quarry on my side of the lane. "Is here," he said, moving towards the gate. "Is not!" I assured him. "Is not! Is over there, Red House Farm." "Says only Red House on gate," he argued. "That's because other half of gate, bit with Farm on, is missing. Is Red House Farm." "OK", he said placidly, "I leave these here for Red House Farm. Is nobody over there." And he was gone.

I decided to cut the lawn. Well, I say lawn. Is not lawn, is field. It's the first day in a while that hasn't been damp and misty so I grabbed it. Tony was due to come and tweak my radiators so I had to be quick. Ten minutes later I was backing into the field as usual to dump my load when a large white van drew up beside me. I paused the ride-on and took off my ear defenders. "Where Red Brick Farm please?" the driver asked. "I have no idea I'm afraid," I told him. "I've never heard of it. You don't mean Red House Farm do you?" He looked at me in disgust and drove off at speed. Well, there's no pleasing some people.

I have another bugbear. It's not the beef with Twinings who slyly repackaged their tea last year and then sold it in multiples of 80 and 40 instead of the former 100 and 50, but at the same price! I call that daylight robbery. Do they think we're stupid? I got the better of them in the end though. At surprisingly regular intervals Waitrose offers their Assam at a much reduced price, and then I clear the shelves. But this is a different bugbear and it concerns loo paper. It isn't just Andrex who perpetrate this heinous crime but all of them as far as I can see. Hasn't anyone else noticed that the rolls are hugely reduced in size, I'd say about a third smaller than in their prime? Why are the consumer programmes not bristling over this chicanery. Put the price up for heaven's sake if you must, but don't try to deceive us. If we staged a mass sit down in protest, we loo paper users of the country, we could wipe the floor with them.