Does anyone know what the big hold up was in town this morning?, daughter had to get to Newbold and it took a long time.

It seems this is another high street name on the chopping block, been in existence for over 150 years. Not a shop I liked to go in as they weren't cheap and I found most of the staff surly. I personally I only went in there to use the post office which brings up the question of where does the P.O. go when Smith's closes?

I have now got into the habit of checking the sell by date of EVERY bit of foodstuff I buy, and with good reason.

For example I still love Heinz tinned spaghetti and I buy 3 tins at a time, the last lot I bought was just a month ago and checked the s.b.d. on each can, the first tin I picked up {obviously the one at the front} had the s.b.d. of 10/24 so went to the back of the tins and got 3 that will last till 2026.
The wife came back from town today and had bought a packet of mixed nuts and raisins from a well known chain {very cold in there!!} and she opened them this afternoon and found the s.b.d. on the pack is January 2025, o.k. they're still edible but that's not the point. Many years ago we were in Morrisons Staveley and on our list was cat food for our cat, I started to reach onto the shelves and couldn't believe it, the packs of food were crawling with maggots, I told an assistant and asked her to fetch the shop manager and get him to look at the cat food, two minutes later there were at least six assistants clearing the shelf scooping the cat food into small wheelie bins and that's just cat food!.
This is the reason I don't order shopping on line half the time you don't know what your getting.

 My local shop in the village started me off checking as having been caught out a couple of times. I watch the assistants as I walk round re stocking and I could see they just push the older stock to the back of the shelf and put the new at the front, basically because they're too bone idle to do it properly.

Apparently {according to the experts} if the U.K. where to go 100% green tomorrow, globally it wouldn't make one iota of difference to the worlds climate.

China, America, India to name but a few are belching out that much carbon daily it would take a miracle to just slow down global warming let alone stop it.

90% of the people responsible for this mess won't be here in another fifty years but our grandchildren will.

I don't know about you but I wouldn't trust my car in the hands of these car washes. The last time I used one was when I was part chopping my car for another and wanted it to look tidy that was just before Covid.
I wash my own car, that way if I scratch it I've no one else to blame, besides I've seen some of these lads at the wash lathering cars with an old rag cleaning from bottom to top so any grit picked up from the sills will scratch the paintwork as they work over your car.

Every now and again I might use the jet wash at Graingers at Holmewood to get the thickest off but last time I went up they were out of order that was a few weeks ago, I went past yesterday and it still looks like they are out of order.

Looks like the Royal Oak in the Shambles has been bought after it's stood empty a while. Didn't read all of it but apparently it's been bought by a couple of Ex teachers. Who says teachers are badly paid?

I haven't been in the Oak in donkeys years, I remember it was a decent pint but it always looked like the bar scene from Star Wars.
I wish them luck.

Well it's finally started... the Peak gateway "resort" at Sheepbridge. According to the D.T.it's the "long awaited" £1billion pound project.

They aren't kidding when they say it's long awaited, when was working for a company {on sheebridge trad est} the staff were always talking about it and a few said when built they would apply for jobs there, I left that job in 2008 so this has been in the pipeline for what 18 years?? so you can imagine if they had started and built it in 2008 just think of the cost compared to today, it wouldn't surprise me to find it's doubled maybe even trebled.

"Fully implemented the resort would sustain thousands of jobs". That's a bold statement, I'm assuming they include auxiliary and support staff such as deliveries and the like in that.