Confidential: Don't drive so close to me - and some other irritations!

For instance, don’t you hate it when you are driving along minding your own business maintaining a decent speed (my name is not Reginald Molehusband after all!) when the car behind is so close you can hardly see him/her in your rear-view mirror? Honestly, you will have to believe me when I say that I don’t hang about myself, but whether it be on the Cintura or driving through a sleepy village, there is always someone ‘up-your-backside’ with nowhere to go.

Let me explain. The motorist as ‘moron’ can’t overtake you even if he wanted to ‘cos you are either in a solid three-lane line of traffic, or - driving through the aforementioned village’s narrow streets. Anyway, I like to constantly ‘dab’ my brakes to keep them on their toes! Incidentally, have you noticed that this type of driver always sits really low in his seat, with just the top of his head showing as if he were Lewis Hamilton - which, thinking about it, is the impression he probably wants to give fellow motorists. How sad is that?

I’m a queue jumper!

Hey, I haven’t finished just yet! Picture the scene - you are at the checkouts at your local supermarket and just if front of you is a trolley full of goods but with no shopper to go with it. As you inch your way to the cashier and with no one in sight, you circumvent the pilotless trolley and start to unload your own goods.

I do hope you’re keeping up with all this? Halfway through this exercise a woman appears and starts to remonstrate with you because she says that you have jumped-the-queue. Naturally enough being English I just gave her one of my superior looks and carried on doing what I was doing.

As I paid my bill, the lady cashier told me that what she was doing has become common practice, not by people who have genuinely forgotten an item of shopping, but by people who don’t think that they shouldn’t suffer the inconvenience of patiently waiting in line like the rest of us when they have finally completed their weekly ‘shop’ on a busy Saturday morning. I’m afraid I will not be taking bets on the nationality of those mainly involved in this practice!

Why are you shouting?

I suppose it might be something to do with living in Spain, but - why is everything so loud? And before you rush to condemn me for slighting our Spanish hosts, can I make the point that I sat next to a group of British women the other day and by the end of my coffee my ears were ringing. There seems to be no escape.

Every morning at 07.30hrs sharp, a group of garrulous local ladies pass my house after a vigorous walk up the valley. Dear Lord, compared to them - enduring a series of sonic-booms would be more restful. And just in case you believe me to be sexist in my abhorrence of ultra decibel shattering conversations, men can be - and are, as bad. What happened to the whispered aside I wonder, the measured enunciation of the group of pals having a beer together?

At my local pub/bar there are times that I can truly not hear myself think. My pal tells me it’s the acoustics of the place, but with fifteen blokes all shouting at the same time, you’d have to be having a drink outside a padded cell not to hear them. Naturally, what happens is this - your own conversation level gets higher and higher and when a woman of my acquaintance arrives - the first thing she says is - “Why are you SHOUTING?”

Take me to your leader

I think I must be getting paranoid. As I pottered about in my garden the other day before it got too hot, I was suddenly aware of a continuous buzzing sound. Blimey, that must be a big wasp I thought - only to spot one of those drone thingy’s hovering high above me.

To be honest I was more than a little discombobulated by this discovery - as in “What is that - and what is it doing here?” Don’t laugh, but I certainly wasn’t impressed by somebody nosing around my property without my permission, trust me it is a very spooky feeling.

Naturally enough, I made a bit of an arse of myself as usual, demanding that the drone should - “Take me to your leader.” After a while I discovered that a neighbour is looking to sell his property and apparently estate agents nowadays like to get the “above and beyond” view of a property so as to assist in the sale. Whatever will they think of next?

Stop showing-off Frank!

Since the beginning of February of this year I have been on a bit of a diet. Well, not so much a diet but a change in lifestyle when it comes to food and drink.

Doesn’t that sound all new-age? Anyway, by not having any ‘seconds’ plus giving up large hunks of cheese in butter smothered bread rolls and eschewing beer during the week (not wine, after all I’m not a fanatic!) and a few other little tweaks to my lifestyle, I’ve shifted seven kilos which is about a stone in real money! Hopefully without sounding too smug, if asked what someone should do to lose a bit of weight, I would say - It’s the little things that make the difference - as in, “Eat less and move about more.”