Friday’s rants from the soapbox in my living room!

Welcome to my Friday Rants. My spot in the week where I get things off my chest. I’ve also linked up with MummyBarrow for her Ranty Friday. Please come and join us. A good rant can be therapeutic!

I have several rants today. First I want to show you our lovely new garden gate. No, I haven’t entirely lost all track of the plot, I promise, and I’m not going to bombard you with random domestic nonsense, but this gate will hopefully keep the local wildlife out….

The new gate

The local wildlife

(photo source)

These badgers are a nuisance, and because they are heavily protected (and it seems to have more rights than we do, yes, I am a touch bitter about it) they basically have the right to roam, and they have spent countless nights crashing down our old gate, and marauding round our garden in the night, making a mess of the grass and leaving little piles of badger faeces in one corner because apparently our garden is part of their chosen path to their sett and also their latrine! The council won’t do anything about it, and we’ve been told we should feed them, by the local Badger Protection folks, and not to cut our grass, and appreciate their presence.  I don’t want to hurt them, but I don’t like them in our garden, the noise and mess they make, and seeing as they killed a neighbours cat two years ago, I don’t find them cute, cuddly or adorable. We’re hoping that the new gate which our landlord has kindly arranged to be installed, will keep them out and at bay.

My other rant is about the ANNOYING perfume/aftershave adverts that we have been subjected to, from  October, because, yes, Christmas is coming, and of course people buy perfume and aftershave for their loved ones, or prospective loved ones. I myself am a big fan of Chanel no 5, but even I want to scream and throw things when the current Chanel advert comes on the tv. Brad lives just down the road from us, I may have to round there and tell him I really dont like the advert! There are several serious offenders in this area, this one, by Dolce & Gabbana makes me grind my teeth and cringe! Between adverts for perfume and the annoying Toys’R’Us advert, and the slightly sexist Asda commercials, I’m not really getting into the Christmas spirit. You’d think these companies, who spend an absolute fortune on advertising could at least come up with something decent, non cringeworthy and not quite so patronising?

My last rant is about parents at school plays. LSH and I went to watch Big Girl at her school Christmas play, this week. It was of course charming, delightful. the children all did so well, (even if one child did fall off the stage, due to being very enthusiastic during a dance skit) and we were all suitably impressed by the hard work put in by the children and the teachers (who all looked like they needed a large glass of wine by the end of the performance) BUT, I have to wonder at the behaviour of some parents. I happened to get there quite early, so managed to bag two good seats, in the front of the hall, before the performance started. LSH had to take Small Boy to his child minder, so he was busy parking the car, so I was saving him a seat. One parent, came up and asked me if they could sit in the seat, I politely told them it was for my husband. I didnt expect “oh, well, WHERE am I supposed to sit? I DONT want to sit at the back, I NEED to get photos of little x in the play” as the response! Seriously? Your child is the only one in the performance who is picture worthy? Do the rest of us not want to see our children and get some pictures too? They then sat at the back, muttering and complaining all the way through. We also had a parent in the row behind us constantly sending sms’s and commenting to his wife about a business deal or some negotiations that were going on in his absence. I glowered at him at one point, but he didn’t stop. Really? You have forty-five minutes to watch your little angels perform, ONCE a year, if you can’t be away from work, and can’t switch your phone, off, I have to wonder why you bothered coming, and kept disturbing the rest of us! GRRRR!

Those are my rants for today. I’m doing the remainder of my Christmas shopping next week, and I actually have to go to the shops, which is not a prospect I’m looking forward to. I’m sure it will provide me with plenty of ranting fodder for next Friday. Have a good weekend everyone.