Wednesday certainly was All Fools’ Day for most folk in the country.
I canna mind ever having seen so many bills zooming up quite so much. In each case, I’ve tried to bring them doon a bit.
Emailed EDF in protest at my gas and lekky rocketing by £20 per month – in spite of keeping the hoose at Baltic temperatures – laying on thick aboot my peer pensioner status. Worked a treat. Reduced to £5 per month, though nae doot I’ll run into debt and hae to cough up eventually.
Changed my mobile phone from Tesco to Sky – £5 instead of £12. Also negotiated with Sky to reduce my broadband.
Canna dee onything aboot my tax rise because I canna understand a word of the explanation, but I can blame Labour for not increasing the personal tax threshold.
Then came the biggest bombshell, thanks to the nearly 10% hike in council tax, I’m now paying £315 per month – that’s WITH the 25% reduction for a single occupant.
For some cockeyed reason, my two-and-a-half bedroomed single storey bungalow in Summerhill is G, just one band awa’ fae the H mansions of Rubislaw Den.
Breaks my heart to hand ower dosh to such disastrously-led council
It particularly breaks my heart to hand ower a’ this precious dosh to such a disastrously-led council.
So I’m definitely of a mind to making a bit of a killing at the Grand National tomorrow.
I’m having the grandtoots for a couple of nights while their mum and dad make their annual jaunt to the famous event, although the greatest success they’ve had was being picked out as among the best-dressed couples.
Back home, me and the bairns pick oot a couple of horses each for them to put on for us, usually based on names we funcy, which has often worked for me when I’ve had a fling in the past.
Bosses at my second hubby’s work used to regularly invite us to race meetings. I’d never been to one before, but from the very first I absolutely adored them. Fit an atmosphere.
Hopefully I winna be daft wie my bets at tomorrow’s Grand National
Getting all dolled up to sit in a stand sipping cocktails and delicately gorging on fine nibbles. It was a particular thrill when we got invited into the parade ring, where we could see the horses up close as the jockeys mounted. Then putting our bets on with the tic-tac men by the course.
The excitement on the countdown to the off. Dad put a pucklie quid on the gee-gees at the bookie’s down the road almost every day of his retired life. I wish now I’d arranged to take him to an actual event.
Ah, but then there was my greatest loser. Lingfield one sunny afternoon when jockey Frankie Dettori was at the height of his success. Losh, fit a handsome, tanned laddie he was when I sa’ him close-up in the ring. But then, what should I spot trotting nearby but this amazingly beautiful, long-eyelashed grey, which seemed cooler and calmer than a’ the rest, as if it kint it would win.
It’s name? Leave It To Mo. Well, that was it. A clear sign. And did it actually wink at me? While a’body else piled their spondulix on Dettori, riding the favourite, I’d a rush of bleed to the heid and lashed oot £50 on my Mo at 20/1, calculating a massive £1,000 win.
As my man frothed at the moo, I insisted on my bet. Sadly, it turned oot to be a massive no for Mo, who should have been named Leave It To Tail-End Charlie.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal and started her journalism career in 1970.
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