Sorry, I've used already this section for one rant recently so it doesn't really seem fair to have another, but I'm just soooooo angry.
OH has Man Flu - this is not the reason for the rant, though it probably should be - as a result our dogs haven't been getting their usual yomp through the woods and instead I've been taking them to the local park and chucking them a ball about until they're tired. We have three parks locally, two are conventional ones with flower-beds, kids' play-areas etc and one is just a big grassed area with hills, banks and a few paths and this is the one I take the dogs to. This, for some inexplicable reason, is also the only one which has a park-keeper living in a little house by the gate.
Today as I was walking in, a couple of girls aged 12/13 or so were riding their ponies along the path. At which point Parkie emerges from his house and starts screeching at them about how it is illegal for them to take their horses through the park, to get out, to never come-back, they are barred even without their ponies, that he will report them........ The girls mumbled an apology and left. I didn't say anything because I thought it was up to their parents, but as I walked on I wished I'd at least given the girls my phone number in case they needed someone to back-up their story. He really was going way over the top, especially as they seemed very polite but shy young girls who did not answer back, but who did seem mortified. I also grew increasingly angry; not only would a quiet word of explanation have done, but this is the same park-keeper who, presumably, becomes stone-deaf after about 6pm, because that's when the park is inundated by youths on dirt-bikes who make the place unusable for anyone else and who are allowed to make vast areas of it into a mud bath.
I still wouldn't have done anything, but on the way out he had collared some old chap and was proudly telling him how he had 'sorted out' the girls. At this point I told the little oik exactly what I thought of him. His only reply was: 'I just hope you've cleaned up after those dogs, that's all!' I did have the satisfaction of swinging a plastic bag containing a couple of world-class dog turds in front of his face, but I'm still fuming.
OH has Man Flu - this is not the reason for the rant, though it probably should be - as a result our dogs haven't been getting their usual yomp through the woods and instead I've been taking them to the local park and chucking them a ball about until they're tired. We have three parks locally, two are conventional ones with flower-beds, kids' play-areas etc and one is just a big grassed area with hills, banks and a few paths and this is the one I take the dogs to. This, for some inexplicable reason, is also the only one which has a park-keeper living in a little house by the gate.
Today as I was walking in, a couple of girls aged 12/13 or so were riding their ponies along the path. At which point Parkie emerges from his house and starts screeching at them about how it is illegal for them to take their horses through the park, to get out, to never come-back, they are barred even without their ponies, that he will report them........ The girls mumbled an apology and left. I didn't say anything because I thought it was up to their parents, but as I walked on I wished I'd at least given the girls my phone number in case they needed someone to back-up their story. He really was going way over the top, especially as they seemed very polite but shy young girls who did not answer back, but who did seem mortified. I also grew increasingly angry; not only would a quiet word of explanation have done, but this is the same park-keeper who, presumably, becomes stone-deaf after about 6pm, because that's when the park is inundated by youths on dirt-bikes who make the place unusable for anyone else and who are allowed to make vast areas of it into a mud bath.
I still wouldn't have done anything, but on the way out he had collared some old chap and was proudly telling him how he had 'sorted out' the girls. At this point I told the little oik exactly what I thought of him. His only reply was: 'I just hope you've cleaned up after those dogs, that's all!' I did have the satisfaction of swinging a plastic bag containing a couple of world-class dog turds in front of his face, but I'm still fuming.
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