I went out leafleting yesterday for the LibDems – didn’t have that many to do, just our road (which numbers 208 houses), but an awkward round; every house needed a magazine, but some houses also needed an individual letter. Next time, I’ll do the letters and mags separately – I’m sure it would be easier.
Rant #1 is about letterboxes – honestly, who would be a postie? Some of them are vicious, and trap your fingers gleefully. Some of them have Hounds of the Baskervilles lurking behind their flaps; I have a steel rule that I use for poking leaflets through letter boxes, and it has *teeth marks* in it from frenzied dogs. Some letter boxes are at ground level (why?), and some are vertical, and fiendishly difficult to operate when you have a stack of paper in one hand, and a bag full of more paper to handle.
And then there’s the gates – some of them just don’t open; I guess people use the alley and back gates there. Many of them have to be lifted to actually open. Some of them have sneaky little catches that delight in trapping your fingers. One house had its recycling boxes stacked in front of their front door. Honestly, I’ll be glad when this election is over!
Rant #2 concerns Hull City Council, specifically the Leisure Department. We have a nice swimming pool across the park, with a small gym attached. You can purchase what is called a Tonic Card for £22 per month, which gives unlimited access to swimming and gym, but I wasn’t sure I’d use the gym, so I bought a book of 10 swimming tickets for £25 (a saving of about six quid, I think), and I’ve used four of them.
Then I decided I would like to use the gym after all. You can’t do that until you’ve had an “induction”, which they can’t do at the local place because they have “lost their coach” (how careless). So on Saturday we trogged over to the big leisure centre and had an induction there. £12 each to show us how to use machines that are *not the same* as the ones at Beverley Road. No blood pressure test or any sort of chance to actually use the machines, so about as much use as a chocolate teapot. But still – I have my card.
Can I part exchange my remaining swimming tickets towards a Tonic Card? No. I have to pay a casual charge of £3.60 per session. Well, I guess I can live with that. Except you can’t use the gym before 9 a.m. unless you have a Tonic Card, and that’s the time of day I like to use the gym.
I feel an e-mail coming on.
Hah – leaflets, your experience is what has me NOT rushing to volounteer for our local guy, after the fun and games I had trying to feed leaflets to get ADSL enabeld back then… it’s four years or more since and I still rememner which house doesn’t appear to HAVE a front door, which ones have the silly brushes in the letter box to prevent you inserting letters… 🙁
It’s the ground level ones I hate, especially when you’re already tired, but those bloody brushes come a close second. My technique is to fold the leaflet so I can use a flat hand to jam in through the letterbox and as an added bonus it takes first hit from the teeth when the dog strikes. Been there, done that, not got bitten yet although some leaflets have.
But the letterboxes themselves can be vicious bastards: one of our councillors ended up needing a dressing on his fingers after getting caught by something sharp in the letterbox last election.