The Fabler Groder Trail

by John Passmore

At the COP last month I was able to announce that this business had done one significant thing for me – it had allowed us to give up one of our guestrooms and now all the children have their own bedrooms.

What this also means is that everybody has moved bedrooms and we’re now living in chaos with piles of clothes on floors, books stacked in the living room…

The solution is a lot more furniture and so today I headed up the A12 to IKEA with the list.

Now everybody knows there is no such thing as a quick trip to IKEA so talking to six people today was going to have to fit round it. To help myself off to a good start I collected a couple of mobile numbers on the road and sent them texts when I arrived - along with another two to the owners of vans I found in the car park.

And then I went to work: First on the IKEA list was something called a Fabler Groda. I had no idea what it might look like - only that it was to be found in the children’s department. But, amazingly, I did find an assistant.

And once we’d dealt with the Fabler Groder, I was able to look shyly at her waistline and say: “I’m taking a big chance but am I right in thinking that you’ll be shopping in the children’s department soon?”

“Already do, “ she said. “I’ve got one at home already.”

“Really? Would you like me to tell you how you can get paid to stay at home with your children. It takes about 30 seconds.”

“All right,” she said. “How?”

One down. Now I needed some calls back from the texts. But as I collected the book cases and the table and loaded them into the car, the phone stayed silent. In desperation I wandered over to a man waiting by a pile of boxes while his wife fetched the car: “Hi, since you’re waiting here, I thought you might like to take 30 seconds to find out how to pay for it all.”

“How’s that then?”

So I told him.

He looked back at me with a slightly pitying gaze: “I don’t mean to be funny mate but I’m not interested.”

“That’s fine. Nice to talk to you.”

Two down.

Next I went to the restaurant for my ritual helping of meatballs. I turned to the man behind me: “I always give one of these to the person behind me in the queue. It’s about making money.”

“What’s this?” he asked unfolding the piece of paper. So I told him.

Three

Then the woman who took my money for the pickled herrings and gravad lax was very patient when I entered my PIN too soon.

“You’re very patient.” I told her. “Is it a long day for you? Would you like me to tell you how you can get paid without going out to work?”

By the time I left at 2.30 p.m. I had spoken to four people and three of them had given me their names, phone numbers and email addresses. Mind you, I was still two short.

But then, walking across the car park, I happened to see another two vans with mobile numbers. Out came the phone.

It took one of them five minutes to get back to me and the other about half an hour. But both of them wanted to know more.

All six done in good time and five ticks in the book.

But just to set myself up for tomorrow, I sent texts to the drivers of three vans I passed on the way home.

And then it turned out that Tamsin had found the phone number for her new friend the presiding officer. They had spent the day together running a village Polling Station on election day and it turned out that the presiding officer was doing her bit for democracy only party for reasons of public duty – the other attraction was some extra money.

“You ought to talk to my husband,” Tamsin told her.

You know there might be a distributor there – and I’m not talking about the Presiding Officer!