The Landlady on landmarks and mistaken identity

After four months of working in the shop on The Pier, I am just about getting to grips with the odd conversations one becomes involved with and the regulars who come into the shop. But just as I’m getting used to it, The Big Daughter is coming back from her travels and will be wanting the job back, as I’ve only been holding it for her while she’s been away.

You get asked the strangest questions working on The Pier, never mind witnessing some very odd sights. There is someone who can be relied upon to come in the same time every week, in order to purchase exactly the same items each time, in Groundhog Day fashion.

The other day, man came in, pointed to the East, and asked if those were the White Cliffs of Dover he could see in the distance. I told him those would probably be the White Cliffs of Peacehaven, being as the White Cliffs of Dover are situated at least 60 miles further East. He looked at me blankly and said, “But they’re still the White Cliffs of Dover, right?” Unwilling to discuss the geographical dimensions of the South East coast, I just let it slide in a non-committal fashion and the man went away thinking that I was a dim local, still smugly satisfied that he’d seen the White Cliffs of Dover…

“Unwilling to discuss the geographical dimensions of the South East coast, I just let it slide”

Although I will still be doing the hours that The Big Daughter can’t be bothered to do, I will not be doing half as many hours as I have been, and I have to admit that I will miss the money, as I don’t seem to have any left! I will be living on my overdraft, which hasn’t happened since about 1992. Of course I know that my own personal financial crisis is probably down to the fact that I’ve been drinking The Lion & Lobster dry, going on holiday every month for the past six years, never mind buying a house in Turkey last year. Still, knowing where the money’s gone doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have any. I have a queue of jobs that need doing to the inhospitable sieve that is Landlady Towers and will have to save in order to pay for them to be done.

Luckily, in the wake of the recent weather, my builder’s been so busy that he won’t get round to me until the end of February, by which time I should have scraped together the necessary funds. In the meantime though, me and my friend B are going off to Cuba next week on a flight that was booked prior to my financial crisis. I can’t help wondering if I would have been wiser to have booked a weekend on the White Cliffs of Peacehaven…