From our local newspaper this week!

The headline runs – Battery ban for naughty gnome, and tells of a local pensioner who was reported to police because she had, amongst others in her garden , a plastic gnome that wolf whistled whenever anyone walked by!

The garden has had flowerbeds removed to be replaced with stone chippings  and the gnomes arranged around it to “add a bit of colour” as apparently the 79 year-old does not like flowers. However,  she was not best pleased at having had a complaint about her whistling gnome.  Her son said he “thought they (the police) had better things to do than clamping down on garden gnomes.”  They have  now been advised to remove the sensor batteries as they cause a disturbance.  The son said he “didn’t think it (the gnome) made much noise”,  but the neighbours have got fed up with it and so the batteries are to remain out!  I would love to refer you to the paper’s website but I’m afraid it is a week behind and the stories are not yet available.  Don’t know when it is updated!

Another story in the paper this week centres on the start of a new school year in Peebles.  School resumed a week or so ago, and alongside photographs the reporter has written – “Teachers at ……….  School have been left seeing double at the start of the new term.  This year two sets of twins make up the new influx of Primary 1 kids all set to start a new chapter in their lives.”   Seeing double?  The twins are called Callum and Laura, and Liam and Erin!  Yes, each set does look alike but hey, they are mixed sex twins!  Seeing double implies two identical images, does it not, so has the reporter got bad eyesight or something?  Coincidentally in the “Recruitment” pages this week, there is a vacancy for a reporter on this very newspaper.  (I hope the new recruit can tell the difference between boy and girl twins"!)

Talk again soon.