I BLAME the season why I ended up not having a wrap at a service station and had a burger instead.

There is something about this window of year that makes me crave fried onions.

Harkback to childhood I expect where you had hot dogs and greasy onions and fireworks (although I can forego the fireworks these days as our little dog is absolutely traumatised by them).

But there has to be a word for when you have a choice of two dishes, pick one and wish you had picked the other. Anyway, I picked the much-famed Gordon Ramsay Wagyu burger and cheesy chips.

The chips were so hard they offered me outside and a hard chip against a tooth is a shuddering experience. And the burger might have been all right had there not been the sacrilege of SWEET FRIED ONIONS. Nooooo. Not just sweet, but they wouldn’t have been out of a place in a meringue.

What is this fad for caramelised onions? Just give us ordinary ones and supply it with a sachet of sugar for those who want that sort of sweet tripe. I realise there are far bigger problems in the world than a duff choice in a service station, but… lesson learned. Then I find out that GR didn’t even develop it, he just got paid a load of brass to help sell it. Fell for that hype didn’t I? Mind you, it did look pretty.

Hats off to the team who cleared up the boating lake that was Horizon school car park this week after the burst water main.

You can’t tell it ever happened and it really was a mess – they worked wonders and so quickly. I imagine though that schoolchildren aren’t as impressed. When a disaster happens to your school, isn’t it the worst possible timing for it to occur early doors in the holidays. We could all dredge up our inner schoolchild and feel the disappointment of that.

A little plea from the mother of a pal who is having problems getting to her local newspaper shop in Poggy.

Please, drivers, when you pull in on pavements, remember that prams and mobility scooters can’t use those pavements if you do and it is too frightening for them to have to go into the road and try and circumvent your vehicle. The pavements are there for them, not you. And yep – we’ve all been guilty of that before we thought about it.

Someone had a pop at me this week on Facebook for having a hardback book out because it’s too heavy for her to hold and so she can’t possibly buy it.

She seemed most affronted when I said, ‘Don’t buy it then’. She held me personally responsible for the publishing schedule because the paperback (that presumably she can hold) isn’t out until next Christmas.

I did suggest a Kindle or audio, but she doesn’t do those. How dare the world not revolve around her needs. You would have thought after the Covid years that people would be kinder, calmer, more grateful to have a semblance of normality back, but no.

Anyway, I blocked the old moaner and felt liberated. ‘Do not engage’ is my new mantra. An acquired skill, but well worth learning to acquire – you should try it.

Maybe time for some cameras at Penny Pie Park given the speed some idiot in a red car was doing last Sunday morning.

You could hear the car roaring from Sheffield. There’s not a chance he could have braked if he’d needed to. But maybe the police should think about filming what goes on at that roundabout. Just a thought.