Last night one of the dogs curled up on the bed at my feet. You would think that was rather nice, but that dog then grumbled and growled every time I moved the slightest amount. Eventually I tired of the grumbling and got up. Bearing in mind yesterday’s disaster U used the torch on my phone to check for errant turds rather than walking in the darkness.
I made myself a bowl of granola (I’d forgotten we had the stuff) then watched Netflix. “Alien Worlds” is a sort-of documentary about how life might evolve on other planets. I’d been meaning to watch it for some time. I settled down to find out all about the fictitious skygrazers on the equally fictitious plant of Atlas only to find that Fudge had got up and didn’t like skygrazers. I think it was the noise they made, but he growled at them quite impressively. He only stopped growling when Sid dropped a turd whilst straining to climb the dog-ladder (we have a ladder to help the dogs get on to the sofa). At that point Fudge ran upstairs so that he didn’t get the blame.
I had a little rummage round Facebook but it wasn't long before I saw comments saying that the motorway was still closed. So not wanting to spend much of the morning stuck in traffic I got myself ready and set off to work.
Sure enough the motorway was still closed.
I took the A20 to work. The A20 is a standard A-road, but I was amazed at the amount of half-wit drivers who treated it as a motorway in that they expected it to have more than one carriageway in each direction, and found themselves driving head-on at oncoming traffic (i.e. me).
As I drove the radio was interesting. At this time of year the morning news program has guest editors. Today's guest editor was Prue Leith (of "Bake-Off" fame) who had told them that the news articles had to be factual news - *not* unfounded speculation. Those presenting made no secret that sticking to known facts and avoiding unfounded speculation was difficult and seriously cut down that which they could say.
Doubly so this morning with a Brexit deal being strongly rumoured.
I'd not brought lunch; I thought I might get a sandwich when I got petrol this morning. I eventually got to the Sainsbury's filling station in Ayleford where they had three sandwiches left. Three! I asked the woman behind the till if they were deliberately running the stock down for Christmas; she laughed and said those were the left-overs. All of their sandwiches for today were on a lorry stuck in a traffic jam somewhere.
I got to work and found myself reflecting on the first Christmas Eve that I worked as a professional blood tester back in Hastings. It was very different to how today went. Back then the hospital was pretty much emptied of patients on the run-up to Christmas. There would only be a handful of in-patients where usually there were hundreds. (Who wants to spend Christmas in a hospital?) All of the GP surgeries were closed for Christmas back then as well. We would have maybe ten percent (at most) of our usual workload. We would spend the first hour of the day setting up the analysers as we did every day (and still do), and then we would go for a tea break... where the beer flowed. We would drink ourselves silly until mid-day when (leaving management running the show) we would walk from the old Royal East Sussex Hospital to French's in Robertson Street where we would carry on drinking. At about three o'clock in the afternoon we would get a pang of guilt about having left the boss working all on her own and would all stagger back to work where we would find that she had long since gone home, and the night shift (which back then was from five o'clock in the afternoon) had started early.
Over the years things rather calmed down as hospitals became more and more busy. A day on the beer became a long lunchtime with a couple of pints and going home early. And that became a half of shandy over lunch... Eventually hospitals stopped winding down for Christmas... and today was pretty much just the same as any other day at work.
Such a shame...
It is also a shame that today was supposed to have been my last ever Christmas Eve at work as I should have been retiring in less than nine months’ time... but that is a rant that has been done to death.
I did my bit which today in a very un-seasonal way featured malaria and leukaemia, and I got a date for my COVID-19 jab (next week) as well.
And the traffic chaos which had made for a closed motorway this morning was still there and made for a closed motorway this evening. Thousands of drivers are in for a rather dull Christmas…
And here’s the last Advent adventure... of this year at least….
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