15 November 2023 (Wednesday) - Floods, Car Service

The Old Bill flew down our street at twenty past two last night with sirens blazing. I didn’t think they were supposed to have those on in the small hours? I then lay awake for much of the rest of the night.
I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there, but for once not a lot was going on. I sent out four birthday messages, and each time Facebook warned me that the birthday video I send out hadn’t been fact-checked. There are those who worry that AI will take over the world… it may well do but not out of any sort of malevolence, but through random actions from frankly idiotic programming.
 
I popped the leads onto the dogs and we drove over to the garage where the car was booked in for a service. As we drove Michael Howard (the ex-leader of the Conservative party and Folkestone MP) was being interviewed about the sacking of Suella Braverman who has written a rather damning letter to the Prime Minister following her sacking a couple of days ago. For all the hot air being blown out of the radio this morning, it will all be forgotten in a week or so.
 
We got to the garage, dropped off the car and walked home. The walk wasn’t one of our best ones; the lead brings out the worst in Morgan. He was pulling for over half the way; pulling hard enough to be walking on his hind legs for quite a bit. I wish he wouldn’t. When we see another dog in the woods when he is off the lead he just sniffs and walks past. Today there were two episodes of barking and snarling. As I apologised to the other dog walkers they smiled and said that their dogs are the same. Fine off the lead; a nightmare on it.
We had to take a minor diversion as we came home. The underpass under the railway at Asda was flooded. I can remember it flooding when I used to cycle under there to where I used to work in the early nineties, and thirty years later nothing has been done. I’ve sent my local councillor an email about it. I wonder if she will do anything.
 
Once home I raked up the leaves that were littering the lawn. There is a *huge* sycamore tree four gardens down the road and every autumn our garden fills with its leaves. And with leaves raked I sat on the sofa with the dogs and wrote up some CPD, failed to solve a geo-puzzle about cabbage, and watched the last three episodes of “Silo”. Then I had a look on Wikipedia to see what “Silo” was all about. Despite having killed off the lead character, a second season is being made. Mind you killing off lead characters has never been an issue ti telly programmes before, has it?
With all the dogs on top of me on the sofa and all of us very comfortable I didn’t go to bed for the afternoon. I just pulled a blanket over the top of us all and we dozed for a couple of hours until the car was ready.
 
Having walked two and a half miles coming home from the garage this morning we walked another two and a half miles back there, taking care to avoid the flood at Asda.
It was good to get the car back; not so good to spend out a couple of hundred quid though. But that’s the “joy” of having a car. With a sixty-mile round trip to work every day I need a car on which I can rely.
 
“er indoors ^TM” is planning to go deploy a Golden Carrot (it’s a Munzee thing). Hopefully she’s planning to cook my dinner too. And once I’ve scoffed it (if I get any!) I’m off to the night shift. I can’t say that I’m keen on the idea, but I rarely ever am.