I felt grim when I went to bed last night; I
chirped up a bit overnight, but was still wide awake far too early. I made
toast and watched an episode of "Peep Show" which was rather
entertaining, then had a little look at the Internet. It was much the same as
it always was, and probably always will be.
I took a few moments to
find what I'd done with my trousers (they vanish if left unsupervised!)
and set off.
I was rather hacked off
to find a huge parking space outside the house; yesterday I'd had to park two
streets away as there was nowhere closer to leave the car. It was rather cold
and wet as I wandered off to find the car. I have a minor issue in that I often
forget where I leave my car and have to wander the local streets searching for
it. On more than one occasion I've had passing friends tell me where they've
seen it. I don't mind the walk, but I'd rather be sure of where I have to walk
to.
I voomed round town
capping Points of Interest (as Munzers do) then headed off up the
motorway.
The motorway was rather
busy today, and as is so often the case was frankly dangerous with all the cars
being forced into the fast lane with a stream of lorries moving at forty-five
miles per hour in the slow lane, and enough lorries in the middle lane (moving
at forty-six miles per hour) to bung it up.
As I drove the pundits
on the radio were talking about the Horizon
scandal in which hundreds of post office workers had been falsely convicted
(and sent to prison) because of the failings of an IT system. Am I being
cynical in wondering if the only reason the politicians are up in arms about it
is because ITV have just screened
a documentary about it. Had ITV broadcast something about tits and bingo,
the general public would have remained utterly oblivious. Wouldn't they?
And the Americans were blasting
off to the Moon again. Mind you, when I say "the Americans",
it is a private American company which is sending up the probe. Space travel is
something that NASA is farming out to private enterprise more and more. Here's
a thought... if this trend continues, when humanity becomes established in
space it won't be countries calling the shots up there. It will be private
companies. Countries are (supposedly) democratic. For all its faults,
democracy in theory holds the leaders accountable to the public. Since when
have the managers of any commercial company been accountable to its employees.
The future of humanity may well be tyrannies and despotism that would make
Hitler and Genghis Khan look like preferable options.
Work was work. As I
looked out at a rather bleak and wet morning I saw the sleet and snow. As the
morning went on we had various weather reports from all over the county. Most
places had snow to some degree. The snow started in Maidstone shortly after nine
o'clock and was still off-and-on six hours later, with a particularly black sky
at half past one.
I was reminded of one
particularly thick woman with whom I used to work twenty years ago who was
terrified of snow, and would drop everything and go home at the slightest
suggestion of the stuff. Several of us used to have a great game by standing
within earshot of her and commenting that the weather forecast predicted snow
in the next few hours. Invariably she would immediately run off home (without
looking at either weather forecasts or the actual weather), and the next
day have a major argument with her manager about why she’d walked out because
of the snow that never happened. Eventually the manager realised what we were
up to and ironically we were the ones who ended up in trouble.
I messaged Gordon who'd
said he was planning to walk that new geo-series near Biggin Hill today. He'd
started before the sleet started and so was carrying on with the walk. It was
far too cold and wet and muddy to be walking for five hours today. Wasn't it?
So why was I wishing I was out there with him?
Being on the early
shift I got out early, but didn’t get home early. Usually I can get home in
about forty-five minutes after an early shift. It took that long to drive the
mile and a half to the motorway today. There’s road works in Hermitage Lane.
Well… when I say “road works” there’s traffic lights round a fenced-off
area in which precious little seems to be happening.
I got home and found I
had an email… I’ve been trying to organise a geocaching CITO in Kings Wood. The
idea is that a dozen or so of us go up there, have a little litter-pick, have a
picnic and come home. Having been emailing them on and off for a couple of
months they now want “a comprehensive risk assessment” and a written
assurance that we will take home any litter we find. I can take a hundred
family and friends up there and trash the place and that’s fine. But I try to
get a few people together to do them a favour and they are bending over
backwards to make things difficult. I’ll find somewhere else to have a tidy-up.
With “er indoors TM” off bowling I
thought I might watch a film on Netflix. There is so much on there that looks
rather good when I am flicking through. When I want to watch something it all
looks like tripe. I settled for a film called “The Rise”.
Featuring “Barry” from “Auf Wiedersehn Pet” and “Lip” from
“Shameless” it was something of a disappointment.
I wonder if it is still snowing?
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