15 April 2025 (Tuesday) - A Day At Work

I didn’t really sleep very well last night. I gave up trying to sleep shortly before six o’clock, gave up and got up.
I didn’t fancy watching the telly today; I made toast and had a look at a rather dull internet. Very little had happened overnight really. There were also rants about water bills and how unfair it is that what we pay goes into some holding account which then pays our water bills later, and in the meantime the water company makes profit on the interest. My water bill has gone up by almost forty per cent, and my leccie and gas bill has gone up by ten percent as well. They run a similar payment plan. Maybe I should see if I’m in that sort of scheme and cut back on what I’m paying?
 
I Munzed, checked Google maps for my journey to work, and taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for the off. It was raining as I left for work. Oh well - the car needed a wash. Pausing only briefly to get some petrol I set off west-wards through the -hursts and the -dens and the traffic lights to Tunbridge Wells. 
 
As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about an interview with American vice-president Vance who sees the chances of a UK-US trade deal as being rather good. I don't doubt he does; most commentators seem to think that US fiscal policy has blown up in their faces as they simply don't understand how finance works. I can't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I'm willing to learn. Take for example something President Trump has been very vocal about recently - the US's balance of trade with many smaller countries.
If you sell your toaster to your next door neighbour for a tenner and then buy his car for a thousand pounds, there's a trade imbalance in theory. However in practice if both sides are happy with the deal, what's the issue. Where's the sense in forcing unwanted transactions just so the amount of money going each way stays the same?
If I can understand that and explain it in less than a minute, it is rather worrying that the leader of the free world can't seem to.
 
I eventually got to work. I always say that I quite like working at Pembury but I hate going there. Some see that as a contradiction in terms, but it is spot-on. I like working there, but the journey leaves a lot to be desired. There weren't that many sets of temporary traffic lights this morning compared to what I usually face, but as always there wasn't anyone actually working where the traffic was being held up. And again no one had any patience at the traffic bottlenecks at Sissinghurst and Goudhurst church.
What Google told me would take fifty minutes was well over an hour.
 
But I got to work and did my bit, and for all that the rain had stopped the journey home again took a lot longer than Google would have me believe.
Once home we did the “Feed The Fish” ritual – my water irises are flowering… if water irises is what they are. If not, something else is flowering.
 
I can’t say that I worked especially hard today, but the novelty of working has definitely worn off.

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