Musings – Page 2 – onetruekev

Back To Bed

Last week was a bit of a culture shock after 18 days off, it was back to work. The National Lottery e-mails have been conspicuous by their absence. We did go out for a walk on our last day of freedom, and easy amble up to Tilgate Park and a lap around the lake. Lots of people had the same idea despite the dull day, and the car parks were all full. They have finished their work around the lake, and although being a couple of feet lower down than it used to be, they was no wire fences hiding the blue plaque to Donald Campbell.

I eased into the week with working from home on the Tuesday, spending all day catching up on rubbish e-mails, including morons chasing for answers before I’m even back in. FFS people, read the fucking out of office. Thursday morning was frosty. A deep deep frost. Even after using a few bottles of lukewarm water the windscreen still needed the ice scraper being busted out. But with a clear sky, the colours on the horizon as I drove down to Hove were glorious. But by the time I was heading home the rain had returned, and it hasn’t let up much since.

To celebrate surviving the first week (yes, even if it was only a three-day week), we went out for a meal Thursday night to the Royal Thai Taste. It was a nice meal, but when the bill turned up, I was somewhat shocked to read their address, especially where it said after the word Crawley – LONDON. They whipped that away before I could keep it or take a photo of it, but seriously people, there’s a whole fucking county between Crawley and London.

We had been to Ikea over the holidays before New Year and ordered a new mattress and headboard as Christmas presents to ourselves. They delivered early on Friday morning. The mattress was a lot heavier than we thought it would be, and it was a struggle to get it up the stairs, and around the corner into the bedroom, having to stop on each step, and also to take some of the framed maps down before the mattress knocked them down. Then I managed to make a pig’s ear of putting them back up, managing to slip and slice the side of my right thumb open. That would make it awkward to do a lot of things all weekend.

Having got the new mattress (and some new pillows) it makes me realise just how shot the old mattress had got and how uncomfortable it had become. Getting out of bed is going to be a lot harder now the bed is so comfortable.

The rain stopped long enough for us to get a six mile walk in Friday afternoon. Even the concrete paths were muddy with all the rain. We had been back in less than five minutes before it became torrential out there again. It was still raining, persistently, when I went to writing group on Saturday morning, and still when I came out nearly four hours later. I needed to get a few bits in town, but it was like paddling in the sea. The whole town centre was a puddle. The grass in the memorial park was looking like paddy fields.

After coming out of Poundland (where I went a bit mad on their replay CDs – just the 27 of them) there was a break in the rain, which I celebrated by getting an ice cream. As I passed County Mall, I got the impression that they aren’t really Mr Current Affairs, declaring that if you need easy parking use their car park as it gives direct entry to Debenhams. Which has been closed for going on six months.

Crawley were away, to Northampton Town, who were second in the league, but their better form carried on and we got a somewhat surprise away win and headed into the top half of the table.

We had a tip slot booked this morning, to get rid of the old mattress. It’s certainly a lot easier getting an older, lighter mattress downstairs than dragging a heavy new one up them. We even managed to get it folded up into the back of the car and dump a load of other stuff on top. It almost jumped out of the car by itself when it came to taking it out at the tip. Shopping followed and some radio listening at home, but it brought a couple of stupid random thoughts to mind.

Why would anyone use poo to wash their hair? Especially when it is sham poo, it’s not even as if it’s real poo is it?

Then Simon Mayo was on, but I really do think it is time that he was upgraded to become Simon Salad Cream instead.

And now I’m watching the last games of the NFL regular season. The 49ers need to win to guarantee playoff action. Or the Saints to lose. It isn’t going well in the first half; we are playing like a group of uncoordinated school children. If this carries on, then the only way we are going to have a chance to win would be to return to school children’s rules. Get to the end of the game and say, “next score wins.” Plus, the Saints are easily winning. To be fair playing like this we don’t deserve to reach the playoffs and if by some miracle we did there is a thrashing awaiting.

PS, the miracle may well be on, they appear to be a different team in the second half.

It Just Popped Into My Head

I do get a lot of that, random things popping into my head. A lot are triggered from things I see or hear, and there are a lot that are related to random song lyrics. But occasionally it’s things I type that triggers it.

One such instance was today when I was putting a note on a piece of work I was doing. I meant to type payroll, but having fat finger syndrome I typed paytroll instead. And now all I can think about is the whole payroll team sitting under bridges hurling abuse at people. To be fair, it’s probably not a lot different from how they are in real life.

We went away to Bristol for the weekend, had a couple of days wandering around sightseeing, but it was mainly to collect Marta and all her stuff from her flat there before she flies off to America to live with Ciaran.

I think you could spend a week in Bristol and not really get around to see everything it has to offer, but a week’s worth of dealing with Bristol people would probably send us completely around the twist.

Overheard as we sat having dinner on Friday night from a group sat somewhere behind me was the statement “I worked seven hours that day, it was a really long day”, God forbid they do a normal day of eight hours then. “Yes, that’s terrible” was the reply. Apparently the twenty-six-hour week they are doing is far too many hours, and they don’t get paid enough to make it worth doing any more hours. The mind boggles, it really does.

We went for a curry (as we do anywhere we are for more than a few hours). It looked as if it was going to be one of those deserted places where we would be the only people in there. But then the boys’ night out turned up. And by boys we mean they had the mentality of schoolboys. Fifty and sixty-year-old schoolboys. I could feel my IQ dropping by osmosis being in the same room as them.

I saw some movement behind me, and it looked as if it was a child, but it turned out to be a dwarf Deliveroo driver. I didn’t see them properly, but worked this out by the fact the boys’ table mentioned Warwick Davis and Tyrion whilst giggling.

The drive over on Thursday night had gone well, just under three hours with a stop for food. The journey back wasn’t as great. There were roadworks on the M4 which had three lanes going down to one. With the added bonus of it being just after a services so there would be a lane of traffic coming out of there. Only there were two lanes coming out of there (making their own lanes, just like driving in Cyprus), so it was five lanes into one. Being made worse by all the smart arses flying down the hard shoulder into the services to “jump ahead”, only to come to a grinding halt on the slip road because of the other five hundred idiots doing the same thing. But the award for twat of the day went to the Chrysler driver. I thought I was seeing things when there were headlights coming towards me down the in slip road of the services. But no, going the wrong way and causing speeding morons going the other way to swerve out of the way was a real plonker, who got to the chevrons and then tried to drive into the near stationary traffic sideways, eventually doing a twenty-three point turn to force their way in. Over an hour and a half, for quarter of a mile of cones with three men in the last twenty yards of it.

Whilst in Bristol we ended up wandering around St Nicholas’ Market. And in contrast to what I wrote about in my last missive

Where Have All The Sevens Gone?

there are some seven-inch singles about. As although I didn’t stop and browse through them, I did notice there were three different record stalls, and all had boxes of sevens on them.

Sniffles has been affecting a limp and a red-looking eye for a week of so. Helen had a vet’s appointment booked for last Thursday afternoon, but Sniffles – showing a sixth sense to make up for the other five he is lacking – did a runner when the bloke came round to clean the gutters and was nowhere to be found when it was appointment time, turning up for food a minute (yes to the minute) after the vet closed. Eventually got another appointment for him only for there to be nothing wrong with the pest. The trip in the cat carrier of doom should hopefully chill his jets for a while.

Crawley Town’s last league game got postponed because of international call ups. Not Crawley players obviously, but Swindon Town’s. Still think Crawley would only qualify for any international games if there was a European Sewer League (for shit teams only).

Had a writing session in Brighton this evening. I get there and the bloke who runs the Book Makers shop had just finished a portion of chips. Then the woman who is running the session gets there and announces she’s off to get a portion of chips as well. There is a Belgian frites shop two doors away, and it might have seemed tempting apart from, first I was never a fan of chips, and secondly, I’m now off all potatoes since The Station debacle. I did nip in there though, but only because I could see they were selling bottles of Pepsi.

I have moaned before about how much I hate the Cinch adverts. Well they’ve been raising their game recently to make them even more annoying, having added the quote to them of “cinched it”. Seriously, just fuck off with this shite now.

I’ve also found that I’m not great at watching Crime / Thriller / mystery series a second time through. Not because I don’t enjoy doing so, but because if you are doing so because someone else is watching it for the first time, it is amazingly difficult not to sit there flagging up all the subtle things you notice in the early episodes that explain the outcome of the series, that become obvious pointers now I know the outcome. Blinkers and headphones are probably needed, or a gag.

Having been listening to the Now Yearbook 1984, I was off looking for other tracks by artists on there, knowing that I used to have albums by a lot of them. What I found is that I missed out on transferring those albums from record to MP3, and so I’m missing anything apart from the odd track from compilations of a few bands. So, today’s little list is five eighties bands who are seriously underrated and who I now need to find some downloads for.

Carmel
Was (Not Was)
Matt Bianco
Echo & The Bunnymen
Shakatak

Driving Myself Crazy

Yes, I’m back to moaning about driving. I’m well known for hating driving, but it has to be said that commuting to the Hove office has made me more comfortable in driving. However, Thursday morning was a real pain in the arse. I did leave the house expecting to need a Bond style car with underwater additions (think the Lotus Esprit from “The Spy Who Loved Me”) with the torrential rain that had hammered it down during the night. I didn’t need that, but it was water that was causing me issues.

Instead of five minutes, it took an hour to get from the house to being on the main A23 at Pease Pottage. The usual slow traffic due to roadworks at the Broadfield stadium roundabout being added to by the fact the entrance to the north bound M23 at Pease Pottage was closed. So, nothing from Crawley or coming over from Horsham could get on the M23, so were going around the roundabout and ending up coming back through Crawley to get on further north. Yet they hadn’t closed the road where it turns from the A23 to M23, so anything from further south was able to get on without any issues. (The M23 had been completely closed during the night due to flooding and crashes).

Therefore, I was an hour later getting to Hove, and the main junction over the Old Shoreham Road down to the level crossing was chaos. The level crossing was down, and traffic was backed up. This didn’t stop morons from the west turning in and ending up sat on the box junction, then those heading north couldn’t get past and blocked the junction some more. Those heading east added to the blockage, and those heading south and west finished the job. Not one of the imbeciles understands the concept of a box junction.

I was finally able to get around the corner and headed down to cut over the railway along Olive Road, only for an idiot taxi driver to have abandoned his vehicle on the turn off. So, it took nearly two hours to get to work instead of forty minutes.

The evening saw a writing session in Brighton. Having been stung £12 for less than two hours parking at a previous session, I caught the bus. It was good to relax and be able to look – properly look at the buildings. I’m always looking up when not driving, seeing the ages and styles of buildings much better away from the ship fronts. Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Deco, and Brutalist all wedged in against each other.

Whenever I did look down, mainly to contrast the glass and metal shop fronts with the older upper floors, I am confronted by regular piles of rubbish, on the pavements or piled up in the road instead. I didn’t know until one of my colleagues mentioned it earlier in the week that the Brighton and Hove binmen are on strike.

It seems incongruous, the piles of mainly black bags (with the odd white, or blue, or yellow, or green) ones in there and with many split to be stacked up as an eyesore against the many grand buildings on the other side of the rubbish strewn pavements.

There are few ugly buildings on the journey. The Co-op being the one that springs to mind immediately, as does most of Waitrose. The corner of Waitrose you see first on approach from the west looks like another of the grand curved frontages of regency houses along the route, but the rest is a mess of mixed pebbledash and brick in no single style, which seems a shame.

The workshop was on something called mass observation – which is quite an interesting concept, but there were two different explanations of what mass observation is that sprang to my mind (neither match the correct version, which is worth looking up and reading about). First, I thought about little aliens coming to Earth and their first interaction with humans is watching a Catholic high mass. Secondly, since mass is weight, and therefore mass observation is weight watchers!

At least there was no reason to get up really early on Friday, but the radio was playing when “Dare” came on with the dulcet tones of Shaun Ryder, and it led to an interesting stream of consciousness conversation. We’ve been watching the greatest hits of the 90’s series, and he’s been on looking like a Gollum headed weirdo. Helen asked about Happy Monday albums (had they done any), and so I rattled some off. “Bummed” got a laugh, but “Squirrel and G Man Twenty-Four Hour Party People, Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)” reminded me of Manchester days and Surerandomality as it gave the aliases to two of us. Then of course there was the last album they did at the time, the one that bankrupted Factory Records “Yes Please!”

From there it jumped to the film Twenty-Four Hour Party People, where Steve Coogan played former Factory Records boss Tony Wilson. And the fact that Peter Hook commented on the casting with the quote, “It’s about the biggest cunt in Manchester played by the second biggest cunt in Manchester”, which always makes me laugh. With Coogan in camera, it moved onto the fact that his Partridge act is ruined forever by the fact that Richard Madeley is on GMB on a regular basis nowadays and out Partridge-ing anything Coogan could come up with.

This week he’d berated a young woman (who was on talking about having her drink spiked on a night out) about watching her drink at all times. The Twitter backlash did include at least one reply along the lines of “What, like Tesco have to watch you all the time around their alcohol supplies.” Helen said she’d seen him outside a Tesco metro in Chipping Norton once (presumably casing the joint), whereas I had used to shop at the Didsbury Tesco where he forgot to pay for his alcohol. In fact, it linked back nicely to Squirrel and G Man, as another of the main protagonists from Surerandomality days (Hopalong) regularly used to stop there on the way back from a night out to buy the female he’d picked up some flowers, and invariably the latest Harry Potter book.

Such an entertaining conversation we were later getting up than intended, but it was a good day, with a potter around Steyning, full of old Tudor buildings, a medieval church, and a very nice lunch at the White Horse. Still, plenty to see there I think, so another trip to be made soon.

Near, Far, We All Shop At Spar

I won’t say I was a nervous wreck watching the Euro 2020 (in July 2021) final, but I saw very little of the game and spent a long time under a large brolly in the ever increasing in volume downpour that started not long after the match did. I did predict an Italian victory, but to score in the second minute gives you hope. Hope which I should know is pointless by now having sat through far too many Spurs games in a similar pattern over the years. When it went to penalties you really did know what was coming. A two-inch margin, two inches to the right and that third penalty would have gone in and it could have been so different. Instead we got the full force of the mindless English supporter over the next day. It’s no wonder every other country hates our fans.

(I would like to point out that although I do support England and consider myself English, by blood I’m half Irish, and then a quarter English and a quarter Welsh. It’s all about a state of mind).

Nearly a week later on the Champs-Elysees, it was another two-inch margin that prevented Mark Cavendish winning the final stage in the Tour de France and taking the outright record for himself for stage wins. Instead he remains tied with Eddy Merckx on 34, with no guarantee he will be back for another tour in the future, having only been called up to this one as a late replacement. Still he won four stages and the green jersey at a stage where he had been written off. You could see the frustration when he crossed the finish line just behind the stage winner, knowing he had mistimed the lead out and missed the opportunity. It will fly under the radar in a year with the Olympics and the Euros, but it is probably the best sporting comeback story of the year.

I’ve seen (and heard) a lot of mentions of Spa days. I can no longer do so without laughing. The thought comes to mind every time I hear those words about having a tour of Spar convenience stores. A though I had had for twenty odd years but gained even more traction when there was the bloke who took his other half on a tour around multiple Spars for Valentine’s Day a couple of years ago. Something not even I would be brave enough to try. I know I’ve been referring to Spar since the late 90’s as I kept changing Celine Dion lyrics to “near, far, we all shop at spar”, instead of what they should have been, much to the annoyance of my then wife who kept playing her bloody album all the time.

Had a bit of a mooch on Friday afternoon after brunch at the Harvester. I took the camera with me, but with getting bits and pieces needed for our holiday and forgetting to recharge the camera after the long day at the Weald & Downland Museum the previous week, I didn’t get a lot taken, or really anything new. And it became too hot anyway. A theme I may return to.

Yet more examples of devices listening to you. This is why I try and avoid smart gadgets. There is no Siri, Alexa, or any other snooping busybody in the house, and allegedly your phones aren’t supposed to be listening to you all the time, but its just too much of a coincidence with what adverts pop up on my phone compared to conversations I’ve had. Not on the phone, and sometimes I’m not convinced I’m in the same room as my phone when they take place, and yet.

Example one. Helen was going out for a meal with various colleagues as someone was leaving work. They were supposed to be going to the Parson’s Pig but changed at the last moment and when to the Coaching Halt instead. This was on Friday night. On Saturday I got a couple of pop up adverts for the Coaching Halt, telling me it was only 2.3 miles away, this advert has repeated a few times since.

Example two. Helen was talking to Nathan about the app Waze, and how good it was supposed to be, and that it would have helped coming back from West Wittering on Sunday evening. This was late on Sunday night, and I was in a different room from either of them. Monday afternoon and up pop ads for Waze on my phone.

I’ve watched a fair bit of NCIS this weekend, so I’m a bit scared to go onto Amazon and see what random items are recommended for me. CBS Drama has a lot of Always, Tenor, and Viagra adverts on.

I didn’t go to West Wittering with everyone else on Sunday as me in the sun with nothing to do all day isn’t good for me, and wouldn’t be good for anyone else either. I had a load of things lined up to get done, whilst there could be no interruptions. And got none of them done. Yet another wasted day. I blame the heat.

Back at work, there is a little bit of panic stations going on inside my mind. Only four days to do stuff and then I’m off for eighteen days. And my mind is more like a sieve than ever. Trying not to take off before the end of the week.

It was the self-styled “Freedom Day” on Monday, and there was a discussion about masks. Personally, I think it’s a play it by ear thing (or hang it on your ears thing) where masks are concerned. A lot of places will still encourage people to wear masks, and I’m OK with that, but it is now down to personal choice. The one thing I do really want is to be able to wear my own masks at work, and not the terribly uncomfortable and impractical ones they foist upon you in the building. I’m sick to death of them riding up and poking me in the eye; it’s not practical to have to stop every five steps to adjust it back down to where it’s supposed to stay.

It has to be said that I didn’t notice much difference when I popped into Sainsbury’s for a few bits on Tuesday evening, the main difference being there was no one way entrance and exit system anymore, which is great as they had it all wrong anyway.

And speaking of Sainsbury’s, they announced they will no longer be selling CD’s. So, after a few years aggressively expanding their selection and undercutting the market, putting independent stores out of business and (along with other supermarkets) causing HMV to contract massively, meaning we no longer have a record shop within twenty miles of home, they stop selling the stuff themselves. Well done you utter bunch of tw@ts.

And so, it is packing time, off to Wales for days tomorrow evening straight from work, then a few days in Morecambe to visit mum. Staycation here we come (again).

I Wonder

Yes, I’m back and in full on misog mode. If you don’t like whining, then this isn’t the place for you. (If you don’t like wining, this isn’t the place for you either; but if you don’t like winning then this is probably the best place for you.)

One of the things about working at Hove is you can’t use your own face masks. You have to take yours off and use one of the provided style of mask. This is because the masks have been specially and scientifically designed to be of an excellent standard. Unfortunately, that excellence is only in terms of they are without a doubt the most uncomfortable, ill-fitting and pretty much useless pieces of sh1te I’ve had the misfortune to wear since lockdown first started over a year ago.

I left the site during the day for the first time since moving here last Thursday. It was a surprise to see the front car park of the office completely rammed full of cars. A surprise because when I get in in the morning, there’s only a couple of cars there, and when I leave in the evening, I’m usually the last car there.

I had a craving for a sausage and bacon roll, which was why I’d left the office during the day. I headed down to the Station Café, only to find it was closed and would be until the first of June. On my way there I’d noticed there was another café / sandwich shop nearby. I headed there only to find it was another of those effing poncey menu places. There was no way to get a simple sausage and bacon roll. They only did bratwurst for sausage, and as any long-time reader will know I’m not one for any type of sausage that isn’t cheap and nasty. Everything on their chalk boards (another bad sign) had lots of random salad and sauces on, and all fixed. I came away foodless and I won’t be going back in there again. I found out this week, if I’d carried on going and gone around the corner onto the main strip of shops there are plenty of places to feed my cheap meat addiction.

On a normal working day, I’m the only male in the building who doesn’t work for facilities (or their contractors). Yet, none of them can follow the signs and instructions up around the site. The ones they must have put up themselves. One way doesn’t seem to apply; inability to use the vacant/in use sliders on doors; no closing of lids; and use of aerosols (I’m assuming the last one, as it’s that or they bathed in some foul sweet smelling cr@p before using the facilities). All they need to complete the set is to throw chewing gum in the urinal.

We’ve only been in Portland East for three weeks, and they are kicking us out to go to West for a month as they are doing cabling works that will be noisy. And so, with the building going to be empty from next week for a month, they send a team of workmen in today to put up new branding decals all around the place. It’s fairly certain I won’t be asking them for help with my next brewery knees-up.

I spent what seemed an eternity decorating at the weekend. With that in mind it probably wasn’t my best idea to read the full version of “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” in the week before I started it. I kept expecting Nimrod (I love calling people that as a term of abuse, I’m not the only one it would appear) to turn up and tell me to call at the office at the end of the day to get my cards. Either for going too slowly or using too much paint. With the number of little bits that need touching up (appropriately of course), it would appear that perhaps I was born to skimp.

We also found time to go to the Crawley Museum on our Friday off, dodging rain showers, and also nipped into the Parkside (which I can’t say without doing it in the style of “Riverside” by Sidney Samson) café, and I got that sausage and bacon roll I’d been craving the day before.

To get through the drive to and from work (have I mentioned I don’t like driving?) I’m amusing myself with the various signs indicating turn offs for wonderfully named towns and villages. I have touched on some of these in previous works, but my journey passes the following places which trigger the same thoughts each time.

Handcross. It makes me think that perhaps somewhere there should be a village called Handhappy, or another one called Footcross perhaps.

Staplefield. So many questions, a lot of which I covered in a previous blog post https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2020/09/09/walkies/

Warninglid. Every time it’s always Warning! Lid! I wrote a drabble about this ages ago.

There I was, happily driving along, not a care in the world, when out of nowhere the hubby exclaims, “ooh, warning lid!”

I looked around expecting to see lots of lids flying towards us, but can’t see a thing.

“What the hell do you mean, warning lid? Is this a warning about a danger zone for lids popping off jars and flying at people, or did you mean warning, there was a manhole cover lid missing that I might drive into?”

“I didn’t say anything about a warning, I said Warninglid, it’s the name of the village we’re driving through.”

Bolney. Not the name itself, but I finally went there after passing signs for so long and it’s a lovely village. Another blog post was written about that as well. https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2018/08/13/bolney/

Cowfold. In much the same vein as Staplefield. How do you fold a cow? Why? And many more ridiculous questions.

Ricebridge. Why would anyone make a bridge out of rice? You wouldn’t trust it enough to actually use it. Plus it would expand when it rained and it got wet.

Then there is the place where no one has bare feet as the entire population Has socks!

Albourne sounds like he’s Jason Bourne’s younger, less interesting brother.

Then most of the signs seem to mention the place where all those smug self-satisfied people end up living where they can B-right-on!

Finally, on a sign where you might blink and miss it – Portslade, which just makes me think of hundreds of bottles of different Ports laid out ready to drink.

Having disavowed Tottenham after their actions were caught and captured, I’ve gone for a complete step change, and have bought Crawley Town season tickets for Helen and me for the 2021-22 season. It will be something different for us to do. Always assuming we don’t move into lockdown forty-seven.

In a first for me – even though I’m pretty obsessive about this – I cleared my e-mail inbox. At work. My home one leaves a lot to be desired. So many people I’ve not gotten around to responding to (and certainly a lot of missed deadlines), and that I owe apologies to. Need to tweak that work life balance a bit I think.

Walk Snap Write Repeat

It’s good getting to the end of a Thursday and logging off knowing there is a three-day weekend to come. Every weekend. It may have been a bit overcast, but there were things to be done, and so we headed out and went wandering.

https://onetruekev.medium.com/poles-apart-e62991dc9b2b

And after walking we were going to nip into Sainsbury’s to get the pizza for Friday pizza. Apart from nip turned into an hour and the daylight had gone by the time we came out. Part of that was due to the brains trust working on the pizza making counter. We made our order and headed off to pick up a few bits (there is no such thing), only to get back to the counter to be told, “I forgot to say we don’t have any spicy beef, what do you want instead?” “To slap you”, managed not to come out of my mouth.

Speaking of Sainsbury’s, whilst there I had a look around their music section. A couple of years ago there was a massive music section there, lots of chart CDs and Vinyl, and a good selection of back catalogue in both. Lots of people were buying their music there. And with that HMV went pop again and we lost the Crawley store. So, what do we have now? A pitiful selection of Now albums, cheap compilations and “greatest” hits collections and the occasional recent artist album, and about a dozen “classic” vinyl albums. W@nkers. There is nowhere local to get music now.

Saturday saw more walking

https://onetruekev.medium.com/to-three-bridges-and-back-fc0e7b162d51

And then more writing up afterwards, and a view that there wasn’t a single programme on live on Saturday night worth watching across three hundred channels. And even with boredom setting in it still took until the early hours of the morning until I could actually fall asleep.

Sunday was more sedate, the only walking I want to get involved in is making the footballing antichrist #MourinhoOut take a very long walk off a very short pier. Not sure how it got to be after ten at night so quickly.

Waking up Monday morning was a flashback. The radio was playing Queens Of The Stone Age’s “No One Knows”. Something that I had the CD single of when it came out and that was my alarm music for two years until it finally got replaced by Deep Dish’s “Flashdance”.

Speaking of alarms, the one on Tuesday morning wasn’t anywhere near as effective at waking me up as Queens Of The Stone Age were the day before. So, it was already five to eight by the time I was woken up, which made it useful I was working from home today.

If Helen hadn’t woke me up the fracking next door would have done at eight. When I’d gone to the bathroom Monday morning next door had a man in what had been their pond digging it deeper than before. You could just about see the top of his head above ground level. This morning the drilling started, going deeper and wider, along with a regular thudding sound as if pile driving. I hope that when they do hit oil, we can get a share of the proceeds.

And speaking of proceeds, I had an important news about your ticket on Saturday morning. Alas, the humongous £6.90 doesn’t mean I can jack in the job lunacy.

It was a similar thing this morning, another massive £15 pounds and three lucky dips due to jackpot rollover rolldown of prizes. Then four hours later another e-mail to say I’d won three lucky dips. Still not enough to retire though.

Even with a national lottery update in the middle, drilling work continues. They haven’t found oil yet, but they are close to completing the through the Earth tunnel as in Total Recall – the rubbish remake with Colin Farrell, not the one set on Mars with Arnie in obviously.

I’m sure that since sitting down to work on Monday morning at the kitchen table that time has skipped three days and I’m still sat in the same place with the same clothes on dealing with the same idiots as always. Let’s hope they can surgically remove me from my chair so I can start my three-day weekend, and that the weekend doesn’t go anywhere near as quickly as the week has.

And it did, there was more walking, both Friday and Saturday around the same place.

https://onetruekev.medium.com/poetry-in-motion-48794142d097

Sunday was writing up and then another week of lunacy, where trying to get through e-mails was like trying to cut the head off the Hydra where two would grow back each time.

Whilst out on Sunday, Helen had someone refer to her as a little old lady. Which was a bit cheeky as it was by someone older than her. Just because someone has grey hair it doesn’t mean they are a little old lady. I sympathise, as looks can be deceiving. After all, I’ve lost count of the number of times screaming women have come up to me accusing me of eating their children. Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I eat babies. Well, apart from jelly babies that is, but I do bite the heads off them first.

We’ve had fun and games sorting out home improvements this week. After going back and forth for months the new kitchen from Ikea has been finalised and an installation date has been sorted, only for the oven and tap not to be in stock and so alternatives had to be found.

Then, as if a new kitchen wasn’t enough to be going on with, a new boiler was delivered to be installed on Wednesday, only the pre survey was by e-mail and photos, so they turned up to install expecting it to be a bungalow. They are coming back next week as new gas piping and all sorts of other random plumbing stuff needs doing as well.

Hopefully I can get back to the office sooner rather than later to get away from the upheaval. In the meantime, eat sleep rave repeat is re-written again.

So, there was a bit of sun that was peeking out
We didn’t know what it was
But it was bright man
Like, it was llike
Up in the air
Shining, time to go walk
You know, go walk outside
Like in the open air
Like a real walk, by foot
Step
Around Crawley searching out
Historic bits
Taking pictures
A lot of pictures
Then home again
And write about where we had been and what we had seen
And all I’m doing is
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Suddenly I think I’m Hemingway
Repeatedly trying to tell a story
But am I?
I’m just walking
I’m just snapping
Taking pictures
I’m just writing
I’m just typing
I’m just repeating
And walk
And snap
And write
And sleep
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat
Walk, snap, write, repeat

Everything Will Be All White On The Night

And there it was, snow. It eventually settled, quickly became slippery and then almost vanished, only for it to try again and the cycle repeat for a few days. And even with the small amount of snow, not even an inch-thick layer, people lost their tiny little minds again. Forbid they ever live anywhere that has proper snow where it falls a foot at a time. I’m assuming the milkman must have got embedded in a three-inch drift in a cul-de-sac as to why they didn’t turn up on Tuesday.

We had managed to get out for a walk on Saturday before the white stuff arrived. It ended up being a bit of a beast and we were out for over three hours. Full details are at the link below.

https://onetruekev.medium.com/am-i-really-still-in-crawley-ab221714c146

My poor little fatbit didn’t know what had hit it, going off at regular intervals for reaching the daily 10k steps target, and then for reaching 20k and 25k in a day for the first time.

And I managed to write up an old walk around Broadfield as well.

https://onetruekev.medium.com/a-pint-of-the-black-stuff-9b0c15aada60

Sniffles is finding it tough going at the moment. He obviously feels that he now needs to do the work of three pets. He’s got the additional vocal output and food fussiness of his sister down to a tee and is trying to bring in that touch of skittishness. He also has the investigate every corner of the house and getting stuck from being nosey schtick going from the dog, the only bit he isn’t now covering is the racist barking at passers-by.

He has caused me to jump a couple of times recently as he’s suddenly appeared out of spaces that make me wonder how he got in there in the first place. Plus, he’s now taken up a new hobby of positioning himself in my seat at every opportunity. If I nip to the kitchen to get a drink, or go to the toilet, the cheeky little sod is curled up pretending to be asleep in it by the time I get back. Even those times when I’m sure he’s outside.

And speaking of outside, it is always amusing when he whines at the door to go out, only for the door to be opened to the poor weather – howling winds, torrential rain, mini snow blizzard – and him to decide that perhaps it isn’t so urgent to go out. But only after trotting to the other side of the house, as surely the weather is going to be better there.

For the third time this year unexpected water in a dry area led to the emergency plumber being called out (no claims bonus will be right out of the window). This time the waste pipe from the sink in the bathroom decided it had had enough of being connected to the main cast iron waste pipe and had snapped off, and so using the sink would end up with water on the floor in the corner of the bathroom. It was fixed the next day, but it is surprising just how much of an automatic reaction it is to use the sink after going to the toilet.

Sunday was Superbowl LV, an annual watching tradition, back at home this year, with lockdown considerations, and the fact that the 49ers got nowhere near this time around. And no need to book annual leave for the day after as its now a non-working day Mondays. It went the way I wanted it to, so with the first Tottenham win since Cinch starting sponsoring (well, jinxing) them, it was a good day.

Tuesdays are turning out to be horrendous again. It seems to be meeting day, eight Skype or Teams meetings during the day makes me dread Tuesdays as much now as I did back in the day of networks timesheets and Tuesday being JIB day. Being so full of calls it does take some of the joy of the writing group in the evening away, as I can do without another hour and a half on the phone. Although it was the last week of that for a while.

As it has several times over the last few months, the term “Naga” was trending in the UK on Twitter. Every time it does, I click on the item in the hope that it will be some hot chilli related shenanigans, only to find it’s another boring rehash of comments about (or from) a presenter on TV. Just for once, why can’t it be something different and interesting? For example, “Man blames him being found naked in the middle of a field of cabbages on the hallucinogenic effect of him eating too many naga chillies in a chilli eating contest”; or “Woman still hasn’t regained her sight after contest to crush as many naga chillies as possible into her eyes in a minute. It’s been a week now she said, it’s normally worn off after three days or so.”

Do You Deliver

No, but we do chicken, lamb, and beef. Yes, it’s a terrible old joke, but the state of deliveries has turned in to a terrible new joke recently. If they were trying to shoot themselves in the foot, they would probably miss.

I sent some stuff by TNT, tightly packed and well taped up in a large cardboard box. However, as has been the case almost every day recently it was raining when they got around to delivering it. The person they were delivering it to wasn’t in, and so the TNT driver, in their infinite wisdom, thought the best place to leave the parcel was in a drain culvert. Just so they could make sure it would get thoroughly soaked through. The bottom fell out of the box when eventually picked up and the books and magazines now have that water damaged look to them.

We have been ordering delivery from Pizza Hut for Friday pizza night for months. It isn’t a tricky delivery route, and it is one their own delivery drivers do without any issues. But give it to a Deliveroo (who should be known from now on as Deliverpoo) driver and the route map looks like a kid has gone mad with a map and a red marker pen. We normally give the pizza a bit longer in the oven when it arrives to crisp it up a bit, but it needed the heat when the driver eventually got here. Parking up to bring it to the door wasn’t the end of the lunacy either. He parked randomly a few doors away and then ran around like a headless chicken to various houses on the street before eventually coming back to the open door where Helen was stood waiting for the pizza.

Saturday wasn’t much better. Fair enough, the driver from Cinnamon made it straight to the house, but they didn’t manage to get the order right. Specifically, Helen’s main. They delivered chicken and not the lamb the order they confirmed by e-mail clearly said on it. They fobbed me off with the promise of a free main next time, but Helen wasn’t having that as it isn’t the first time, they’d screwed up a delivery to us, and she got them to refund her dish instead.

I got a large heavy cardboard box delivered last week, the contents of which some of you will find impossible to believe. It was a delivery that wasn’t mired in ineptitude. It was an exercise bike. Yes exercise. Yes, a bike. A big black and red sturdy thing. Fits perfectly under the stairs. But it has been out several times, and now that I’ve finally remembered to get batteries to fit in the computer thing on it, it tells me all sorts of things about time, speed, distance, calories, and pulse rate. What it doesn’t explicitly say but has been easy to find out is I’m effing unfit, and even after a fairly easy initial session I felt a bit lightheaded, short of breath and horrible and sweaty. But on the plus side, and the reason I got it, it does seem to be helping with my aching knees. Plus, the more I use it, the easier the fifteen minutes are getting.

And this helps with the walking. Twice a week, usually once with Helen, and once by myself I’ve been going out for reasonably long walks. Long enough to get the fatbit excited and try to shake my arm off. We had a lovely walk around parts of Pound Hill and Worth the previous weekend,

https://onetruekev.medium.com/another-crawley-stroll-c4ebd995cfa0

then I had one around parts of Broadfield, then the pair of us walked to and around most of West Green this weekend. Taking in the same historic buildings and lots of geeky pictures of road signs. Today was another trip into Broadfield covering different parts and up to a very muddy Target Hill. The more I do it, the more I find it fascinating how they themed groups of roads as they built the new town around the old villages. I have at least another half a dozen longer walks to do to capture all I want to on film. Plus, I keep finding more things I want to capture on film. There are three walks that need writing up at some point.

I’m also doing weekly sessions on a writing course, which is concentrating in life writing, so there are some interesting pieces coming out of that. And it’s given me some impetus and I’ve done three short stories this month, which is three more that I’d managed in the previous six.

When I logged on to my work laptop yesterday morning a thought came to me as the Bitlocker screen came up asking for my password to use the laptop. It made me wonder whether a password to log onto a porn website should be called Titlocker or perhaps Bitslocker. No? Just me then.

Getting an exercise bike seems to have led to me getting one of those random mail outs where they advertise all kinds of health-related items. There were some pretty random items in there. Chairs and beds advertised as “helping the carer at home”; an instrument to lift and tone sagging necks or quadruple chins; talking weighing scales so you don’t need your spectacles to see the display, I can just imagine it when I step on “one at a time please you fat b@st@rd”; and the one that made us laugh the most – Diabetic Socks. Seriously? WTAF? How much sugar must anyone need to eat so they sweat out enough to turn their socks diabetic? Anyway, the catalogue had one more item that wasn’t health related that they thought they might be able to tempt me into getting, a manual typewriter. Yes, there is a cool retro thing going on there, especially for a budding writer; however, as it costs more than it would cost to buy a laptop, I don’t think that it’s going to be a goer. Plus, these posts would just be pictures of what I’d typed up onto sheets of paper.

And the less said about the shower of shit #MourinhoOut keeps mismanaging the better. Although the downturn in form and results seems to have coincided with getting additional kit sponsorship from Cinch – yes those muppets with the uber annoying adverts with the x-factor reject. It would serve the club right if there is a direct link.

More Of The Same

They say that time flies when you are enjoying yourself. So, I dread to think how quickly these weeks would be going past if I was enjoying myself.

We’ve had a week of no curtains in the bedroom. We have noticed a drop in temperature at night with no barrier to the cold and dark outside the window. Meanwhile neighbours will have complained of sightings of the abominable snowman in the neighbourhood as I’m backlit against the night sky, all white and hairy. Like I’m a character in a Scandi noir crime thriller where no one has any curtains or blinds. The only difference being they have a population density similar to the moon; whereas I’m doing it in the equivalent of a packed campsite.

It suddenly dawned on me – at half five in the morning – perhaps I’m poisonous to animals. It’s been long established that insects don’t bite me. I seem to have a built-in repellent. But seeing Sniffles run into the bedroom before me I though that he has never licked me. Meanwhile, Charlie would be forever licking or trying to lick my hands and knees, and he died of some cancerous growth. Not long before that Willow went the same way, and she had a habit of either licking the back of my head or my feet. I’m wondering, if Sniffles does take it upon himself to start licking me, whether that is a sign to start writing his elegy.

It’s unusual for me to get to bed first, I’m usually the one still pratting about on my laptop, but it was Helen on Friday. I’d got up, rinsed my glass, filled it with water, been for the pre bed pee, brushed my teeth, done a hot water bottle, and she was still on the sofa.

“I won’t be long, it just feels weird not responding to x’s message.” (I wasn’t paying that much attention).

But I did have the thought, what if both Helen and her friend are now locked in a responding death circle? They’re both being too polite to put the phone down and go to bed in case the other one messages back and doesn’t get a response and is thinking the other one is being rude. Whereas in real life, neither will actually think the other is being rude, and in actual fact both of them are praying that the other one doesn’t answer so they can go to bed. They’re both thinking “for the love of god woman, just go to bed and respond in the morning, it’s already midnight and I wanted to be asleep in bed hours ago.”

Meanwhile, I responded to an e-mail someone sent me in November, deleted two sent to me in December without bothering to respond, and looked at one from this week and thought, ‘eff it, CBA responding tonight, I’ll have another look next week.’ And that’s before I looked at my personal ones.

I was changing the bed Saturday morning it was interesting to note the difference in pillow indentations between Helen’s pillows and mine. Her two pillows still look light and fluffy almost as if they haven’t been slept on. Mine meanwhile have a bit of a pancake look with a deep impression in the middle as if a sixteen-pound bowling ball has been there all night.

Sunday saw a little wander around in the sunlight. As always, we started out from Southgate. First, we went across Southgate playing fields, taking in the surrounding vista, then through Hawth Woods, and across into Furnace Green. I’ve done various walks through Furnace Green before, whether just looking around, or going through to Tilgate or Maidenbower. And what always fascinates me is the wonderful array of different housing through the estate. Chalet style bungalows, modern terraces, semi-detached, detached, three story blocks of flats; and in so many different styles. What is also wonderful is the effort made to keep little oases of green, whether in public areas, or in the cramped front yards of houses. Coming from the Hawth we came down to Waterleas, through the little estate of Norfolk place names, and into Forestfield Conservation Area and back out to Weald Drive, before leaving Furnace Green behind to come back past the locally listed Tilgate Parade and back up to home in Southgate.

Once back at home it was mainly watching sports. Spurs managed to hold a lead in another insipid display (no matter what the commentators were saying). Only for them to be out insipid-ed by the Liverpool vs Manchester United game. The NFL was a lot better, with two very good games. At least they didn’t go so late as the week before, and it was only three in the morning when I got to bed.

When I eventually got up on Monday, I had a quick wander around Southgate, meandering back and forth between Brighton Road and Horsham Road. Mainly picturing street signs. Took some pics of locally listed buildings on Goffs Park Road and Brighton road, some other impressive looking houses along Goffs Park Road and Perryfield Close, and then did four seasons in one day, and the Brighton Road Conservation Area, though I wasn’t able to find a conservation area sign for Brighton Road itself.

And then it was back to work, or as it is more accurately called on days like Tuesday, sitting around bored to death on calls. Much the same as Wednesday morning. There was no respite from calls out of work either, although I had enthusiastically (well as much as I’m ever going to be enthusiastic) signed up for the latest zoom writing course. Plus, I actually wrote something that wasn’t a blog or FRC, with my first short story in about five months. I’m hoping this new course will kick start some creativity.

Gimme Five

It struck me this week that there are lots of food and drink stuffs out there that come in four or six packs, but when do you ever see them in a five pack? Yes, I understand that it is a lot easier to make packs to hold four or six, or even numbers in general. However you would think that as most people work a five day week, that there would be the need for there to be five packs, so that you could have one a day for the working week. If you have four packs then you go without on a Friday. If you have six packs you end up having a fat Friday or one leftover that might be out of date the following week. The only five packs I’ve seen were the Cadbury’s Crème Eggs (and they were reduced from six packs and kept at the same price), and there is no way they would last as one a day (one a minute perhaps). Surely it can’t be that difficult to make five packs.

Pizza Friday was good, managed to find Fast & Furious 8 on Sky Store and find it was free under Sky VIP.

It rained a lot at the weekend; Facebook was filled with posts from Crawley where all kinds of roads and footpaths were flooded. As such it meant it wasn’t good going out weather, and I actually made a good dent into sorting out the records and marking up the ones for sale. If I can keep the momentum up then I should have the full list available for next weekend to put on eBay.

Charlie has decided he doesn’t like dog biscuits anymore, and ignores his bowl if there are biscuits in it (unless they are heavily disguised by meat). Give him a bowl of just meat and it’s gone in seconds. Sniffles now looks smug about the fact he’s not necessarily the fussiest eater in the house.

Speaking of Sniffles, I had a weird dream, which went something like…

“Meanwhile at the Catalonia grand prix, history was made as Sniffles the cat became the first ever feline winner of a grand prix, or any other motor race for that matter. We go over there now for an interview with the winner.

“Sniffles, congratulations on being the first ever cat grand prix winner, can you tell us how you managed to do it?”

“Meeeeeoooooaaaaawwwwww.”

Yes I know, I’ll get my coat.

And so to the American football, where the 49ers managed to lose again.

I think our general issue this season is we’re trying to be twice as good as the opposition, but in the wrong aspects of the game. There was a certain expectation after we reached the Superbowl last season, and we’re trying too hard to outdo the opposition. If our opponents throw an interception, we shouldn’t be trying to throw two. If they muff a punt then don’t muff two just to show them how it’s done. If they give us the ball from a fumble, don’t repay it twice. If one of their players gets injured, don’t have two of ours go down in sympathy. If they have a mind freeze and give away a silly penalty, don’t double down on that. If we sack their quarterback, it doesn’t mean they can sack ours twice.

Stop concentrating on being twice as good as the opposition in those areas, and shift the efforts to being twice as good in other areas. If they have a five yard rush, then we should have a ten yard rush. A nine yard reception, double that to an eighteen yard one for us. If they kick a field goal, then we should kick two. If they score a touchdown then we should score two. If they tackle us for a loss, then tackle them for a safety.

And above all if we lose a game then win at least two to offset it.

The week has rattled by and I have no idea what day it is most of the time, if I’ve asked once I’ve asked a dozen times “what day is it?” I keep thinking I’m a day earlier than it actually is, so I missed the fact it was Wednesday, and this was my usual day for posting this, as I thought it was Tuesday.

As the week has gone on it’s become even more obvious than usual that I hate people. And things. Everything seems to get on every last effing nerve at the moment. It must show, so I’m always pleasantly surprised to wake up every morning. I’m fully expecting to be euthanised under a pillow one night.