A homage to loading screens.
In which we are over-optimistic about it being beach weather
Driving to work this morning: the sun was warm, and the sky blue. Leaving the office at lunch time: the car was hot, and I zoomed along with the windows down.* “Lovely,” I thought, “why not go to the beach?”
So, I popped down to the seafront, and sat down on the beach with my sandwiches.
And, as soon as I did, the heavens opened. It pissed down.
It’s not quite summer yet.
* and with a Herman Düne album on the stereo.
In which things happen in remote places
Breaking news report: a bird has died of H5 bird flu, in Fife. The authorities are concerned, and have sealed off the area, for fear that it might spread to civilisation.
(I haven’t been there for about five years, I have to admit. Apparently it’s quite nice now – they even have electricity!)
In which we wonder what Victorian diseases are still around today
Yesterday, I was idly wondering: does anybody suffer from “curvature of the spine” any more? Or was it just one of those Victorian diseases which you just don’t see nowadays?
You see, I remember reading, years and years ago, that Catherine Mumford, wife of anti-poverty campaigner and Salvation Army founder William Booth, suffered from it badly when she was a teenager. So much so, she was forced to spend a few years lying face-down in bed reading the Bible and writing letters about the evils of booze.* Today, though, you don’t hear about it very often. Does it still exist?
I spent a while thinking about it yesterday, googling up things like kyphosis and scoliosis. It’s still around, then – but is it common? Do people still get problems like that, or was it just a result of bad nutrition and poor mattresses?
And then, this morning, I woke up in rather severe pain. I couldn’t move, because my back was in agony. It’s stayed rather painful all day, albeit not as bad as it was when I awoke. Clearly, my spine has a twisted sense of humour.
* Thinking about it, though, her life probably wouldn’t have been much different if she had been allowed to leave her bed. The entertainment options for teenage girls in 1840s Lincolnshire were rather limited, and she was rabidly religious from an early age.
Or, an attempt to confuse
As it’s April 1st, here is a post containing outright lies. Roughly half of the following statements* are currently true. Others are completely made up. Guess which are which.
I know it’s already the afternoon, and by tradition April Fools should only be done in the morning. Nevertheless, I don’t care.
I have never driven a train.
I have had sex with everyone I’ve ever kissed, apart from relatives.
Recurring blog character Big Dave doesn’t actually exist – if I’ve done something I want to blog about, but don’t want to admit to it myself, I write a disguised version, gender-swap it as required, and attribute it to “him”.
This website is named after a real piece of woodland called “Symbolic Plantation”, a few miles from my house.
I have never worked in any field that I actually have qualifications in.
I was born in the Far East.
Go on, tell me which ones you think are lies.
* And all of the footnotes.
Or, when I am quicker than the Internet
On top of the timezone confusion, work is getting a little pressured this week. I’ve been driving about between branches carrying equipment backwards and forwards, because if you’ve got a large amount of data in the wrong place, the quickest way to sort things out is still to put your computer in the boot of your car and drive it down to Another Part Of The Forest’s branch office. Squeezing it down an internet pipeline takes all day; driving to the other side of the county only takes an hour.*
The best part of that, of course, is that an hour of driving down the motorway is an hour of not having to answer the phone to be given more work.
* Well, the other middle of the county, at any rate.
In which we want to snuggle up by the fire
The changing of the clocks has left me feeling a little tired and disorientated. It’s not surprising that there are more car accidents in this week, as people adjust to the shift.
Driving home just now,* in the dark and heavy blattering rain, I wanted to be warm and cosied up in bed. Driving in the rain at night always makes me wonder what it must have been like to live before electric heating and lights. It also makes me think of the Lyke Wake Dirge – for no apparent reason, because there’s nothing to connect the Dirge with bad weather. It’s a very evocative text, though.
This aye night, this aye night,
Every night and all,
Fire and fleet and candle-light
And Christ take up thy soul
* Not from work – it’s gone 10pm. I don’t work that late.
In which it feels like summer
Today must have been the first day of summer.
I’m not saying that because the clocks change tonight,* or because The Parents have gone on holiday, or for some other obscure astronomical reason. Today was the first day that really felt like summer. It’s not just about being warm, or sunny, but there’s something in the air. I wanted to go out into the garden and lie back in a deckchair sipping a gin and tonic. Of course, as I don’t have a deckchair, and couldn’t be bothered to nip down to the local branch of Deckchair World,** I didn’t. And now it’s pouring down again. That’s this year’s summer gone, then.
* they do, don’t they?
** “Do you need more deckchairs in your life? Come straight down to Deckchair World – we’ve got the deckchair to suit you! Green stripes! Red stripes! Blue stripes! Special offers galore – buy two deckchairs, get one free! Come down and see us – branches in Scunthorpe, Withernsea, Beverley, Barrow and Goole.” I’ve started listening to local radio a lot more recently, and it probably shows.
In which we thank people and skim over a few other things
Well, I was glad Gordon Brown did take my hints on a couple of things.* I’m just disappointed that he didn’t single out blue cars for rebates.
Current small reasons to feel pleased with myself: I’ve managed to completely avoid watching anything at all to do with the Commonwealth Games, even though one of the medal-winners is a teacher at my old school. Hopefully I’ll manage to keep avoiding it until all the fuss is over again.
Current small reasons to get pissed off: the computer keeps crashing, usually at the most inappropriate moments. I know what the problem is: a very obscure bug in the disk controller driver which very few people have come across, and nobody seems to know the cause of.** Bah.
On the other hand, I do have a large box of biscuits on my desk at the moment. But not for long, I suspect. Hurrah!
* although, to be fair, everyone else in the country had already vaguely guessed the road tax changes.
*** it only comes up if you have a Promise SATA disk controller, a Maxtor SATA disk, and are running one of some Linux 2.6 subversions. But not all – the problem apparently disappeared in one revision of the driver, only to come back in the next.
In which we go for a walk
Went for a walk on the beach today, to try out a new camera lens.* I’m told that brisk exertion can be good when you’re feeling down; and struggling through the biting wind across the dunes always seems to leave me more cheerful than I was before. When I was too tired for the sand, I moved down and walked along the firm mud at the edge of the saltmarsh instead.
Even at half a mile, the roar of the breaking waves was a loud, constant growl. I stood and watched ships lining up and waiting to be piloted upriver, and tried to take photos of the changing weather.
(as they are on film, you’ll have to wait)
* Nikkor AF 35-70mm 1:3.3-4.5, if you care – an early 90s model, I think. I can never understand Nikon lens ranges. I don’t normally go for zoom lenses either, but it was only £35.
In which we recognise someone
In case you were wondering: last week, I was away in Wales. I was staying in the small, snowy town of Penrhyndeudraeth, Meirionydd, doing some volunteer work.* Of course, I came back from my holiday needing another one to recover from it.
I managed to come across as a bit of a mad English tourist, whilst I was there, whilst I was in the local post office. The post office’s Lottery machine, you see, had a cardboard advertising hoarding on top of it. “Do you have a spare one?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” said the shopkeeper. She started to hunt around. “I’m sure we have one somewhere.”
“I don’t mean to be any trouble,” I said, “but if you had one handy – I’ve been looking for one of those.”
“I’m sure we did have another,” she said, wondering what the hell this mad English tourist wanted with a cardboard Lottery advert. “I’ll have a look for it and put it to one side for you.”
“Oh no no I don’t want to be a nuisance,” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “I just wanted one because that” – I pointed at the picture on the advert – “is my friend W, and it would be nice to have one. Well, um, thank you anyway. I really don’t want to put you to any bother.” And I left the shop, leaving me feeling embarrassed for causing a fuss, and her baffled at these strange tourists with friends off the adverts.
* “…with the mentally ill,” as one of the other people there said. I think it was The Goon, who may well be reading.
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