Man with a red flag

As I am in Bristol visiting Dad again, we set off this morning to do a spot of shopping at Yate, the reason being that I wanted to re-visit a shoe shop I remembered there. The main problem was not that I couldn't find what I wanted, but the journey there. After leaving the ring road, the rest of the route was sabotaged by ridiculous and ever-changing speed limits.
OK, so my little Toyota Yaris does not easily lend itself to burning rubber, even if I was inclined so to do, (the Probe was, and that's another story!) but tootling along at 30mph on a wide country road with no immediate habitation...and then 40....followed swiftly by a sharp return to 30 and passing a side road with a 20mph limit, was not my idea of a pleasant drive. It left me wondering, cynically, which city in this benighted country of ours will be the first to re-introduce an obligation for every car to be preceded by a man with a red flag, to warn other road users of the imminent danger.
(Paying £1.24 a litre for petrol did not add to my delight either. That too is another story!)

Dinghy rescue

On BBC TV's morning programme 'Breakfast' yesterday, a teenage girl was interviewed. I only ever watch morning television with half an eye but I soon realised that this girl's story was interesting, if only in its stupidity. You can see the account of her experience here, but basically, seventeen year old Sammy and her friend, sixteen year old Tom were on holiday in Weston Super Mare (or Weston Mare, as she kept calling it in the interview) when they decided to go on a little sea trip. Not being the owners of a boat of any description, they spotted a couple of £4.99 children's inflatable dinghies in a nearby shop and bought those as an alternative. At no point did it occur to either of them that floating off in these might possibly not be the wisest thing to do. The article mentions that they used the dinghies' paddles, but on television, it looked as if Tom was using metal household shovels. (Yes, metal - think about it, Tom!)
Inevitably, they floated off away from Weston and eventually managed to come ashore at Brean. Even then they were apparently unfazed by their experience.
"Did you not ring for help as you had your mobile with you?" inquired the presenter.
"Nah, we just thought we could walk back. It was suppose to take about forty minutes, we were told."
Eventually, the realisation dawned on them that they were actually lost and at this point, they did indeed phone for help. Realisation must have taken quite a while though, as the seach for them lasted seven and a half hours.
"It's good to see a happy ending to an incident that could have been turned out a lot more serious. We would never recommend that people set sail in inflatable dinghies," was the coast guard's comment. I think I might have been inclined to put it a lot more forcefully than that.
And did I mention that Sammy had been carrying her mobile during this adventure? She had it with her during the interview too. I know this because the message tone went off at least three times and instead of switching it off, she was caught on camera surreptitiously texting back, mid-interview! Oh well, it's nice to know she appreciates the seriousness of it all.

Four years today

Four years ago today, this blog was born. You can see my first post here. Try as I might, I can't remember how I became aware of the world of blogging but I do know that I have had great fun with it. I have, at times, got bored with Blogger and migrated to other platforms, but always returned 'home,' usually because I liked the people who became regular readers over here. Through blogging, I have 'met' lots of lovely people- Daphne, Silverback, Yorkshire Pudding, Dale in Canada, Beachhutman and the longest standing, Gemmak who is practically my twin in blogging terms as she started her blog only a few weeks before me and was the first one I ever commented on. I've fiddled with templates, the air has turned blue on occasion, but eventually I learned that it is a Good Idea to save one's blog first before diving in to make irreversible changes. (OK, so I'm a slow learner!) I have also been in trouble over teaching-related posts, to the extent of being refused a reference by someone who took exception to what I had written. When I re-read that first post this morning, I realised that what Jay had pointed out in her comment on my meme, was quite right. I am a truly 'demob happy' teacher and I won't bore you all yet again by going on about my disillusionment with teaching. Suffice it to say, I am pleased to have left that world behind. Let's live for today! Innit!

Tidying NASA

This post on Gemmak's blog yesterday made me smile but with a hint of envy too. As it happens, I had just spent half the morning attacking the chaos, confusion and collection of debris that is Keith's computer desk, aka NASA. It is called this because, as long-term readers will possibly recall, it used to be three tiers until I persuaded him to remove the top one to give it at least some semblance of a normal computer desk. That was quite a milestone for Keith. I won't say he needed counselling afterwards, but suffice it to say, he is inordinately attached to NASA. However, this piece of furniture does sit in the corner of our living room, for heaven's sake, a blot on an otherwise reasonably normal landscape so I really do feel I have to take charge now and again.

So when I told him on the phone that I had blitzed it again, the response was less than enthusiastic and of course, now, almost twenty four hours later, he has worked hard to reduce much of the evidence of my work. However, you can see how it looked when I had finished, not wonderful but definitely better than it had been. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to work the same transformation on the box. It seems to be essential that the side is permanently removed and the DVD rom is hanging out of the side rather than being installed in the slot allotted to it.

Oh well, can't have everything, I suppose.

(I wonder if Gemmak is available for hire. Maybe he'd listen to her.)

Try this one for size

Yorkshire Pudding has a meme on his blog and an open invitation to anyone to borrow it and put their own stamp on it. I'm not usually over fond of memes, but this one looks harmless enough, so here goes:

My ex... headteacher, one of them, made several years of my teaching life a misery.
Maybe I should... hoover upstairs... tomorrow.
I love... a certain eccentric Welshman, my children and grandchildren and... sitting in the garden listening to the birds.
People would say... that I am a bit on the bossy side - and they would be right!
I don't understand... people who don't grab their chance of happiness when they can.
When I wake up in the morning... I am thrilled that I am no longer teaching.
I lost... faith in the education system several years ago.
Life is full of... highs and lows, happiness and sadness, freedom and constraints.
My past is... another country about a different me.
I get annoyed when... BMX drivers behave as if they own the road.
Parties are... sometimes boring, sometimes enjoyable, depending in who else is there.
I wish... that Keith could win the lottery, just enough to ease his worries about his business.
Dogs... wonderful companions, especially my Lucy.
Cats... a delight, although Keith wouldn't agree!
Tomorrow... I shall be going to my Gestalt course and then to the hairdressers, followed by a visit to some friends in the evening.
I have low tolerance... of selfish people who couldn't care less about anyone but themselves.
If I had a million dollars... I would take Keith on a long holiday, wherever the fancy took us until the money ran out.
I'm totally terrified... of spiders, of course!
Over to you, folks, whoever feels the urge to make this their own.

Chester again

If there's one thing about Chester, they believe in sex equality there. Never let it be said that a girl can't do a job just as well as a man. Hence the appearance today of a female town cryer. Yes indeed, and what's more, she had a strong voice and did the job beautifully.

And then, after a few moments sitting in the beautiful sunshine just by the Cross, Gill, Julie and I went off for lunch and a catch-up.

Sailing by at night

Since my retirement from teaching, I generally sleep fairly well, but last night was one of those 'nuits blanches' when I was still awake to hear one of my favourite pieces of music, Sailing By, written in the 1950s by Ronald Binge. It was chosen as a prelude to the Radio 4 shipping forecast just before 1a.m. apparently because it is a piece that can be started or stopped at any point, which is useful as it can be fitted in to allow the length of time necessary for the subsequent forecast. (Hope I'm making sense to you here, I'm getting a bit confused!) So when the lads out at sea hear this music, they are all set to listen to the forecast.
It also reminds me of my three year old self when part of my daily routine was to sit down at 1.45pm for 'Listen with Mother' which was then followed by the shipping forecast. Those strange names , Dogger, German Byte, Fisher, Forties, Bailey, Rockall, Shannon are still familiar to me and I am not much wiser about them now than I was then, although I have now found this interesting site which gives a very clear explanation of the shipping forecast. I had no idea, for instance, that each bulletin consists of 350 words. Now that makes me wonder why 'Sailing By' needs to be of variable length. Maybe I can think about that if I am awake and listening to it again tonight.