Had to pick my nieces Xmas present up from bishops stortford today which if no one’s been there is the perfect example of why you don’t build massive new housing estates (x3) round a ye olde town. Absolute gridlock and took me 40 minutes to find a parking spot. Hideous. I will however be getting top uncle points so *probably worth it eventually
Crappy day at work. Now playing some good old rock music loud . Very glad we recently moved to a detached house.
Had some zz top , van halen, Def leppard. Now pink Floyd delicate sound of thunder album . The rum and coke is out now too .
Look at all those bloody speed cameras. Let’s hope Waze worked its magic. Funny old day. Drove this today. Got an hour or two into the journey and got a message from Britney Ferries ( as I hear they are disgustingly mispronouncing their own name now) saying; ‘ Tough luck sunshine, we’ve cancelled your ferry due to storm stupid name. You’re high and dry for almost a week or you can swim. Oh and don’t ring us, we’re too busy, off you trot’. Seriously, that’s what it said, only different words. Bit of a game changer. Now, I don’t blame ‘Britney’ cancelling, they can’t be responsible for the weather and I’d rather be in port wishing I was at sea, than at sea wishing I was in port. Personally I’d rather not come back at all but my co-pilot the lady Dulcinea del Toboso immediately informed me that she had to be back because of this appointment and that appointment la la la la la, starting first thing Monday morning. You see, there is a list involving trees, lights, doctors, dentists, hairdressers unwanted presents, cooking, singing outside in the freezing cold etc, etc, that stretches from Monday morning, every single day until our next flight out of Stansted, which, incidentally, can’t come soon enough. I’ve seen the list, the full length of an A4 piece of paper, it really does exist. I like to wing it but Dulcinea doesn’t, she’s organised, unbelievably organised, which is great. It saves me doing it. ‘Solve it Sunshine’. She said, only not in so many words. I couldn’t resist but suggest I drop Dulcinea at Madrid airport and I’d catch the ferry Thursday and see her in over a weeks time. Suffice to say plan B did not go down well and she told me so. I could stick it where the sun don’t shine. I knew it wouldn’t but it amused me. She didn’t actually use those words but that’s what she meant. Talking of sunshine, it was brilliant blue sky all the way up until we reached an ominous looking front which stretched as far as the eye could see, in an amazingly straight line from horizon to horizon. Which presumably was the start of storm dumbfuck. One side was clear blue the other side was black (oh no he used the b word). But it was dark, very dark. God had turned all the light off and gone home. There was no sign but the sky clearly said; ‘Do not cross this line. Anyone who crosses this line will have a very bad argument with the wrong end of a broomstick and will be living with Darth Vader for at least three weeks’. Seriously, that’s what it said, only without words. So I pulled into a hotel. The next two days will be spent ignoring the advice and pointing the blunderbuss north. Good job I like a road trip. More of that later.
Out walking on friday with this one parked up in Sidlesham............be sure to wear flowers in your hair.!
We’re off to lunch with friends in Gateshead, then tonight we are meeting friends for dinner in Prudhoe. I’m gonna be skint this month.
Waiting for storm Bastard to ease so I can get home from Brighton! Got a lift here on Thursday, booked a coach home for Saturday only to have it cancelled an hour later If only we had a decent, affordable rail system Ho hum - probably be Monday now...
Been up to my parents, so I could fix my eldest sons car for him It's not like he's a fully qualified HGV technician, oh, that's right..... He is
Went to the panto to see Sleeping Beauty. Cheesy, I know, but it is Christmas! Biggins was the star of the show, along with Sooty & Sweep. Was hilarious! Just made a fish pie for dinner, so will crack open a nice crisp white, to wash it down, once I finish my g&t.
Out for an Italian with Lady Vader and the lads football club parents, it’s blowing a Hoolie down here tho
24 heures du Mans. And 24 hours later we’re in Le Mans. It was far enough in one day. Mostly it pissed it down. Sometimes so bad I had to really slow down because the wipers couldn’t keep up, even at the fastest speed. No pictures today because it was just piss miserable. So here’s one from yesterday. One of my favourite things to see ‘ina España’. Note the blue sky.
Went to bed with no broadband connection (dsl disconnected, landline ok) . Woke up with no downstairs electricity & still no DSL comms. Looks like downstairs light cct is pulling main RCD, & DSL is allegedly an internal cable fault or the router :/ according to the supplier tests, no engineer visit possible until Wednesday . I will have to start chasing lighting cct for faults , oh well with no t’internet I’ll have time on my hands to do so…. Update DSL reconnected , might have flakey router , its old, or dicky wiring from it to line main socket, odd as nothing was moved @ time of failure or fix. Light cct also now “working” , suspected water ingress from last nights storm into an exterior light that was wired into the cct by a PO (decades ago) caused the main RCD to trip
More from Le Mans We were up and on the road by 6.30. No breakfast, it starts too late. However we did stop for one last Cafe con leche and a gas up because it’s much cheaper in Spain. We crossed the border into France dead on 10 am. Heading up towards Bordeaux we went past where my sister lives but didn’t stop because she’s not there at the moment. Only to find out later by text that she is there, she’s not in Manchester at my cousins. Bougre! We had to press on anyway, by the time we’d diverted, chatted and got back en route it would have been 2-3 hours which we just didn’t have. We stopped at a Relaise Routier because we were ready for a break but they weren’t ready for us. As I tried to enter the waitress inside flung her arm in the air and disdainfully waved me away in a totally dismissive and rude fashion. ‘Ferk erff.’ She didn’t actually use those words but it was made very clear, that’s what she meant. Well excuuuuuse me for being a customer. Oh yeah, of course, we’re in France, where customer relations and civility in the catering business seem to have sunk like a Michel Barnier government. ‘Well ferk yu tu’ I thought, which made me laugh. I felt like letting her know I still had my two archery fingers, I refrained and laughed some more. Back on the road, we still had plenty of range in the tank and it crossed my mind as to what sort of shit we’d be in if we were unexpectedly trying to do this journey in an electric car. You just couldn’t do it. You couldn’t get across Spain and France in time with the charging stops. It would be hours of sitting and waiting to charge up. Now don’t get me wrong. I believe electric has a place but long distance isn’t it. Amongst my various sets of wheels I have a hybrid car which I use for running around locally and I’ve come to really enjoy the silent running on electric. Who’d a thought! But if you want to get accross a continent diseasel is the only way, at the moment. Or fly of course. It turns out that we’ve got to be back even quicker than we thought. The kids, who are no longer kids at all, have informed us that as they are coming pre Christmas and they have decreed we must be back early enough on Sunday for a delivery of food that they’ve ordered from some Supermacardo. How inconvenient of us to be in France and not be there to take their food delivery. Which in turn lead to the main event of the day. No it wasn’t the ‘bong’ from the dashboard telling me I’d lost pressure in the drivers side rear. Now that really could be a problem because if it’s a puncture and if we need a new tyre on a Saturday afternoon it just isn’t going to happen. Car nowadays don’t have spare wheels and in the back of my mind that’s just a disaster waiting to happen. Ok so they’ve got a can of ‘Jiz’ and a pump in the boot underneath all the luggage that I don’t want to take out in the rain but if it’s a serious puncture you are what’s commonly known as stuffed. Fortunately it just needed a couple of psi (or bar) to sort the tpms and we were on our way. No it wasn’t the tyre problem that was the main source of incredulity and humour of the day. It was one of those things that you just can’t make up or even believe. Half way up through France my Co-Pilot says; “We need to be back even earlier for this food delivery. How early can we get back?” “You can’t be Serious? Here we are, it’s pissing down in Poitiers and we need to make up time. What time are we booked for the tunnel?” And Mrs organised and efficient replies; “Oh no! I don’t believe it. I’ve booked the tunnel Folkestone to Calais, it’s the wrong direction! ! ” You can’t make this bloody stuff up!
