Well, things are a little more up-beat this week. Thank the lord for that, I hear you mutter. Seriously though, I do know what’s going on and why I’m out of sorts. Worry ye not, I won’t be explaining it again because I did that last week. Suffice it to say that many people are in the same boat as me. It’s not a unique problem this duty of love stuff and I think a lot of us are victims of the Meh what with the winter that didn’t end until last week – it might not have ended yet, I don’t want to Murry us, but even if it comes back and we’re froz up our bums for May, at least we’ve had this week!
Things are better though, MTM mood wise. OK there is going to be a bit of whinging but hopefully, only in amusing manner. At last, I think I’m settling into the rise in traffic levels on the trip to Mum’s – back to pre covid on the M25. Instead of the blissful 2 hrs 15 mins it’s been over the past year we are now reverting to the situation where there is always one direction at three hours plus due to accidents and breakdowns.
This could be partly because, over the period of lock down, everyone’s been doing less driving and it seems that a lot of us have forgotten how it’s done. I wandered worryingly close to someone the other day, myself, just because we’re all squished up together like little bricks in a mosaic again, going at 70mph, and it hasn’t been like that for a while. I always look out of the side windows at the blind spots before I change lanes but I discovered, this week, that I’d unconsciously slipped into a bad habit of starting to move as I looked rather than waiting until I’d looked first and moving afterwards. Until two weeks ago there was never anything there so checking was more of a technicality than a necessity. Not any more. It wasn’t anything close to a near miss but I definitely gave the bloke in the van next to me an, ‘oh lordy is the daft bat going to pull in?’ moment. Sorry if I worried you, man in van.
Once we hit holiday season in full traffic mode then there are two recurring events on the M25, usually throughout the summer, until September. On the way down, I’m occasionally held up because Fred and Neris, towing their caravan from Skye to Land’s End via Kent have broken down in one of the lanes on the four lane part. There’s no hard shoulder there so it’s three into two and consequently, there are delays. Fred can’t understand it, it’s not like he’s even moved that caravan all year. It’s been sat on their drive with the cover on and all the bearings in one the caravan’s wheels have inexplicably seized. It’s not like he touched the wheels or checked them or anything so they should be alright. He tuts and shakes his head in consternation as he and Neris wait to be rescued.
Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Patel with Mrs Patel’s brother in-law, Steve, and family are are on their way to Ummi’s and while queuing to get past, discover that their ancient Honda Acclaim hasn’t the same capacity to sit about with its engine running that it used to. It’s overheated and they have to pull over. But there’s no hard shoulder so they can only make it to the slow lane where they pull as far off against the barrier as they can and stop, the Acclaim enveloped in cloud of steam. The Patels – and Steve – with their families now cause another blockage, and the delay time for traffic behind is up to half an hour as they too have to sit tight and wait for the AA. Breakdown help arrives for both stranded parties, at which point the police block off an extra lane, bringing it down from four lanes to two and upping the delay time even more as both the Patels (with Steve) and Neris and Fred are towed to safety.
On the way back, it’s less about Fred and Neris. This time it’s The Patels coming back from Ummi’s. Overheating has done something to the Accord and it’s running a bit lumpy. Mr Patel has had to pull over again but this time the delay isn’t so bad, only about ten minutes. Meanwhile further round Ethel and Norbert are driving from Cornwall to Lowestoft in their VW camper. Norbert started her up for the first time in five years this morning (with a bit of help from a battery charger) and it’s been running like a dream until the M25. Now Norbert realises that bit where he hit 80mph overtaking the lorry was too much for the VW and the engine has let go in the in one of the Dartford tunnels. There’s oil all over the road, too, so as well as waiting for a break down lorry, the road surface will need to be cleaned. The tow truck is doing its thing and the sweeper is on its way from the Dartford depot at a heady top speed of 35mph. Meanwhile the authorities have been forced to close that bore for everyone’s safety, precipitating a gargantuan fifteen mile tailback and hour long delay as four lanes of traffic try to get into one two lane tunnel.
Welcome to summer on the M25.
Every week. I kid you not. One summer holidays someone broke down in the tunnel for 6 out of 7 trips. Handy tip people. Don’t just jump into the car or hook up the caravan and head off without getting it checked over. Grease the bearings on that boat trailer, check the brakes on your combi, check the oil and water and move the bastard things more than once a year, even if you’re just getting the caravan out, towing it round the block and putting it back. Ditto that ancient combi van or mobile home. Drive the bloody thing for over twenty minutes once a month can you? And if you can’t, accept that left on your drive for months without use, things will seize, including the brakes and if you’re not careful, once you’ve started moving, the engine. Check them and get them serviced before you travel. You will save yourself, not to mention the rest of us, an enormous headache.
Thank you.
Other things. I am now officially discharged from Mr Davies’ tender care (the knee surgeon this is, not the one who narrates my audiobooks). I was very pleased about that. He asked how far I could walk and I said I’d been wandering about London for two hours and he told me that was pretty hard core. Which made me feel very chipper. He also said that I’d been starting further back than most people who have this done as on the whole, folks seldom reach the bone-on-bone stage, let alone continue like that for several years. So that was good. It was another glorious day in London so again I sauntered round the city in that lovely blue, print room-like light reflected from the mirror glass buildings and enjoyed the scenery. It was busier than before but still looking grand.
As well as wandering about taking pictures, I noticed a hole in the side of the Shard which, blown up, with a starry night behind, could make a grand cover for the right kind of science fiction novel. Sadly it’s just the hole the window cleaning equipment comes out of so no matter how long you wait you will not see a tie fighter fly out of that hole at any point.
A bit of a disappointment.
Never mind, you can’t win ‘em all.
Once I got to the river, I walked almost from London Bridge to Tower Bridge along the embankment.
Even though I much prefer coming to London on the train, because I get to walk about, I did miss the vicarious thrill I get every time I drive the Lotus over Tower Bridge. Something about that always gives me a bit of a lift, especially if I select some suitable music, Ian Dury and the Blockheads or something a teeny bit subversive. But there’s a set of lights just before I turn onto the bridge with a mirror so I can see if there are any cyclists next to me. It’s convex so I have this really cool view of my car from above. Something about the bird’s eye angle makes it look like a speeder or hover vehicle – not a car at all. I should have taken a picture of that but I’m not sure of the rules on taking pictures from a stationery car. I suspect even at a standstill the penalties are firm.
Anyway, my original plan was to hit the river, walk down one bank, saunter over Tower Bridge and then walk back down the other side to the hospital. In the end I got rather too immersed in wandering around the city, eating my lunch on a bench outside the Royal Exchange – which is a real sun trap – and generally enjoying the scenery. It was much busier than last time I visited but still pretty much devoid of people. Having dithered about there for too long, I realised I wasn’t going to have time to do the whole circle loop thing over Tower Bridge and back so I turned and retraced my steps along the embankment.
On the way past a ritzy 5 star hotel just next to the Tower of London I saw a gentleman doing some extreme window cleaning, which amused me.
All in all a good week.
Oh alright, yes, there have been some downsides. Mum was on good form on Wednesday but it took ages to get to her. CF earlier comments about the four lane bit of the M25, although this time it was a pukka accident which had been cleared up by the time I got there but the resulting breakdowns from elderly overheating vehicles hadn’t. Note to road planners. Roads with no hard shoulder are cheap to build but you may as well not have bothered with the extra lane once the holiday season gets underway.
Other news …
It seems that the writing well has run completely dry. No point forcing it then, I’ve just abandoned all projects for a bit and I will concentrate on other things. If nothing is coming out then clearly the answer is to put more stuff in. This includes looking at my metal detecting finds … which basically involves making a god awful mess, but has been interesting. I discovered that some thimbles had steel tips which is why two of the four I’ve found at Mum’s look as if they have been mended with different metal. Not mended it seems. Merely made like that. I also discovered that a lovely – but extremely knackered – button I found is a clan Murray livery button and I found a Roman coin in Mum’s veg patch. OK so it was worn completely smooth but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that if there’s one Roman coin, there may well be more. I will have to search carefully.
The week has also been one for sorting out. I have even arranged something approaching a social life for next week and am hoping I may get out for a whole day’s detecting. Fingers crossed. I also have to have all the medical appointments I haven’t had during lock down, boob squish, smear test, eye test and dental check up. Boob squish on Tuesday. Just the smear, eye test and dental to organise then. Jolly dee.
The other thing that was worrying me a bit, the statement of wishes for my will, is finally finished. I have given hints and tips for my funeral and explained what to do with the family jewellery. That sounds posher than it is. On the up-against-admin front, I have been attempting to persuade Nationwide building society to share information about my son’s trust account with the people managing his financial stuff. Jeez that’s been a ball ache. The firm we are using gave me a form letter to modify, sign and send, which I did. Nothing happened so I had to ring. After 15 minutes on hold I got someone who told me I needed to talk to someone else. After another 40 minutes on hold enduring the kind of anodyne muzak which, I feared, might precipitate haemorrhaging from my ears if I was forced to listen for long, I got a lovely lady who explained what I needed to do. I obeyed her instructions and sent the notice to a specific email address worded the way she told me. A reply came back to say it had been received.
Three weeks later and Nationwide are still telling the people setting up the new trust account for my son that they haven’t heard a peep from me. There is no evidence of the calls or my email. Except there is because they emailed a receipt on 6th April. Fucking useless bastards. So now I have to piss another hour and a half up the wall on the phone in pointless pursuit of them doing fuck all again. Urgh. That said, I think their branch in town is open now so I will go up there, speak to a human and see what I can achieve that way.
On a very much more optimistic and generally smashing note, Gareth has started recording Too Good To Be True … aaaah be still my beating heart! And excuse me while I do the happy dance.
There’s something about hearing my stuff in audio that’s utterly golden. It’s as if it’s suddenly appearing in 3d. I absolutely love it. I suspect I’m an aural person since, if I want to learn something by heart, listening to it read aloud and following along usually does the trick. It helps that Gareth is dripping with talent and does a fantastic job. I am slightly in awe of what he manages to do, and like the people who design my book covers, he is a joy to work with – always a bonus. He also has an amusing habit of forgetting to tell me when he’s finished some more chapters. It was a rather jolly surprise to discover he’d got to chapter 7 this morning. A whole five new chapters there that he’d recorded and, apparently, forgotten about. He tells me this is because he is rehearsing for something with some real actual humans at the moment so I will accept his excuse! Far be it from me to criticise anyone for being vague … as we all know, I have trouble remembering my own name.
Which reminds me. I’m starting a clinical trial of rosemary oil. Does it or does it not improve cognitive function in menopausal women? We really don’t know, but hopefully, I’m going to be helping them to find out. I will be using an infuser and inhaling rosemary oil for a set period of time every day and completing assessments online on a Tuesday so I’m agog to know if it will help. Please, let it help that would be so marvellous.
Other jolly stuff, the Bury St Edmunds writers group that I’m part of had our meeting by Zoom this Friday and we were discussing a lot of writing stuff which was both useful and interesting, as well as other side things which were also eye-opening and intriguing – one of our number has something called Fabry and is taking part in Fabry Awareness Month – here’s some info about what Fabry is from the MPS society. To this end, she’s guest blogger there. It was interesting to chat, somewhat incoherently on my part, about things that affect my ability to write, which is pretty much everything in my case. But as well as the lady with Fabry, there is someone else with a wee one, and a smaller microdot than McMini but she’s clearly facing the same challenges to her writing as I did.
All in all then, things are looking up. I have made a quarter of my usual monthly income selling books this month. Nothing I’m doing seems to be pushing the needle so the time has definitely come to ignore the marketing for a bit until the slump goes away. In the meantime, I will just go back to investigating the world around me, doing stuff and trying to do a little bit of writing each day. I found a brilliant quote this week from someone I’ve never heard of called Emory Austin.
‘Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.’
That sounds like a plan.
And now the cheerful bit at the end.
This week there wasn’t time for much and next week will be the same. However, I did finally get round to creating some K’Barthan themed products.
For some reason all four of the badges I ordered for product testing purposes feature K’Barthan invective. I thought I ordered more Humbertisms. Suffice it to say that going on the results of the poll I have made a set of six K’Barthan coffee/tea mugs in white on black and a set of six badges featuring the phrases discussed last week. I also added Futtocks away and I’ve sent one of those to Gareth.
- Windy Trussocks!
- Bite my winkey!
- Jiggle my tumpkin but don’t spill my drink.
- Jiggle my tumpkin!
- Wipe my conkers!
- Futtocks away!
I haven’t actually done the invective on anything other than badges because the results of the invective quiz aren’t in yet. Luckily one of the first people to reply pointed out that I’d forgotten ‘Arnold’s , eyeballs!’ Anyway, if you would like to vote the quiz is still open because I have to send it to my mailing list in two week’s time as well! You can vote for your favourite invective here.
Right then, I’m off to make some K’Barthan Koasters phnark did you see what I did there with the K, did you? Did you? Yeh … I know. It was a bit shit. Never mind. Onwards and upwards. A bientot.