Tag: traffic

A wally wallet forgetter

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

If I start by telling you that this week and indeed blog will be a snot free zone, then just by doing that I have made it untrue.  Anyway, after a full two weeks of my life threatening cold I appear to be recovered.

With that trouble behind me I have been enjoying the finer things in life, like sleep and the ability to breathe and as such was looking forward to the weekend.  I should by rights have been in London for a Christmas do with work, but decided against it as to be honest I wanted my own bed over the weekend, and the do involved making decisions about what to wear in swanky London eateries and discotheques, and I honestly couldn’t be arsed with the shopping or selection process that might involve.  At my age once it goes dark I just want to get home, draw the curtains and get “seckled”.

It would seem that the Gods of Christmas dos decided to take full and vengeful revenge for this indiscretion, as I have had a weekend that makes you think you should have either stayed in bed or gone and drank forty-eight tequila shots in Stringfellows with some work colleagues.

So Saturday started normally enough.  The Big Shop was on its way from Asda, and for the past few weeks they have always turned up towards the end of the two-hour slot.  With this in mind, I went for a shower leaving Rebecca to look out for the van just in case it arrived.  So as soon as I had unleashed my toned and teasingly taught frame from the shackles of clothing and had one toe in the shower, Rebecca shouted that they were here.  A mild inconvenience, and I quickly dressed and came downstairs to deal with the delivery.

The rest of the morning dwindled away, and after lunch Louise and I had the joyous honour of a visit to B&Q (on xmas tree buying weekend) to get some wallpaper for our long undecorated kitchen.  Time was already getting on by the time we set off, and the traffic was a thing from the bowels of hell.  The increasingly frustrating and depressing state of the traffic whenever I am trying to get anywhere is the subject for a whole other bile ridden moan filled ranty blog at some future date!

So it took an age to drive the few short miles to our local B&Q.  We got out of the car, and I did my normal pat down routine to make sure I have everything….phone….car keys…wallet….bollocks.  Now, I didn’t have to pat anything to know I had those.  That last expletive was more of a cry of anguish realising that I had left my wallet at home.

How I laughed.  I told Louise to go and choose stuff (I have no input into these decisions anyway) and I would “pop” home to get it.  So I wrestled through the crappy traffic again, dashed in to get my wallet and set off again.  I needed my wallet for petrol too, so as soon as we’d done the DIY thing we’d stop on the way home for that.  A few hundred yards later, as I moved out to overtake a bus that had stopped, a press of the accelerator met with no response.  It soon dawned on me that for the first time ever, I had run out of petrol!

I coasted to a stop, luckily in a legal parking place, tried to phone Louise to tell her what had happened, but of course as per usual her “mobile” phone was pretty much the opposite on the dining room table.

So I set off walking back home (thankfully I had only driven a couple of minutes) to get Louise’s car.  I have to say that my stress levels were a bubbling at this point.  I wanted to get the wall papering done, and I could feel time rushing away as I tried to walk home as quickly as possible without slipping on the inconveniently icy pavements.

With a vehicle secured, I tried again to get to the promised land of B&Q, and the traffic had gone up by about another 25%, so by the time I got to Louise I was a coronary waiting to happen.  We checked out, and set off for home.

Once home, through more tortuous bobbins traffic, I looked for the petrol canister that Louise bought recently when she ran out of petrol!  Of course, I couldn’t find it, so we set off again in Louise’s car to the petrol station.  I paid a ridiculous £6.99 for a suitable and legal petrol container, as apparently they don’t let you dispense it into an Asda bag.

I then filled said container, and we drove back to my car, through even more even worse traffic where I got it going again and drove home.  By this stage I had fallen out with the world….all of it, and I sat in a monstrous sulk for the rest of the day whilst Louise and the girls did the Christmas decorations.  My aversion to festivity at this point measured about 400 on the Richter scale.

My anger was aimed at me, and me alone, (apart from the driver of the X reg Hyundai who did 24 miles an hour in front of us all the way back from B&Q) for being such a complete arse and forgetting my wallet, which kicked off this stupid and maddening series of events.

Still, no-one died, and as the night wore on I calmed down and got back to some sort of normality even though I had to sit through most of the X Factor.  You can imagine how Christopher Maloney helped my mood?

So Sunday dawned full of fresh starts and new hope.  Alas, today has consisted of decorating the kitchen, and I have documented many times what sort of frame of mind DIY puts me in.  It is complete, and apart from one” is it overlapping at the top” comment from Louise as I was about ten seconds into the second piece, any unpleasantness was kept to a minimum.

Oh, and the dishwasher broke.

Ho, Ho, Ho.

festive

Till the next time…..

My Brain is a mixed bag

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It really has been a very varied week this week, and I seem to have a thousand thought streams coursing through my brain.

Louise finally came home on Monday, and despite not having anything as handy as a diagnosis, she is much better, and is slowly getting herself back to normal.  Thanks for all the concern, best wishes and messages.

The over riding theme of the week has been time, and a lack of it to be honest.  I have oft tweeted recently about the appalling state of the roads on my joyful commutes to and from work, and this seemed to reach a peak of crapness this week.  Not only are the roads between my house and work being used as a traffic cone showcase, when I do find a stretch of road free from obstacles, I appear to be driving behind cars that don’t posses a fourth gear, and cannot travel over 25 mph.

My usual sunny dispostion was stretched beyond breaking on Tuesday (I think), as a long and tortuous drive home ended with me picking the girls up from my Mum’s, having to call at the shop for baking ingredients for Rebecca’s Home Economics lesson the next day (she prepped in plenty of time as usual), only to find the supermarket had no caster sugar, so we had to then drive to other retail establishments to procure some.

Reading that back it doesn’t quite capture the absolutely valid reasons for my stress levels.  Anyway, I’d had a tough day, and crap journey and just wanted to get home.  All this faff meant it was after 7pm when I did, and my sense of humour and good nature expired at around 6.15pm.

I should add that Rebecca was then inconsiderately ill for the rest of the week, didn’t go to school, and therefore didn’t need the bleeding ingredients after all.

This leads nicely onto the next theme of the week.  Homework.

Not mine of course, but the work given to the girls from school.  It does seem to me that there is a expectation that parent’s won’t just have to ensure that homework is completed, no, they have to take an active, and often leading role in it.  This week, I have tackled –

  • The Great Fire of London (not literally)
  • The Nitrate Cycle
  • Percentages
  • Made a time capsule from the 1660’s
  • Built a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a shoe box (I kid you not)
Nitrogen Cycle
Not a Raleigh Cycle..a Nitrate one.

Now, I’m sure the girls are not at prodigy levels, and neither are they dullards, but looking at the tasks set, there really is no way they could get this stuff done unaided.  I work hard enough at my own job, thank you very much, without having to come home and tackle any of the above.

Of course none of this is helped by the girl’s uncanny knack of leaving every peice of work until the last possible moment.  Those of you that know me at all, will perhaps realise that I like things to be planned and organised as much as possible.  Examples of this are not allowing responsible grown ups in our travel party to keep hold of their own passports and/or theme park tickets, as I KNOW they will lose them.

Therefore this last minute Larry approach doesn’t do for my stress levels.

Next on the list this week…..we watched District 9 one night.  I think it was Wednesday.

I had heard quite a bit of buzz about this film, but wasn’t sure of it’s contents.  It really was excellent.  I would describe it as….

Unusual, original, touching, thought provoking, entertaining, relatively action packed and enjoyable.  Jonathan Ross has nothing on me!! (Apart from a few million quid).

District 9
An Alien Concept

Courtesy of another seamless link, Jonathan Ross leads me nicely onto the next topic buzzing through my head.  It won’t surprise many readers drawn here via a Disney web site to know that the topic is Florida. (Ross is a big fan, and regular visitor).  First it is important for me to point out that there is absolutely no chance of us affording a trip this year, however, this does not stop me pining for one.

Having had a trip to plan every year (once I had two) for, more or less the past decade, I am going through a sort of grieving process at my loss.  Louise isn’t helping.  Having not had the best start to the year, she is in “I need a holiday” mode, and she was in fact responsibe for me spending large chunks of the week, (absolutely not when I should have been working) checking flights, hotels, villas and all things Florida.

You see how Louise needing a holiday instantly prompts Florida research.  There was no requirement for a discussion around destination.  That ship has sailed…about a decade ago.  Alas, said research only confirmed my thinking that a trip will be beyond us.  Damn that Atlantic that we need to fly over.  Flights are just not findable for the £7.50 my budget will allow.

Still, we shall not write things off completely at this stage.  The event for which such a holiday would take place is a siginificant birthday for me, and that is in August.  So many weeks exist between then and now, where a lottery win could appear, or maybe some kind benefactor (maybe a Mr J Ross?) who maybe stumbles across this rambling and sends me a nice chunky cheque as gratitude for passing a few minutes of their lives in fine fashion.

So a busy week then, and I even managed to go to the gym three times!  A record for recent times, and my waistline is a constant reminder.

However the most stressful part of the past two weeks has not been coping with the house and kids alone whilst Louise was busy being ill, it was keeping Louise’s bloody Cafe World going on Facebook!!  A sign of the times.

Now, which flight web site have I not checked yet?

Till the next time……