This week I'll be mostly leaving the lilies to look after themselves

Thwop

(This is not about leaving.)

I'm not a gardener.  By any stretch of the imagination.

But here's the issue.  I spend the week sitting at a desk looking at words and numbers on a screen, and thinking about uninsured loss recovery, or mid-term adjustments, or catering for both pipe-delimited and comma-separated values, or secure transmission, or stream file integrity checking, or whatever.  So when I get home on the weekend, I walk through the front garden, I just happen to notice some nature that needs attending to, and a primeval instinct kicks in...

This week I'll be mostly on the bus

"Form a line to the front
Form a line to the back"
- Gouldman

(This is not about leaving.)

There's a class of people in Chandler's Ford.  Middle class.  They know how to queue for a bus.  They're British.  They stand quietly and wait patiently.  They're elderly.

This week I'll be mostly at the airport

"This is the last call for the passenger taking
a photo while leaning over the balcony of Costa Coffee,
your flight is now boarding"

So this is it.  The last time I'll be typing a previously-committed-to-memory 6 character code into a 4ft high kiosk.  The last time I'll be asked if I have any liquids or sharp objects on my person.  The last time I'll be trying to pick the queue without the doddery old people, or the numpty teenagers.  The last time I'll be emptying my pockets into a plastic tray.  The last time I'll be randomly frisked on account of being too lazy to shave in the last 4 days.  The last time it will turn out that I have traces of explosive materials on my laptop.  The last time I'll queue up at the cashpoint that dispenses English notes.  The last time I'll be purchasing an overpriced americano.  The last time I'll be sitting on an uncomfortable stool at an undersized dirty table cluttered with other people's coffee cups that hasn't been wiped down since yesterday evening.  The last time I'll be reading Mark Hughes, Gary Anderson or Marcus Pye while being forced to listen to the inane conversation at the table beside me.  The last time I'll be getting out my laptop and writing half a blog while keeping one eye on the departures board.  The last time I'll wait until the queue has gone at the gate before strolling nonchalantly up with my boarding pass and photo id.  The last time I'll find that even though I'm at 16A and I boarded at the rear steps, there's a family of ignorant Liverpudlians who are in row 21 but who boarded at the front and are now walking all the way up to the back and are behaving like it's everyone else who is in their way.  The last time I'll seem to be the only passenger giving the cabin crew my full attention during the safety briefing even though I've heard it a million times before.  The last time I'll get a quick half hour kip at 17,000 ft.  The last time I'll be last off, but first out due to a well timed bit of speed walking, and not having to wait for hold baggage.

This week I'll be mostly getting the builders in

What's an 'ammer for?

I make no apology for the following rash statement.  Builders, you are a bunch of ignorant, rude, lazy, awkward, annoying, inconsiderate and insensitive gits.

Now let me qualify that.  I'm talking about British builders here.  I've seen - for example - German builders on the tv and they are an organised, hard working, efficient lot.  And yes, there are a few decent builders out there, but they are few and far between, and I pity them for having to fight against the tide of scum that is the majority of the building trade in the uk.

And no, I have not forgotten to take my angry pills this week.  And yes, my lovely wife has had to increase her St John's wort intake to keep from storming out and throttling the life out of at least one of you sorry morons.

This week I'll be mostly unconscious on a plane

Erm, where am I?

Back in 2006 I was on the Flybe Exeter to Jersey.  We were about 10 minutes from landing when I started feeling decidedly unwell.  I mean, quite definitely not very well at all in quite a big way.  I frantically worked out where the sick bag was.  Next thing I knew, we'd landed, the plane was empty, and a flight attendant was saying in mono "excuse me sir, are you ok?"  As her voice came back into stereo, I mumbled something, got up and staggered off the plane.  I felt like death warmed up.  I must've looked bad too, because I got stopped by airport security on the way out.

Well that was a bit odd.

This week I'll be mostly running out of tea

"I put my trousers on, have a cup of tea
and I think about leaving the house"
Albarn/Coxon/James/Rowntree 1994

This time last year when Checkers was closing down, we went over on their last day for a bit of legal looting.  The soft drinks aisle was full of hoodies loading their trollies with 2 litre bottles of coke at less than half price.

I was mostly interested in the tea.

I did a quick calculation, and checked the use-by date of every box of Assam they had left on the shelves.  Basically we'd have a year's supply, the last couple of boxes would be just within their use-by date, and it would cost the same as about 6 weeks worth of bog standard tea.  It was a no-brainer.  Wheel the trolley up to the shelf and push the whole lot in.

This week I'll be mostly blogging on the outside

Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X ...

If you're reading this (which you are), then you're on Blogger.  Blogger has been owned by Google for about a decade.

If you're paying attention (which you may be), you'll notice that the posts on this blog earlier than 2012 are suspiciously similar to my Facebook Notes.

If you're really paying attention (which you're not - I know this from the stats page), then you and the other two readers of this blog will soon realise that most of what follows has been suspiciously posted elsewhere on the interweb.

So why would I start blogging out here, when I had a perfectly good thing going on in there?  Well...

This week I'll be mostly on a boat

"It's very very nice here"
Bown 2002

Right now I should be sitting at home, with my feet up in front of the fire, reading Autosport.  Instead, I'm on a boat half way across the English Channel.

Why?

Well, yesterday evening I should have been sitting on a plane, with my seat-belt on and my seat-back upright, reading Andrew Benson, Freakonomics, and Bel's Randomness on the Kindle.  Instead, I was on a train from Southampton to Chandlers Ford.

Why?

In a word - fog.

The fog has rolled in across the Channel Islands for a few days, and there is mayhem.  All the flights have been cancelled.  There have been no newspapers (or Autosport) since the mail plane can't land.  You've got hundreds of people at dozens of airports all thinking the same thing - catch the boat.  While BA, Flybe and Blue Islands might be making a loss, the cabbies at Poole harbour and doing a roaring trade between station and ferry terminal.