2009 — 15 October: Thursday
The merest placeholder as I'm away horrendously early,1 and probably for much of the day. Tonight's picture of Christa — courtesy of Big Bro — is from November 1985:
Now for a few brief hours of shuteye before hitting the 6 a.m. road. It's a mere 23:35 or so.
G'night.
Back
Mike's phone call at 05:45 woke me, where the alarm clock signally failed to. I was therefore over in Winchester at about 06:10 ready for my passenger duties, but not exactly brimming with the milk of human kindness, or the milk of breakfast cereal for that matter. It was cold, it was dark, and it's all Quad's fault for insisting on an arrival time of 09:00 for their same-day service.
It's now 19:16 and I've just downed a nice, hot cuppa, installed 25 Microspit patches across two machines, and cursed my dead central heating system on this rather cool evening. The round trip to Huntingdon (with a several hours side-jaunt to Peterborough) was basically uneventful. Mike's speakers were very satisfactorily overhauled, and I was even able to chat for a few minutes to the youngster who designed the new Audiolab pre- and power-amplifiers "wot I 'ave just got", so at least I got agreement from him that the shoddy remote control really does let the side down.
I rather hope that whatever was making Mike sneeze and shiver isn't very infectious as I spent several hours in the same car with him, poor chap. When I queried his symptoms with one of the doctors next door a few minutes ago she said that it was one of the routes observed as this swine flu virus runs its course. (BBC Radio 1 DJ Janice Long was told exactly the same last night if I recall correctly.)
I think any shivering I'm doing would be more readily attributable to the coolness of the house at the moment. But if I go off the air for a while I may have to revise my opinion.