2009 — 4 November: Wednesday
I took tonight's picture of Christa in Old Windsor back in 1980 when Peter was just a few months old:
I do miss her smile! Ho-hum.
Again, it's more or less midnight. I quite enjoyed the "Black Hole" programme, though it wasn't exactly densely packed with new information. However, I gave up on the new TV drama, not because it was no good — it seems very promising — but because I couldn't stand the low quality of the transcoded terrestrial transmission, let alone the incessant, relentlessly stupid adverts, and the over-sized, omni-present "DOG" telling me what channel I was watching and the fact that it was "All new". Extremely tiresome.
We have a walk planned for later on, though it's been pouring with rain until not long ago. And it's pretty chilly out there as I've just sniffed the air. My main co-pilot tells me there are a lot of "little owls" around at the moment, but I've yet to hear anything. They live in the leylandii alongside the railway track, I gather.
G'night.
Today's sunny start...
... as of 08:39, at least, contrasts with the malignity of the weather system over in Ampfield yesterday which brought down 43 power cables including the one that supplies the house of my chum Geoff. He sent over his tale of woe and half a dozen pictures. As he put it: "Well, it may have seemed like a 'mini' tornado in Romsey, and passed almost without comment by those who live on the opposite side of Bournemouth Road, but here in Ampfield, we like our storms with hair on their chests". Tornado Alley indeed.
I have a lunch to pack and walking shoes to de-muddify. Right. It's approaching time (09:57) for lift-off. Better get dressed, I suppose.
And back...
... with a nice hot cuppa already downed, some 6.97 miles later. We got back to the cars at the end of the walk (around Horsebridge, starting from within a pint's throw of the John of Gaunt Inn) just a few seconds ahead of the rain, and when I dropped Mike off back in Winchester about 40 minutes ago it was throwing it down. Here in sunny Chandler's Ford it's sunny and dry. However, the barometer is well down, and I still have to go out a bit later on to pick up some goodies Mr Parcel Force decided wouldn't fit through the letter box.
Now this could get very interesting! Baroness T's son1 pleaded guilty to unwittingly helping to fund the coup attempt. How does that work then? Priceless. Geoff, who is obviously feeling quite sparky now that he's reconnected to the Grid, asks "Would that be a coup d'ethatch then?"
It's 18:38, the evening meal is digesting, another batch of grapes is doing very nicely for "pudding", the eight (8?!) little packets that awaited me at the Post Office depot have been variously unwrapped and now merely await description. It's pitch dark out there, but who cares? Today is, after all, the start of my fourth year of freedom from wage slavery!
Lunch sorted!
I have a date for tomorrow. That's one less meal to think about...
Rich pickings
Kicking off with three classy bits of writing:
And following up with some more gems:
Can you believe the BBC wiped all of the six-part Alan Bennett series from 1966? Recognise a young John Sergeant?
Time for the "Buzzcocks". I like Claudia Winkleman.