2013 — 15 December: Sunday
And here I am1 after a very pleasant couple of nights spent with my Birmingham cousins, and my son and heir. Next task: a late lunch of some sort, methinks. I must say, travelling in daylight makes it a lot easier to dodge that M6 Toll section. But I don't think I've ever driven in such heavy spray. The rear windscreen wiper has only the one, intermittent action, setting, and spotting who was behind me became quite a fun game. Particularly the occasional idiot who preferred driving in heavy rain without switching on headlights.
I've clocked up about 312 miles and still have two "blobs" showing on the fuel gauge. Today, by the way, is the sixth anniversary of my Driving Test. Ann, who took delivery of a new Golf on Friday afternoon, asked me if I fancied a change of car. To be honest, I don't, not least because my little blue Yaris was Christa's final birthday present to me just a month before she died. Call me a sentimental old fool if you will, but it's the way I am.
To my considerable...
... surprise, you would at some point in my bibliophilic life have been able to find eleven of these titles somewhere on my shelves. Some of the others (I suggest) are better handled by burning or, at least, flinging with great force...
The fact that...
... Private Eye magazine failed to claim their annual direct debit this year — in truth, a failure on the part of my new bank which told a porkie when claiming that all such debits had been "gathered in" — gives me a perfect excuse to let my subscription lapse. Latterly, I've been finding it hard to read even a fraction of a page at a time without wanting to commit violence on one or other of the non-stop parade of rogues, creeps, crooks, and politicians regularly (dis)gracing its fortnightly pages. I think I shall simply bury my head in the sand for a while. The fact that they failed to include the "pre-paid envelope provided" described in their "urgent message" to me didn't help their cause, either.
There are...
... many worse things to find waiting on your front doorstep (thanks, Mr Postie) than a recording of an "evening with" Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer:
... having downloaded the "Auto RIP" MP3 files last Monday I now have the three accompanying CDs.
Glancing back...
... to find the R Crumb "Weirdo Years" compilation I oh-so-casually mentioned that Peter and Peter's g/f have now very kindly treated me to for my birthday — but which I only actually got my hands physically on yesterday when they arrived from London — I was quite taken aback to realise for just how long the saga of my latest little piece of root canal (un)joy has now been going on. Happily, I've not had any cause to crack open the Metronidazole antibiotic pack that Dr (Portsmouth) Fang handed me last Wednesday as there's been not so much as a hint of a twinge from the excavation. (Also happily, that meant alcohol was definitely on the menu on Friday and Saturday evening.)
Hic!