2014 — 2 February: Sunday

As I surfaced this morning1 I was thinking of some of the ABBA music (and videos — some directed by Lasse Halström of all people) that I'd seen on last night's BBC4 documentary. Despite never previously owning any of their stuff, some of it had obviously percolated deep into my electrochemical jelly. I'm not even sure I knew they had won the (in my opinion, uniformly dreadful) Eurovision song contest for Sweden. But it suddenly occurred to me that their victory (with "Waterloo") had been in the same year I joined that long-defunct bit of the UK's computer industry, namely ICL's Education and Training HQ, in Beaumont, Old Windsor.

And that was on 4 February 1974, in the middle of the "three-day week". Almost exactly 40 years ago, Christa!

It's bright and sunny...

... though chilly. Here's hoping we find some of the less muddy bits of Hampshire for our planned tramping in a couple of hours.

Breakfast is a thing of the past. The tuna sandwich for lunch munching is made, and packed. It's almost time I wasn't here. Mustn't forget the packs of tea-bags.

And it's still (reasonably)...

... bright and sunny back at Technology Towers in mid-afternoon. We avoided the muddiest bits by shaving off about 1.5 miles from our usual route, choosing instead a mile of minor A-road, and thereby shortening it to a mere 6.5 miles. Still rather soggier than would be our preference. But it's frightfully good for us.

What is it, I wonder, about Sunday drivers that turns some of them into blithering, dithering, lane-blind, signalling-averse idiots? A communal death wish?

Sad news about Philip Seymour Hoffman.

  

Footnote

1  Doubtless through my (unremembered) REM sleep.