2014 — 15 December: Monday
I've often wondered why my memory1 is so nearly unable to retain the salient details of a map for more than a few minutes. Let alone why I entirely lack my Dad's "bump of direction".
Driving back down...
... to Technology Towers, I set off2 at 10:15 this morning, but only arrived at 16:00 this afternoon, which has to be some diabolical sort of record. Of course, the complete closure of a chunk of the south-bound A34 in the vicinity of Oxford didn't help. Progress essentially halted during several miles of excruciating tailback before I reached the detour the 'authorities' had by then instituted. It consisted of chucking us all off to fend for ourselves. The chap I heard on the steam radio was unhelpfully suggesting that "long distance" travellers making for Southampton should stay on the M40, use the M25 round London, then come back out on the M3. Even my faulty map processing can see that's a helluva dog-leg. Besides, I could have done with hearing the suggestion before I'd left the M40 in the vicinity of Bicester and become committed to the A34, of course.
I kept the dominatrix on to keep me company and chatter reproachfully away to me as I headed more or less (I will draw seven veils over the "less") south on a nadgy little country lane otherwise labelled as the A338 (resisting all direction suggestions that were constantly trying to take me back to the A34 in any shape or form). I was (you should pardon the verb) "heading" through the terra incognita of Wantage and on in the direction of Hungerford, reasoning that if I stayed on said nadgy lane I would eventually intercept the M4 east-bound, from which I could then exit back once more on to what I hoped would be a nice, unblocked A34 at Chieveley. That worked quite well, actually. Indeed, I even saw a "Swan Inn" that I recalled at the base of a hill as I got near the M4. I can only assume that Christa used that variant route on occasion to add interest to the treks to and from the bat cave.
Although I've had to top the petrol level back up for the second time in 24 hours I only seem to have added about 25 miles (the "seven veils" effect) on top of what should have been the 280-mile total.
Next order of business? Cuppa; check. Evening meal can follow in due course.
One of my...
... festive tasks yesterday to earn my delicious Xmas meal (roast beef, by the way, none of this turkey stuff) was to migrate Leigh's Win8 netbook over to Win8.1 — it's a woefully underpowered "Medion" device she picked up for £150 or so. I gently suggested (having watched the upgrade take upwards of 15 hours to download a 3.65GB download, install it, and [by the time I departed this morning] get as far as 63% through "preparing devices") that she might do better to discard the thing and get something with rather more Oomph. I note that she'd now discarded her iMac (much as I did, and for much the same reasons).
While I might agree...
... that today's doorstep delivery is a piece of tosh with not over-impressive special effects:
... that does nothing to stop it being a very amiable way of passing 102 minutes some 34 years or so since I first saw it — and it still features Katherine Ross and a neat time travel twist, too. "That's entertainment!"
Meanwhile, I'd forgotten that today it's exactly seven years since I passed my driving test. Doesn't time fly?