2015 — 24 June: Wednesday
As a temporary change1 some of my evening entertainment yesterday was the somewhat over-praised "Spring"...
... which is a considerable step away from my usual fare. "Modern horror", heh? Not so much. But a couple of laughable lines in the dialogue partially redeemed it. I shall pass it along to a likelier viewer. One can actually have too many DVDs below a "quality" threshold, though don't ask me to define that value. It varies with my mood.
The weather...
... looks unmoody enough for today's walk in a couple of hours or so. It's midsummer's day, I gather.
My kite aerial photography chum Zeno...
... is a current fellow-traveller along the Probate path. We've been swapping war stories since we both mislaid 98-year-old mothers of the same first name. He now still has a house sale to contend with whereas I sold dear Mama's bijou Midlands residence just over four years ago, to fund her stay in the rather grander place in Winchester. She literally never knew where she was, but her last years were spent comfortably and safely rather than living in a cardboard box under a railway bridge.
Now that would have made a modern horror film...
Breakfast, methinks. I have a date with a hot plum.
Today's walk...
... has turned into an extended but unsought adventure in three phases, only two of which are currently complete. Yet it all began so well...
Phase #1 is complete. That was a return visit to inspect the orchids at Figsbury Ring. It was gloriously clear, and sunny, with skylarks and crows providing almost the only sounds. This was only my second visit in a little over eight years, and Brian's first. Last time, of course, I wasn't the driver as all that was yet to come. I had forgotten the heavily-rutted nature of the single track lane up from the A30 to the car park. Anyway, our inspection completed, we adjourned a little way back down the road for some tea and toast at what used to be called the "Hilltop café" but which has recently re-opened as "The Haven".
Phase #2 is also complete. That was the recent unscheduled walk from Kwik-Fit back to Technology Towers. Without my poor little Toyota Yaris.
Astute readers will probably now be able to deduce the yet-to-occur Phase #3 which won't be starting until after I've made both a snack lunch and (at least one further) cuppa. Although I hope to be able to drive back home, I will now be £297 lighter, having by then forked out for
- two new front tyres (both were quite downtrodden), and
- one third (by length!) of the exhaust system2 that's been with the car since it was new. The bit furthest from where I sit had begun making death rattle noises that I noticed while waiting for a set of lights to go green. Having looked in the rear view mirror, but failed to see the noisy van that I assumed had pulled up behind me, I diverted to Kwik Fit for the last stage of my return trip.
You know what? I think I shall let dear Mama's estate finance this latest bit of car repair. In fact, I shan't even buy the cheapest tyres I can find this time.
Had I not been...
... on foot, of course, as I walked back to complete Phase #3 (successfully) I would neither have seen nor heard the Spitfire that flew a couple of circuits around me. Nice sight, nice sound. And a nice, quiet Toyota.