Monthly Archives: September 2018

A Bad Day, Getting Worse…

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It’s been a bad day and it’s going to get worse, I can tell.

First of all, I arrived for my blood test at 7.03. I was seventh in the queue but, despite the phlebotomists allowing themselves to be diverted by a number of things, they managed to see to me by 7.20. That left me very close to the time allowed for free parking, but just a few frustrating minutes over.

I then went to McDonalds to eavesdrop and drink coffee. Er…and have a sausage and egg McMuffin. I have no willpower.

The phone call at lunchtime told me that I’d failed the test and need another one next week. Their first suggestion was that I should go to a hospital and be tested whilst on holiday. I said I thought this was unlikely to happen, particularly as Julia had not expressed much of an interest in touring NHS waiting rooms while we were away.

So they are going to test me on Friday and then leave me alone for a week. They are, it appears doing me a favour.

Things went well after that for the rest of the day, then I got home. I had a letter in a plain white envelope. I nearly binned it as junk mail as most people mark the envelope with at least a return address. Fortunately I opened it, and saved myself £30. It was from the council. In between cutting back on bin collections and social services and splurging money on consultants and office decoration they find time to fill the city with cameras and appoint themselves Guardians of the Bus Lanes.

It seems when I went to my last blood test I turned left out of city hospital and left again (yes, it’s the way to McDonalds). This took me into a bus lane. They aren’t always easy to spot. I use that road frequently when the bus lane isn’t in use, but hardly at all at that time in the morning. As a result I cost myself £30, but if I’d thrown the letter in the bin it would have cost me £60 for failing to pay.

I then went on the internet to book our holiday. I’d not quite managed it last night when the special offer link didn’t work. I’m supposed to be able to save 15% by using a link from Travelodge. What they don’t tell you is that there’s a time limit and a limited number of rooms.

When I got home tonight I had another email to tell me I could qualify for a 15% discount. So I clicked a link to a hotel they provided and…drum roll…found it didn’t work. It’s incompetent at best, but possibly also dishonest. And an idiotic waste of time.

Of course, the best bit is that when I left the hospital this morning I turned left, then left again…

…so I’m expecting another bus lane ticket last week.

I’m seriously thinking of just curling up in a ball and refusing to move. That way I can stay out of trouble. Although, when I think about it, it isn’t a strategy that works well for hedgehogs.

Image result for hedgehog

 

 

Haiku, clerihu and an idle moment

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I’ve successfully procrastinated the morning away since dropping Julia at work. I blogged, I slept, I composed twelve haiku on modern subjects, I reflected on Clerihews and their superiority to haiku and I replied to a few comments. I even read one post from someone else. It was fascinating, though it didn’t seem promising at first. Try Repro Arts of Great Yarmouth. It’s a print shop, but one that has made at least one fascinating blog post. I say “at least” because I have not yet read any of the others. They may all be fascinating, but in line with my theme for the morning, I’m going to read the rest later.

I recently invented a new poetic form – the haiklerihew. So far the world’s stock of haiklerihews is one. It’s probably all we need. I’m thinking I might have a crack at the clerihu next, though amalgamating a four line humorous poem nobody values with a three line nature poem that people are very serious about could take some doing.

 

from ancient Japan we have Basho

who never has gone out of fashion

deep in the woodlands

a nature cliche gestates

serious poem

 

I’ve amalgamated the first two lines of the clerihew, with the name, then added a haiku underneath. Clerihews, for those of you who have missed previous efforts, are allowed to be bad in terms of rhyme and scansion. I think I have achieved that here.

The haiku is a bit unkind, but some of them are a bit cliched in terms of the nature reference – I know mine are. I’ve used the 5-7-5 syllable format which is now seen as a bit old-fashioned – that way you can tell it’s a haiku. I had to change woods to woodlands to get the five in the first line, which is in the bad poetry tradition of the Clerihew.

All in all, a satisfactory poetic form, and much better than the haiklerihew.

I’m now going to brace myself for death threats from haiku poets.

Writers of Clerihews are much more laid back.

The Natural History of 6am

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At this time of year 6am on a Sunday morning is a twilight world filled with strange sights and tinged with sadness. By the time it starts to be twilight you know that summer has passed and another long winter is about to start. Though time is passing more quickly as I get older, winter seems to last longer.

I can’t talk for other days, as I don’t regularly get up for that time on any other day. I would like to, as it seems an industrious thing to do, but I’m just too lazy. My father’s parents used to get up at 4.30 every morning, even when they were in their 80’s, but I haven’t inherited the urge to get up in the dark.

Julia has now been working at the Leisure Centre for around seven years, so I’ve had many chances to observe the Natural History of  that time.

We set off at around 5.40 to get to work for 6am. Other people who go to work at that time are mainly walking, with a few bicycles and cars around. A few people stand at bus stops, but they are early, as the buses don’t start until six. I always think of this when the government says that we should get out of our cars and use public transport. I would use public transport if it ran at the right times. And if I liked sharing a tin box with drunks and people who hold loud telephone conversations.

As people walk to work, wearing stout footwear and sensible clothing they meet a torrent of people wearing fashionable footwear and next to nothing else. I swear that the mascara worn by some of the women weighs more than their clothes. These are the people returning home from a night out.

Talk all you want about poverty and starvation, but there’s something about going to work as the revellers return home that really emphasises the unfairness of life.

For a closer view of the clubbers, you can often find them clustered in McDonalds at this time of the morning loudly discussing the banal details of their night out. At this point it is time to reflect that the more interesting members of the species have, in all probability, paired off and are involved in various mating rituals.

The birds are the other interesting Natural History element of the early morning. Blackbirds tend to be about at all times of the day or night and tend to behave as Blackbirds do at all time of the day. There’s something about a Blackbird’s body clock that seems to go 24 hours a day, whether in sunlight or the illumination of streetlights.

Pigeons stalk the city streets and the suburbs at this time of day, finding plenty of spilled food to eat. Often the spillage will be large enough to attract a sizeable flock. They don’t really pay a lot of attention to cars and natural selection plays its part here – ensuring that the less alert of the pigeons provides a snack for the crows, who always seem to be lurking. There were no Wood Pigeons or Magpies about this morning, but they are often seen too.

That, I feel, is enough. I’m off to the laundry now.

This, in case any children are reading, is what happens when you don’t work hard enough at school. People who worked hard at school tend to have the weekends off.