Hello again, hello …

Crikey but it’s been a long time hasn’t it? I am well aware that this is not good for my readership and that most of you are long gone. However, life has been very busy. I suppose everyone gets back from holiday in September and has to catch up on the month and also do All The Things that those of them with kids were putting off over the summer. I confess to being no different, although, today I have a cold so I have decided that running around like a blue arsed fly will not be my lot and I am going to spend it sitting down doing things I enjoy. Ergo …

Chaos fairies have been in abundance this week, when are they not? Although I have managed to remember my own name, and even some other people’s. I have kept my eye on the ball enough to get my lad to and from school at the right times, with the right kit washed and ready for a whole week while McOther went to Arnhem on a history walking tour. This process confirmed to me, very strongly, that I am not a morning person. But we managed it anyway. Woot.

At one point I had a hilarious meeting with the school bursar who was so stereotypical that it was like interacting with a character from a comedy comic strip.

The speed limit on Mc(not so) mini’s school site has recently dropped from 15 to 10mph. After 7 years of 15 I do tend to do that speed on autopilot now so I have had to be very mindful that it’s dropped. Basically, if the car is bunny hopping along in second gear, I know I’m doing the right speed. If it’s running smoothly, and I’ve forgotten to stop and put it into first, I’m going 15mph.

So there I was, having just turned onto the site, about 100 yards in, drifting along on auto pilot. It was 5.00pm and I noticed there were lots of cars still parked at the pre-prep and was wondering whether it was late pick up, or a parents’ evening or similar.

As I lurched over another bump and gave it a bit of a squirt to stop it bunny hopping, I was brought back to earth, as the revs dropped again, by a movement at the side of the drive. A tall man in the kind of tweed suit you’d expect to see on Colonel Blimp was striding along with his arm out at about 45 degrees from his side waving it round in a circle.

Is he looking at me? I wondered.

Yes, I decided he probably was. The gesture was not one I’ve seen but I assumed he meant slow down. I eased right off the pedal and checked my speed, which by the time my very dodgy vision was able to present my brain with an image of the speedo that was in focus enough to read it (more on that story, later) was definitely bouncing about a bit at the 10mph mark.

OK not speeding now then, probably was before. Never mind, all’s well now. Phew. Job done. Smile and creep on past. But no, he continued to wave at me. What did he want? I checked the speedo and the errant eyes worked better this time. Yes, it was just below ten.

I’m going about 7mph now mate, I was thinking. I can’t slow down any more, so I stuck with 7mph and continued on by. It wasn’t like he had a speed gun, so it wasn’t his fault if he didn’t know I was going under 10 miles an hour, I decided as I approached the next speed hump. He was still waving his hand, presumably because he wanted me to go slower, no stop yet though.

There is normally one of those things that tells you your speed at the bump there, which I’ve slightly come to rely on to check I’m complying with regulations, that would have helped both of us know my speed for certain and has the added benefit that I can see it, but I was disappointed to note it wasn’t there.

I slowed even more for the speed hump. That was the point at which point he ran over and banged on the window.

Well that was a turn up. I stopped, and wound it down. Somewhat flabberghasted but also wondering why, if he wanted me to stop, he didn’t just … you know … put his hand up, palm towards me, in the universally acknowledged signal for stop. He appeared to be absolutely incandescent. And before I could even take a breath to say,

‘Hello there, can I help you with something?’ he started in.

Here we go. I thought. People do that same slow down gesture as I motor carefully through villages at 30 because they are certain that a car like mine will be speeding, so I was already harbouring misgivings that he was one of those. As such, it was probably best to just keep schtumm and see what he wanted. It depended how reasonable he was and what he had to say I guess. But since he was some random male I had no clue what he was about, but I could always burn away if he tried to open the door.

‘I am Arnold Rimmer*, the bursar of this school and when I signal for you to stop I expect you to do so please.’

*Not his real name, obvs.

Well, it would probably have been a good idea to actually signal that he wanted me to stop then. Never mind. I looked up at him in silence, the only thought in my head apart from, doesn’t he know how to signal stop? was, hmm, somebody’s done assertiveness training.

That, and a certain amount of surprise, of course, because I don’t think anyone’s talked quite as comprehensively down to me as that since I left preschool, and I had to hand it to him, the way he tacked that ‘please’ on the end took the sentence to a new level of rudeness and, yes, aggression, whether he meant it to or not.

Well. On the upside, it was nice to know he was the bursar and not some weird fucking rando, on the downside, it was very clear that he was about to go into orbit. Previous experience of this kind of situation has shown me that it’s best not saying anything to these people. You just nod politely until they’ve finished and then carry on with your day.

Even though it was extremely tempting to suggest, politely, that actually signalling ‘stop’ might have been more effective than just waving his arm about in some vague and random gesture, I reflected that it was unwise, and more pertinently, pointless. He had already decided who and what I was and no evidence or polite suggestion to the contrary was going to change his view, that much was clear … he had me pegged as evil. Forever. Not that he gave me time to so much as breathe before continuing.

‘How fast were you going?’ he demanded as I took a breath in to ask if I could help him.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I really don’t think it was much more than about twelve.’

‘It looked much faster than that to me,’ he said.

I didn’t reply. I think he said some other stuff but I’ve blanked it out. When he was done I drove off. At 10 mph. Except I started off in the wrong gear so my car was having none of it so embarrassingly, it bunny hopped the entire way up the drive. Now he’s going to think I’m speeding at any point when he sees the car driving smoothly.

Fucking weird though. Really, fucking weird.

That story there was going to be more of later …

Other things I have been mostly doing this week? Buying eye-wateringly expensive spectacles. My son and I needed eye tests. I have noticed, for some while, that I can’t always see things close up … or far away to be honest, but then I discovered that there were days when the instruments in the car … well I can see them, I just can’t always read them straight away. And that’s very bad so I booked an eye test immediately.

McMini’s eyes needed adjustment and he chose new frames, the most expensive frames in the shop which are made in Japan using the same technique that is used to make samurai swords or something ridiculous. For the love of the almighty. Raises eyes to heaven. They do suit him though.

Meanwhile I discovered that I now have astigmatism in my right eye as well as my left. I had no idea that could happen. I thought you were born with it but no, it grows. So there’s a new fact I’ve learned this week. Here’s another one. Varifocal lenses are extremely expensive. I’m going to try contacts as they do lenses that act in a similar way but I’ll still need specs whatever. I’ll have to test the lenses out as apparently some folks find they just make everything feel blurry. We shall see. I have chosen new glasses (the cheapest frames in the shop) although they were the ones that best suited me as well so … swings and roundabouts.

Writing news.

The writing has been coming along. I’ve been managing to do a little bit each day, which has been grand. It’s mostly editing so far, and shuffling scenes around so they fit, although I have a cold at the moment, just for a change, so I probably won’t be able to do much until that’s gone.

Bastard Chaos Fairies

Yep. The little bastards are back. This time it’s my fitbit they’ve got into. Yesterday it suddenly went yellow. I plugged it into its charger and rebooted it which seemed to fix it for a few minutes, then it went yellow again and completely died. I’ve no idea what’s up there but it’s not even a year old. Return it and get a new one I hear you say. Well yes, I could do that, I thought if I could find the chuffing receipt. I know I bought it in October but that’s all, which was kind of annoying.

Worse, I know I threw the box away recently, as in put-in-the-recycling-they-collected-two-days-ago recently. So that’s also sodding annoying. I have no receipt, no delivery note … nothing. That’ll teach me to tidy up.

I did everything I could think of and then clicked the help thing and got a call back. Turned out I had, indeed bought it from Fitbit, and while I couldn’t see it on my dashboard after Fitbit became Google, they could. So I have a shipping label and it will be off to Holland by DHL on Monday to be fixed, or at least switched. It’ll take ten days, and it’ll be a bust one that’s been fixed, but I’m really chuffed not to have to stump up for a new one.

Here’s another thing you never knew.

On the usual Saturday morning trip to the market today, there was sad news from the egg sellers. Apparently one of the major re-homing shelters for urban foxes from London is near them and many are released into their woods. This is usually fine, but occasionally, once a year or so, a fox gets into their hen coops and kills everything. Last night a fox got into their bantam coop and killed all 12 of them.

Interestingly, the girl also told me that the reason foxes kill everything is because they will take the bodies away and bury them to eat for later meals. So it’s not bloodlust after all. Nope. It turns out your basic fox is just a panic buyer.

Onwards and upwards.

Afore ye go …

There’s a fabulous free book giveaway on today so if you want to snaffle a copy of Few Are Chosen, now’s your chance.  There are a stack of books in the promo, you can find them all here: