Something for the weekend

Aaah, Friday. Praise be. There were times this week when I thought I'd never see the end of it, but here we are.

Today has actually been rather good. Drove to work in horrific monsoon-stylee* weather for our big team planning session. One of the team, in a fit of enthusiasm had said he'd bring in cakes**.

He brought cakes, in a variety of flavours, doughnuts, cookies, and a large bunch of bananas.

Also sausage rolls and chicken pies.

Not quite sure why he thought we needed so much delicious baked food at 9.30 in the morning, but I didn't hear anyone complaining about it.

We ate our way through the mountain of comestibles and did our planning, and it was actually rather good. I suggested to the team that we stop at lunchtime to go to the pub. They liked this idea, which evolved into a "why don't we just work through till we finish this, then go to the pub and have an early finish?" Which we did.

I think that we have all put in enough additional hours over the last few weeks to merit an early end to the week on a pissy wet Friday afternoon.

If anyone wants to complain about it, by all means*** email me.

Drove home in yet more pissing rain, skilfully avoiding the massive tailback on the A303 at Stonehenge. Managed to get stuck behind a car of terrified Japanese tourists as I traversed Salisbury Plain. I knew it was a car full of tourists because it was brand new and driving painfully slowly along the white line in the middle of the road.

I think when foreign tourists see a 40 sign, they think it means kilometers per hour, not miles per hour. Anyway, this lot were doing about 25 mph and creating a huge grumpy tailback behind them.

I overtook at a safe bit of road, causing them to panic unnecessarily and swerve into (and then back out of) a tank crossing (not my fault, they were just crap at driving). When I looked in my rear view mirror I saw that the car was full of Japanese people, all scared witless. The driver looked like someone trying to pilot a light aircraft to a jungle airstrip in a hurricane, all white knuckles and huge eyes.

I expect they were heading to Bath, 30 miles away. Good luck with that, then. They're probably still negotiating the one-way system as I type this, six hours later.

My lovely guitar teacher turned up at 6 and we had a great lesson. My rendition of the Police's "Can't Stand Losing You" is almost passable now. Yay me.

Just as he was leaving, Bro-in-Law WithaY arrived, and we amused ourselves for the next hour or so by eating cupcakes and putting the world to rights. Mr WithaY then arrived home, having driven all the way back from Richmond in Yorksire in the rain. Poor bugger.

Plans for the weekend include visiting father-in-law WithaY in hospital tomorrow and then possibly going to the pictures to see Hancock, if we can be arsed. And sleeping. And maybe making some more cupcakes.

I will probably also spend at least some of the weekend staring out at the rain, grumbling.

I am in the mood to buy some stuff from Amazon. I have no money, but that seldom stops me. I fancy a few new cds and at least one book.

Heard Steve Wright in the afternoon talking about a book which supposedly allows you to analyse a person's personality by their stuff.

Hmm, let me think about this theory.

If you came to my house and it was full of, say, railway memorabilia, you would draw some conclusions. Perhaps that I was interested in railways? Had always dreamed of being a train driver? Lived on my own and quite possibly had a railwayman's uniform up in my bedroom?

Likewise, if I came to your house and it was full of soft toys and pictures of unicorns, I would draw conclusions about you. Perhaps that you didn't get out much? Read too many sci-fantasy novels? Had issues around forming adult relationships?

I should write a book.

*The climate, not the chain store...it wasn't weather dressed in over-priced floppy dresses and teeny colourful cardigans.

**To help us think.

***And I will ignore you, you whinging bastards.