Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Rain, trains and dysfunctional lifestyles


Another weekend  of very wet weather which scuppered all my plans for days out – when will it ever stop raining?   I even spied a large wooden vessel floating past steered by a chap called Noah.  For some odd reason he seemed to have a large quantity of pairs of animals with him.  Whatever floats his boat I guess, who are we to judge?

In the interests of my sanity and to prevent me wanting to cull any bird who would dare to poo on my clean laundry, I do not have a washing line.  Wet stuff goes straight from the washing machine into the tumble dryer and hey presto everything is dry and fluffy.  This arrangement worked fine until last week when on my final tumbling session of the week....................nothing!  No way was I going to be able to dry anything so I had to resort to the airing cupboard (for the clothing, not for me to hide out in).  Anyhow I looked through the book of rules for the machine and it mentioned something about checking the fuse.  Just as well I did as the fuse had obviously overheated judging by the burn mark on the plug and the melted fuse cover.  This only reinforces why I never leave the tumble dryer running when I am out of the house.

I have been doing some research on pre-booking train tickets for our forthcoming week away.  For the most part it will be a driving trip, but the day we are planning to visit Edinburgh we are travelling by train for an hour to get there – saves the hassle of trying to find somewhere to park in the city centre plus train travel is fun.  Anyhow, I have managed to find return tickets (booked a month or so in advance) for £35 each return which is a pretty good price for travelling in rip off Britain.  As a separate exercise I looked at the prices for travelling from various points on the same main line route to Edinburgh and bizarrely the prices ranged from £70-£395 to travel from around half way along the route.  To travel the full distance from London to Edinburgh the price can be as low as £49..........explain that one Mr Network Rail.  By factoring in travelling from a station not on the main line, i.e. one where there is a change from one rail service to another, the prices can be as high as £600.  For goodness sake, I can go to Spain for two weeks for little more than this.  Why exactly do we put up with this sort of nonsense?  Give me European or American trains systems any day – cheap, quality service, efficient, on time..................need I go on?

The usual poor television programme choices did nothing to make a wet bank holiday Monday any more entertaining, however I decided to catch the end of a Jeremy Kyle show.  How some of these folk have the brass neck to air their business for the country to see is beyond me, but the three in a ‘love triangle’ on the show took the biscuit.  Girl A was moaning that Girl B was trying to get Girl A’s boyfriend back even though Girl B said she didn’t want him and was only doing this to annoy Girl A , although the boyfriend had been flitting back and forth between the two girls and playing them off against each other (are you keeping up?).  When Girl A was asked if things had improved of late in her on-off relationship with the stud in question (I use the term in total amusement as he was anything but a stud) she replied that he sometimes now cuddles her after their, shall we say, bedroom activities, instead of just going off to play on his PlayStation.  He has also started to bring her presents which is a new thing for him.  To quote Girl A, “he has been nicking bracelets for me from the pound shop”. What a great example of young people in this country today and I daresay an attitude that will be passed down to the next generation unfortunate enough to find themselves mixed up in these dysfunctional and irresponsible lifestyles where partner swapping in the normal thing to do.

Once again, will the last person to leave the country please switch the lights off?








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