Mother’s Day, Tavistock, Time Of The Month, Hancock & Tapping
At last! A day without the need to hunt for decent title. I am not sure what happened to last Sunday’s post, it was obviously not meant to be. I was off work until the Wednesday giving me plenty of time to make up for it but other things got in the way.
Tavistock.
It’s a lovely place, Tavistock. About 15 miles from here, just on the edge of Dartmoor. It’s small town architecture and winding streets are a stark contrast to the violent, depressing, chav-infested sprawl that stands not more than a burning tyre’s throw from my gaff. I am a frequent buyer of spices, pulses and other such diabetic friendly/Slimming World friendly commestibles from either the indoor market or a great little shop on the high street.
Unusually, I was there on Monday this week. Normally, the Rover is berthed in the riverside car park by 9am on Saturday, long before the hordes arrive and in plenty of time to park within easy walking distance of the ticket machine. It’s not the walk to the machine I object to, just the walk to AND from the car. Do you lock the car and walk to the machine or do you risk it and keep one eye on the car while you are gone? Why does it seem so stupid and pointless to walk to a machine, very often in the same direction of your ultimate destination, then walk back to the car, then walk….
…but I digress. It’s Monday and its about 2.40pm. Off work and ferrying Mum and her sister (my auntie) to Tavistock Cottage Hospital so that a consultant can have a poke and a prod at a troubling wound on Mum’s thumb. Her most recent visit to the GP had scared the bejesus out of her and me by suggesting it might be something awful, so I dropped them off and parked up, fully intending to wander into the town, buy some cooking stuff, a newspaper, perhaps a cuppa and then go and pick them up when signalled on the mobile to do so.
Having parked up (see paragraph 2), I wandered into the town, bought some vanilla pods, some sugar-free, 90% cocoa solids chocolate and a newspaper. Then I had a cuppa and read the paper. Then I went back to the car and read my paper some more until the 90p, 1 hour ticked ran out. Exiting the car-park, I drove to a place approximately, 100 yards from the hospital and parked. Yes, parked free of charge. I could hardly believe it, in a space by the side of a road. No double-yellow lines, no single-yellow lines, no “resident’s parking only” sign - nothing. By now it was almost 4pm, but as it was a hospital appointment I was quite prepared for the possibility that she might still be waiting to go in. So I read my paper some more and listened to some more Dale Winton on the radio. 4.15pm and my window-steaming slumber was rudely awoken by my amusing, if alarming, ringtone - the phone ring noise from “24″. Reality dawned and having ascertained that she “would start walking down the hill” (why do they do that?), I duly collected the two smiling and strangely similar ladies.
It turns out all is well and the poorly is just a deep infection, easily vanquished by some strong antibiotics.
The mood driving away from the hospital was much improved on when we arrived, The Dixie Chicks are on the Ipod and sugar-free Sherbet Lemons (everyone suffers for my condition) flow like wine. At the bottom of the hill, I click the indicator on “right” only to be asked “What are you doing?”. It turns out that the only thing that had kept them going whilst sitting in the tiny, sterile waiting room was the thought of Omellette and Chips in a cafe and a walk round the shops.
So once more, there I was parked in the riverside car park in the same berth. I walked to the ticket machine, bought another 90p ticket, walked back to the car, walked to the high street, went into some shops….well, you get the idea.
By now, however, it is gone 4.30pm and in that wonderful, customer-focused way, everyone and everywhere is shutting. Only in this fair land could an establishment, whose sole purpose is to feed people, close just prior to the point in the day when people are getting a bit peckish. We are on the verge of giving up when the smell of roasted coffee pulls us into a side street and we sit down, just the three of us alone at a corner table in a very homely, tea-shop-style establishment. The walls are adorned with blackboards featuring every sort of food the tired shopper could imagine, but then the waitress comes over…
“We are just serving drinks and things from the patisserie at the moment”.
I swear to god, there were 4 members of staff wandering about in that place. It was just before 5pm and they weren’t serving any food. Up and down the land, kitchen tables were groaning under the weight of fish fingers, beans and chips but Kenco and a donut was the best we could hope for. For all I know, they started serving hot food just as everyone began taking after-dinner walks to aid digestion, just in time perhaps to catch that all important “full-up”trade.
Only in England folks.
So, the ladies both had a cream tea and a cappacino and I had a small coffee.
Time Of The Month.
It’s a wonderful time of the month at the moment. Traffic-shaping technology has once more temporarily reduced by broadband speed to that of a milk float. Not a new milk float mind you, one long overdue for a service. I just have to put up with this until a random point either a few days or weeks from now when it the download speed shoots skyward and normality is resumed. This is all part of a “fair use policy” that I unintentionally agreed to many years ago when I neglected to read a lengthy Email with a jeweller’s eyepiece.
I noticed the words “fair use policy” on a mobile phone advert the other day. This provider was offering “unlimited texts” all of the time for £30 a month or something similar but the words “fair use policy” briefly appeared at the bottom. Now, I am no lawyer (like Tony Hancock, I never really bothered) but this kind of thing really gets my goat. I am on an “unlimited” tarriff with my broadband but I notice (now that I finally decided to read the terms and conditions) that “in order to guarantee an acceptable level of service to all customers” my broadband speed “will be reduced after periods of excessive traffic”. This is mysteriously murky and non-specific but no doubt perfectly in keeping with the huge wad of cash I chuck in their direction once a month. I also pay line-rental on telephone line I don’t use just so I can have ADSL.
“Get cable” I hear you cry. Well I would, but for at least two reasons…
1. Virgin won’t run a cable to my house as it would have to run through 4 gardens to get to my little corner.
2. Two words - 13 months of an 18 month contract left.
I notice that Virgin are now offering 32Mb speeds. Whoopie-flipping-do. If this post doesn’t go live until Monday afternoon, at least you will now know why.
My Other Passion.
So what else did I get up to on my few days off when I should be blogging? Well, I blogged. Sort of. For a long time, long before the dyrms86 web empire came to be, I first heard a Tony Hancock radio programme. If you don’t know who he is, then you are either too young or not me. He was the biggest star of 1950s radio and 1960s television in Britain and I am slightly fanatical about his work.
The internet is severly lacking in stuff dedicated to him and rather than bang on about it or sulk, I am in the process of redressing the balance. “Sunday Afternoon At Home” as it is called (well done if you get the reference) will go live later this week and I for one, am looking forward to seeing how it is received. I have quite literally no idea if no-one, everyone or a decent quantity somewhere in the middle will visit it and that, my friends is enough to make it worthwhile. My school chums will be relieved to know that there is a DYRMS connection and that it is mentioned in the first paragraph I typed on the front page. It never quite goes away does it?
Work.
It is Monday tomorrow and my Excel project has come to an end. Tomorrow I am back to the day job and at least 5 days of solid data-entry keying awaits. On the positive side, I will finally catch up on all that music and all those audiobooks I have kept on standby since July 8th last year. Further blogs will no doubt reveal more.
Tap, tap, tap, tap…
Oh, fantabulosa!
That’s Round The Horne you idiot…