Hi Everyone
Just when you think that nothing much is happening in your life something extraordinary happens. You know that our city has, like many other places, large areas of deprivation as the traditional industries have disappeared but we are very lucky to be surrounded by beautiful countryside, much of it within half an hour to an hour traveling in our car. This week we went to a familiar spot just forty minutes from home in the Peak District National Park for a walk and a coffee. We then moved on to one of the many lovely dales that we had discovered just a couple of years ago. It has a small group of lovely cottages and houses, a river, a stone bridge, lovely walks, and although it is now the summer holiday season, only a few people, probably fewer than the ducks on the river. Now if you have got this far with this Rubbish, I will now get to the interesting bit. There is just one house with a small window and hatch serving hot tea and coffee, soft drinks, pasties, sandwiches, and ice creams. While the prices for everything were modest, I noticed that the price of a one scoop cone was expensive, and the price of a two scoop was enormous. My immediate thought was that as much as I love ice cream, I was not going to pay those prices. That was until I saw another couple with a one scoop cone. It was enormous with as much ice cream balancing on the cone as you would normally expect with two scoops. Having reassessed the situation, we could not resist. Even better was the fact that the ice cream was as good as anything we had licked on our many trips to Italy. By now, if you are an ice cream anorak you will be bursting to know where this lovely place is. Well, while the ice cream is too good to miss, there is no chance that I would want this lovely place overrun by hoards of tourists and visitors which is a problem for so many beautiful places. The only clue is that it is just a three mile walk from the Peak District's most crowded beauty spot.
Once every month I go to the local Pharmacy to collect my "life saving" tablets. At least my doctor must think that they are life saving, even though I have not seen him or her for the last six years, and I am still here of course. Anyway, when I go to the Pharmacy I park my car, walk to the road crossing, press the red button, and wait for the traffic to stop. Now not a lot of people know this but you then have 6.1 seconds to cross the road before the traffic starts again. In my case having crossed the road, I have to walk about twenty yards to reach the Pharmacy door but I am across the road and halfway to the Pharmacy before the lights change. Now somebody has decided that we are all getting older and fatter ( not me as I have not yet reached middle age and I have recently managed to lose some weight) that we need 7.3 seconds to cross the road. Hopefully, that means that when I go for my tablets next month, I will be able to cross the road and reach the door of the Pharmacy before the traffic begins to flow again, much to the annoyance of the drivers 'patiently' waiting to resume their journey.
The jet stream somewhere up there is stuck so we are told. The result is we are having a very cool, very wet summer north of it, while Europe below is sweltering in extreme heat. Is it a force of nature, global warming or is Europe telling us that Boris was wrong in persuading us to leave them? If we rejoin them does that mean we will be permanently hot or cold? Perhaps we should let the jet stream decide next time. It makes more sense than asking Boris.
Just a Thought :
Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
We are going to put a map of the world on a wall so that we can put a pin on all the places that we have visited. But first, we have to travel to the top corners of the world to stop it from falling off the wall.
How many politicians does it take to solve climate change? Trick question. Politicians cannot solve anything.
Brian