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caddymanI think I might have to find stronger hay fever tablets. I am beginning to suffer the summers in the way I never used to and I am fed up with feeling ever-so-slightly short of breath when I go outside for any length of time (though I accept that being a Lardy Boy doesn’t help in this connection).
Having got through the weekend, I find that I really could do with another one immediately to get over it. We seemed to have very little time to ourselves; though you shouldn’t construe this as meaning that it was a bad weekend by any means: merely a busy one.
On Saturday![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellefurtle and I trouped to Reading for snorkel_maiden’s birthday celebrations. I seem to be very much in the minority of people who have nothing against Reading. Admittedly it is not an ‘exciting’ town as such, but it is compact and everything you need from a town is there and in a relatively compact space. My experience suggests that ‘exciting’ places are usually exciting for all the wrong reasons and I have lived in a few of those. My major complaint about Reading is less the place it self, but the getting to and from and again that is not a problem that can easily be set at the town’s door. Yes, it only takes 25 minutes to get there from London. The trouble is it takes around an hour’s travelling within London to get to Paddington to make the 25 minute train ride and that is not a pleasant hour’s journey, involving as it does dog-legging around the London Underground system.
Anyway – despite a journey in which many events seemed to be tailor-made bespoke Bryan annoyances, trailing around Reading itself was fun – we were there about an hour before meeting up with people. I discovered that you can only trade in a Playstation 2 (don’t ask) for cash if you can produce two forms of ID, one with an address on it. The bloke in Gamestation seemed bemused when I asked him for a hammer. I was damned if I was going to lug the brute any further (the Playstation 2, not the bloke) and would have been quite content to smash it in his presence and empty the bits into a sequence of bins up the main street. I eventually traded it for a computer game that we have immediately put up for sale on Amazon. I would happily have taken a tenner to cover our bar bill.
Furtle did some shopping ahead of her new job starting after the bank holiday next week and I bought a couple of books, both by Alison Weir, both biographies of interesting mediaeval women and with marvellous titles: Eleanor of Aquitaine, By the Wrath of God, Queen of England and Isabella, She-Wolf of France, Queen of England. Women generally got a very poor deal out of mediaeval society, but a handful, of whom these are two, managed to beat the spread and make their presence felt.
Next up, we met up withsnorkel_maiden and Tom in The Back of Beyond for food and drinks. We met a large number of very nice people, all of whose names I have sadly forgotten again, and also for the first time in too long a time, maleghast. Sadly we had to leave at about 21.00, finally getting back to the Athenaeum at 23.30 (see what I mean about annoying travel), completely shattered.
Sunday I managed a lie in, and after a simple breakfast of toast and coffee, we were whisked out for lunch unexpectedly bysmokingboot and larians, who had completed the removal of various items, including colonel_maxim’s computer before handing back the spare key to the flat. Another sign of the impeding demise of the Athenaeum Club now we really are two, though it is hoped that Boot will wander along from time to time for booze and natterage before we move out.
The afternoon saw Furtle in whirlwind mode and further sorting was done before we both collapsed for a short nap, being both unaccountably hot and tired. We managed a half hour kip that could have been longer, but that I misheard the expected time of arrival for the chap who was coming to pick up the free-cycled bed we were getting rid of. All the more galling then, that he came two hours late. That said, judging by his hat and clothes, he had driven from then Peruvian Andes, so a couple of hours shouldn’t be begrudged.
That then, was our weekend and why we are so tired today, despite a good night’s sleep.
It remains only for me to observe by way of non sequitur that Sontarans are clearly well-bred and better-mannered Klingons.
Having got through the weekend, I find that I really could do with another one immediately to get over it. We seemed to have very little time to ourselves; though you shouldn’t construe this as meaning that it was a bad weekend by any means: merely a busy one.
On Saturday
ellefurtle and I trouped to Reading for snorkel_maiden’s birthday celebrations. I seem to be very much in the minority of people who have nothing against Reading. Admittedly it is not an ‘exciting’ town as such, but it is compact and everything you need from a town is there and in a relatively compact space. My experience suggests that ‘exciting’ places are usually exciting for all the wrong reasons and I have lived in a few of those. My major complaint about Reading is less the place it self, but the getting to and from and again that is not a problem that can easily be set at the town’s door. Yes, it only takes 25 minutes to get there from London. The trouble is it takes around an hour’s travelling within London to get to Paddington to make the 25 minute train ride and that is not a pleasant hour’s journey, involving as it does dog-legging around the London Underground system.Anyway – despite a journey in which many events seemed to be tailor-made bespoke Bryan annoyances, trailing around Reading itself was fun – we were there about an hour before meeting up with people. I discovered that you can only trade in a Playstation 2 (don’t ask) for cash if you can produce two forms of ID, one with an address on it. The bloke in Gamestation seemed bemused when I asked him for a hammer. I was damned if I was going to lug the brute any further (the Playstation 2, not the bloke) and would have been quite content to smash it in his presence and empty the bits into a sequence of bins up the main street. I eventually traded it for a computer game that we have immediately put up for sale on Amazon. I would happily have taken a tenner to cover our bar bill.
Furtle did some shopping ahead of her new job starting after the bank holiday next week and I bought a couple of books, both by Alison Weir, both biographies of interesting mediaeval women and with marvellous titles: Eleanor of Aquitaine, By the Wrath of God, Queen of England and Isabella, She-Wolf of France, Queen of England. Women generally got a very poor deal out of mediaeval society, but a handful, of whom these are two, managed to beat the spread and make their presence felt.
Next up, we met up with
snorkel_maiden and Tom in The Back of Beyond for food and drinks. We met a large number of very nice people, all of whose names I have sadly forgotten again, and also for the first time in too long a time, maleghast. Sadly we had to leave at about 21.00, finally getting back to the Athenaeum at 23.30 (see what I mean about annoying travel), completely shattered.Sunday I managed a lie in, and after a simple breakfast of toast and coffee, we were whisked out for lunch unexpectedly by
smokingboot and larians, who had completed the removal of various items, including colonel_maxim’s computer before handing back the spare key to the flat. Another sign of the impeding demise of the Athenaeum Club now we really are two, though it is hoped that Boot will wander along from time to time for booze and natterage before we move out.The afternoon saw Furtle in whirlwind mode and further sorting was done before we both collapsed for a short nap, being both unaccountably hot and tired. We managed a half hour kip that could have been longer, but that I misheard the expected time of arrival for the chap who was coming to pick up the free-cycled bed we were getting rid of. All the more galling then, that he came two hours late. That said, judging by his hat and clothes, he had driven from then Peruvian Andes, so a couple of hours shouldn’t be begrudged.
That then, was our weekend and why we are so tired today, despite a good night’s sleep.
It remains only for me to observe by way of non sequitur that Sontarans are clearly well-bred and better-mannered Klingons.