Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Tedious beyond belief. Severe delays going home last night, severe delays coming in to work this morning. Signal failures at Highgate and then at East Finchley. This is the service I pat over £1,300 a year to use.

To add insult to injury, the announcer at Totteridge and Whetstone had an accent: “Ladies and Geddlemen. There are sibber dillies on the Northern Line due to earlier siggal failure at East Fwishley.” It would have been amusing had it not virtually been on loop. As it was, your mild mannered correspondent simply wished to wrench the tannoy off the post and shove it down someone’s throat.

It was clear that whoever recorded the message wasn’t paying any attention to what he was reading, either. After waiting ten minutes (and still no train, crowded or otherwise), the message changed to announce “minor delays” but with the added cryptic remark at the end “…but this is irrelevant for this station closure”.

I woke up all perky and rested. Now I just want to doze off again.

I need a new duvet; an intermediate duvet. I think I was a bit chilly from time to time last night, which is why I am so tired this morning: I know I woke up a couple of times as I recall looking at the clock, but I also dozed off again.

Last winter it never got cold enough for me to break out my hyper-insulated 6,000 tog monster duvet and I got by quite happily with the summer duvet and tee shirts augmented by occasional use of the central heating. At the moment though, I keep eying the monster with trepidation. It is folded up on the floor next to the bed. We dragged it out for the exclusive use of Miss Furtle (it is getting too chilly of a night to wake up to find the preferred duvet wrapped around the loved one, while I chisel off encroaching ice sheets).

One duvet each, see: that was the idea.

Except that with two people and two double duvets, one of which is a monster (duvet, he says hastily) the bed suddenly becomes exceptionally crowded. Anyway, that worked for one night, but then even Miss Furtle gave up on it as 6,000 togs is just too much this side of an Arctic winter.

So we're back to square one.

This weekend I shall be investigating the possibility of two duvets – larger than singles, but smaller than doubles. The revised plan then: a duvet each, both with a few more togs than the summer one and both with far less of the lead-melty heat of the winter duvet.

And moon boots; I hate cold feet. Even occasional ones.

Cor.

So where was I?

That’s right, Barcelona. No hold on, that was the Doctor.

I was supposed to be going out for a drink after work tonight but my cold seems to have resurfaced – I am not so sure that it ever went away; it was more like it was taking a breather – so I intend to go home comparatively early and go to bed somewhat earlier than usual dosed up with Lemsip and stuff.

Tomorrow is the young God Daughter’s fourth birthday bash, and I have been and acquired a small pressie for her and tiny brother. I have also bought cheese. The usual ripe Stilton, a nice Berkswell and in the face of the unavailability of Vacherin (who’d have thought that there were seasons for cheeses in this day and age?), I have speculated on something called Douceur du Jura which I have never tried before, but which is apparently very much like Vacherin and is so runny that even though it is whole and has its own rind, it is sold in an earthenware pot to stop it slipping off the table slinky-fashion and making its escape.

I can barely smell them despite the fact that the Stilton on its own should have time-space olfactory qualities.

Tomorrow, then, I shall be in sunny South Cambridgeshire. I am vaguely hopeful that I be able to get by without passing my cough and general lurgy to the kids. The fresh air will do me good. Getting up and out so that I can arrive by about 1 ‘o’clock is less likely to do me good, and I have a fairly poor record of managing to get there before two over the past couple of years.

Still, we’ll see.

I have yet to acquire my shiny new England shirt. It is quite likely that apathy will overtake me in that endeavour and that I shall not acquire one after all. We’ll see.

I am running out of telly to watch. At the moment there is really only Dr Who and House. In theory there is Lost, but I have the first half of the season on my PC and have done for several months. I still haven’t got around to watching past episode nine. I do not know when season three of Galactica starts, but at least the new Stargate¹ stuff is only about six weeks off, so I shall be hitting the torrents for that again. For one reason or another, I have missed a number of the final series of West Wing so I am not sure what is going on anymore. I may have to wait until I can borrow the DVDs.

Thursday nights have traditionally been taken up tellywise with House and Without a Trace. The demise of More 4 +1 has made watching the latter problematic. Firstly, reception is not as good on More 4 as it was on More 4 +1 , and secondly losing that one hour transmission lag now places it in direct competition with House. Luckily we have two tellies and two VCRs. Still a bind, though. To add to the annoyance, neither colonel_maxim nor I are entirely certain that we didn’t witness Without a Trace jump the shark in last night’s episode. Our dour FBI favourites were in Mexico, many miles outside their jurisdiction, wearing casuals and short sleeves, taking the piss out of the locals and getting involved cross country chases on a bike. More like a Hispanic Hawaii Five-0 than the gritty New York realism they generally go for.

Oh well. Onwards and upwards.

¹A note here for _dawn_treader_ – Jack is back. Richard Dean Anderson will be appearing in a handful of episodes in season 10.

I have just discovered that the cold-relief medication I am taking to keep me from coughing, hacking and sneezing while we get this bloody job done is not supposed to be taken by people with high blood pressure.

Bit late, now. I've been chobbling them like Smarties for two days now, so that I can come to work and actually get something done.

As it is, I am going home early tonight, around 4.15, not having left the office before 7pm once since Monday last week.

So there.