Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Today I was on a course all day. It was a quick, rough and ready introduction to Microsoft Project Manager. Useful for me in as much as I project manage several things each year, but pointless because with usual departmental efficiency, I still do not have the application on my PC and am not likely to anytime soon. Already the benefits of the course are sliding from my brain and by the time I am in a position to use the software it will have gone completely.

Still, I was home a little after 5.15 and had a free lunch, so can't complain.

I have just got around to downloading some photos off my phone. I took them on Monday while I was on the train coming back from seeing the family in Shropshire. I wish I'd remembered to take my digital camera, but there we are. A couple of views of The Wrekin.





I always know that I am near my roots when I see The Wrekin standing larger than life looking out across the north Shropshire plain. It makes me feel as though I am at home and safe.

For those as don't know it, the hill is not particularly big, but it dominates the area around it - especially to the north. There is an Iron Age hill fort on the top, which the MOD once graced with a radar station. That has long since gone and there is a TV transmitter instead. The Wrekin is a beacon hill, one of those set in readiness for the Spanish Armada that never landed in Elizabethan times. I recall the becon being lit for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, and then moments later, seeing another beacon flaring on the Welsh border, miles away as the chain spread across the country. I guess that was where Tolkein got the idea for the beacons of Gondor.

There's a few legends about the formation of the Wrekin; my favourite involves a stupid giant, a wily cobbler and a grudge against the citizens of Shrewsbury. Many Shropshire legends involve a supernatural being being pissed off with the citizens of Shrewsbury. More than one involves a wily cobbler.

What was it in medieval times about shoes, the town and revenge?

I am finding it hard to think of anything to write and yet here I am making that the subject of an entry.

What a publicity hound, eh?

I don’t want to write about the weather; I’m fed up with that and I expect you are, too. There’s only so many ways to say that it’s too hot (although the chances of record-breaking July temperatures in London, where it’s currently hotter than Mauritius, is worth noting).

At the same time, I really don’t want to harp on about the tube system. Largely because any muttering I do is linked to the heat, but also because it (or at least the bit I use) has behaved itself impeccably the past couple of days. Let sleeping dogs lie, I say.

This all leaves me with precious little to write about and that is frustrating when you fancy yourself to be a bit of a writer (an unmotivated writer to be sure, but a writer nonetheless. I am blaming my lack of worthwhile written productivity on the heat and tube system. A heady blend of irrelevance and hypocrisy, but it suits me).

( Family matters: feel free to skip. )

I am now in the middle of that awkward period at work where I want to go home but have left it just too late to hit the Tube before the rush and must now wait biggest part of an hour until it dies down again. This is made all the more annoying by the fact that I have booked tomorrow off to make the bank holiday weekend suitably lengthy.

I must now try and look reasonably busy without contravening my own personal code, which states bluntly at times like this swing the lead. Satisfyingly, I can scribble on LJ and look as though I am working. The fact that I am reaching for anything of import to talk about is irrelevant; I am just about to start five days away from the office (including the weekend, but what the heck), which means that I can sleep in, wander around aimlessly and generally faff like a good ‘un.

Hurrah!

That said, I did promise myself that some work would go into spring cleaning The Tower, so I may well start on that tomorrow. Loud music, gallons of coffee and a duster. Oh, and I guess the vacuum cleaner, too, though that may mean giving up all hope of ever finding the last piece of part-repaired Buffy. Oh well, can’t have everything.

The sun is shining outside right now, which is a rather pleasant development (provided it’s not too hot, of course). My inherited Goth cough seems to have gone – there was a slight relapse earlier, a bit like that last big wave that sweeps up the beach as the tide recedes, but apart from that, there is nothing but the occasional clearing of the throat. Those of you who got the cold and are now into the coughing stage take heart, if old leather lungs Lea can dispense with it after comparatively few days, it should be a doddle for you clean living types.

I am now going to try and delete a message from my office answer phone which refuses to die. Some spod, clearly not listening to the message, asked politely to be put through to someone to talk about rents and then waited patiently for about 10 minutes before hanging up. I don’t need a 10 minute recording of someone breathing, but it doesn’t seem to want to delete, either. I may use a hammer.