The Rainy Dayby Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust more dead leaves fall,. And the day is dark and dreary. My life is cold and dark and dreary. It rains […]
Driven to drugs
Picking up a prescription from the chemist is a pretty routine kind of thing, isn’t it?Usually it goes like this:1. Pick up prescription from surgery or phone them and ask ask them to send it to the pharmacy across the road.2. Go to pharmacy across the road, pick up drugs3. Go homeTotals: Phone calls: 1Miles […]
A Bouch job?
Did you know that the Tay Bridge – the one of the infamous disaster – was built by someone called Sir Thomas Bouch? Nope? Me neither. Although apparently not the source of the expression ‘a botch job’.What about the fact that one of the sons of the famous Queensberry family was so hideously inbred he […]
Panther’s birthday
Open wider
Finally the West Wing is nearing completion – and it’s lovely. Panther, Boys One and Two and I are enjoying stretching out into the extra space. All three of them don’t take any persuading to keep things tidy – a welcome, but almost unsettling side-effect that I’m sure won’t last. So we’re delighted, but the […]
Radio gaga
Nearly two weeks ago, I was driving home from a shift at the newspaper where I sometimes put in a guest appearance.I put the radio on, like always. I was looking for something amusing and diverting while I headed west looking forward to a festival of television on the sofa with the Panther. (Currently Wire […]
Flexible foe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7679802.stmPeter Mandelson, newly refurbished member of Brown’s inner sanctum, has decided to ‘review’ plans to extend the flexible working laws to all parents of children up to the age of 16. Currently the right to request a change in how you work only applies to those with pre-school or disabled children. The right to request […]
A little leafy loveliness
It was family gathering time again. Another 65th birthday and the amassing of four children, their spouses and children plus three further children, their brats, bumps and other halves.It felt like heaven to let EasyJet take us away from storm-lashed Renfrewshire and set us down in Bristol, where the sun was shining. (And you don’t […]