Slow car

It took me ten minutes to reverse this new red car out of my garage today because I was worrying so much about its sticky-out handles. Then I drove very carefully to work, no revs above 4000 and tried to stay at around 50 mph even on the dual carriage way. It took nearly twice as long as usual to get to work.

And it hasn't got as much room in the boot for all my special junk.

New car day

My new red car is okay.

At the sales room I opened the driver's door, and the rain dripped off the roof onto me. My nice old Volvo never did that because it had a lip round the roof that drained off the rain. I don't like new designs.

And it's got sticky out handles. My old Volvo had handles that were flush with the car. I don't like sticky out handles.

Bye bye old car

Tomorrow I scrap my 19 year old trusty steed, the only car I've ever owned, a car I've had for 13 years. I'd meant to keep it another couple of years - we could have celebrated its 21st birthday! But the government scrappage scheme was too good to miss, so tomorrow I get a new car, and trusty old Volvo goes for scrap.

If you want to know what I'm getting to replace it, you'll have to ring me and ask. I'm looking forward to hearing from you, my friends.

Night sky

I went a bit north to see someone for work and then some relatives so it was getting dark as I drove home. I stopped to photo this sky.

Good news

We're all well pleased that step-daughter #2 who went for a job interview at a building surveyors yesterday has been told she's got the job with remuneration , and she's to start on Monday! Go, girl, go!

I like her sense of humour; she noted on Facebook that she'd omitted to mention on her CV that she was unemployable!

Weekend away

We've spent the weekend in Bath and Bristol, seeing daughter and listening to a concert that included a composition by son-in-law. Interesting time and diverting from life that goes on as normal.

Remembrance Sunday

Today is Remembrance Sunday.

Aren't we supposed to have a minute's silence while we remember those who died at war? But what do you think of during that silence? What do you remember? People?

I used to feel sad that people in the previous generations to me had lost loved ones, like my aunty's husband. Uncle Myles died in World War two as he lead his troop of soldiers along a ditch at the side of a road. There was another troop on the other side of the road too, but having a working radio, they were warned to turn back because there was a sniper ahead. Unfortunately

1. Uncle Myles' radio equipment wasn't working so
   
2. they didn't turn back and
   
3. the sniper got him.
   

I didn't know Uncle Myles, so remembering him wasn't too easy, but remembering his widow and son brought sadness. What could we do to avoid future deaths?

We could remember what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Do we remember? No, because British troops still don't have working equipment. See this for example. So for me, there's little point in Remembrance Sunday until we learn from our memories.

Handel's Halleluiah

I quite like Handel's Halleluiah anyhow, but this is such fun. I hope the 'monks' had fun rehearsing it too.

Nephew's restaurant

When I was a teenager, I expressed an interest in learning to cook, so my parents gave me a cookery book, inscribed:

"Waiting hopefully for the results."

Good results didn't appear that quickly, so I was intrigued to find in today's Financial Times an article on an 18 year-old Canadian chef who has his own restaurant. It must be good if he's made it into the British FT. See the restaurant web site here.

Of more importance is my nephew who is training as a chef in the States. Perhaps he'll learn to cook more quickly than I did. I couldn't run a restaurant - I get stressed when I have to cook for more than a few friends and family. Will nephew make it into the FT when he gets his own restaurant? And will he get his own restaurant? I hope so, and then maybe I'll go and try it out. So now I'm waiting hopefully for the results of his training.

Lost Madeleine

This little English girl disappeared when she was nearly four, and is still missing more than two years later, but her parents keep looking. When they heard of that American girl that was found after 18 years, they argued that their child could still be alive somewhere, so produced this video in the hopes that someone knows where their Madeleine is.

Old friends, new places

I met an old friend today, at work, a friend I haven't seen for perhaps ten years, someone whose son is around the same age as mine. We used to live near each other, but lost face to face contact when I moved here. But she's now a full-time post grad student at the OU studying for a doctorate too. So we met over lunch and chatted for an hour, and could have talked longer, but I had to get on and do stuff. (See Frustrating Day).

A colleague commented that it was weird that we'd both ended up here, but it's not really weird. We've got similar children, we have a similar approach to learning, a similar view of life and what's important - that's why we got on ten years ago. And that's why we're doing similar things now.