Moved

This has moved to www.foolhandy.com

One day soon I’ll just move all these posts to there but technical issues prevent it now.

It may look similar but it’s completely different. Really!

1

I’m in the process of buying a house.

32 (-10) A Shameless Plug

For the benefit of Google & co.

www.jehk.sc

Of course, if you want to hire a car in Seychelles it would be useful…

31 (85)

Back to school today. I know we get longer holidays than most but it hardly seems as if we’ve been away.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon/evening churning slowly throught the mountain of work that must be done, discovering more and more that I’d forgotten about or overlooked as I went on. So, although I was ready for today I wasn’t at peace because of all the things that have to be done. So I couldn’t get to sleep. When I finally did at around 2am the sleep lasted only a couple of hours and I was up at around 4.30am trying to reduce my to-do list as much as possible. Sadly I again uncovered several larger pieces of work that were due to be completed in early December.

My head hurts.

30 (86)

Today… Well I’ve got a massive todo list and I’m grinding through it. I’m finding it hard to grasp the idea that I’m back at work tomorrow. Bar the couple of days in the middle when there were annoyances it’s been a great Christmas break, but it’s gone so fast.

Back to it…

29 (89)

Yes he was a man who did many wrong things, but I went to bed with an uneasy feeling knowing that the execution of Saddam Hussein was likely to happen before I woke. I could imagine it as if I were responsible. I could picture the scene in my mind’s eye, as if I were there. When I awoke to this I didn’t feel any better and I still don’t now.

I have watched BBC News 24 today and seen footage building up to pre-meditated murder, and then the corpse afterwards. In what other circumstances would they show this? An eye for an eye? It doesn’t sit easily in my soul.

28 (92)

It gets better. I haven’t used my car for three days and the battery is flat. I should be on the road by now… Thankfully I have homestart breakdown cover but it’s still a pain. A new battery is needed methinks.

Still, time for a slice of toast for breakfast.

27 (92)

I was awoken this morning at just past 3am by four or five teenagers using a shopping trolley as a soapbox racer down the High Street. Anyone who has seen Halstead High Street will know why the person sat in the shopping trolley found it necessary to scream with fear and/or excitement whilst doing this.

Bless…

(Today >)

26 (93)

It’s now 11pm and I really should be getting ready for Stratford tomorrow. I’ve done a bit but…

I’ve had a lovely Christmas. Friday/Saturday was bad beyond belief – Chelmsford,  Citroen & Speeding Ticket – but then the holiday kicked in and after a lazy Christmas Day we headed over to Thaxted for some socialising. It was a good combination. Christmas Day was one of the laziest and most enjoyable Christmases I’ve had, and today was dancing, pub, presents, eating, party, home. To the right there should be a picture of the Christmas Day feast and Boxing Day tree. All good.

From now on the holiday becomes a travel-fest. Stratford, Frith Common, Cambridge, Halstead, Melton Constable, Halstead and then back to work. No wonder I’m grabbing a few moments now whilst I can.

But I must go and pack. And the central heater boiler keeps cheeping at me.

25 (95)

Today, with my post, I received a speeding ticket. On the table next to me is the three part letter which contains the words “evidence”, “offence”, “prosecute”, and a photograph of the rear of my car cross-haired. I was doing 38mph in a 30mph village, mid afternoon on the way home from the work Christmas buffet. It will be a £60 fine and three points on my licence. It’s my first traffic offence in 15 years of driving and my first brush with the law ever, and it’s knawing away at my insides.

Before I go further and explain my feelings I must say that I know I was breaking the law. I’m not making excuses. I know that someone is umpteen times more likely to die if you hit them at 38mph than at 30mph. I know that I was caught and so I must face the consequences. I know all of this. I know the dangers of driving too fast and of driving dangerously.

But that’s why I’m churning with bitterness.

I’ve spent the last few weeks driving at way below the speed limit because I’ve been scared of the fact that the roads around here don’t seem to be gritted properly. I’ve been the one who has a line of cars behind him through 30mph zones because he’s keeping to the limit and everyone else is getting impatient. I’ve been consciously trying to stay to the limit at all times, on housing estates, country roads, through villages and on dual-carriageways and motorways. To be honest I’ve been pissing people off doing it, if the amount of tail-gating of my car is anything to go by. That 38mph must be, in all honesty, the only time I’ve broken the speed limit during December. But this isn’t a new phenomena – I drive to the speed limit 95%+ of the time. And I know you can say that it only takes 0.01% of the time to kill someone but compared to the speed-obsessed morons who blast around the country with no regard whatsoever to any limit I’m an absolute angel. There are grandparents in Rover 45s who drive faster and more dangerously than me.

To be honest, it’s the box I now conveniently fit into that irritates me as much as anything. Male. 32. Sports car. Speeding. And it’s such an inaccurate picture of the way I drive. It’s not always been the case but on the whole, and certainly for many years now I’ve been calm, I keep my distance, I don’t race around like there’s no tomorrow, I am a safe driver. Or I was. Now I’m a criminal. For pity’s sake Helen drove around faster than me in her one litre Micra!

It’s not going to last long, this bitterness. I don’t think so anyway. When I manouvered Helen’s car forward about fifteen foot and the seat-belt light flashed at me I wanted to take an ice axe to it but it will pass. I didn’t keep to a speed limit, and there was a camera, and I am to be punished. But. Every time from now on when I’m still keeping to the speed limit and some git is again right up my arse trying to bully me into going faster, or next time I witness as I do every day a piece of dangerous and irresponsible driving which goes completely unnoticed by the authorities there is going to be such a bitterness in the pit of my stomach.