cob with that, duck?

I actually woke in time for breakfast today! I didn't get to sleep too early last night, so I got up, had breakfast and then planned to go back to bed and take advantage of the 12 midday checkout. That never happened though, once I'm up I'm up. So to speak.

tt was online, so we chatted away for a couple of hours. tt is overseas at the moment, and I can't be with her right now, so that's about the next best way to spend a morning.

I then drove up to Nottingham which was pretty uneventful. Lots of "Average Speed" cameras on route. They are horrible things because it seems the average british driver is incapable of understanding what they are.

I lost count of the number of people tailgating me, trying to get me to drive faster than the limit. Don't these people understand that you CAN'T speed between the cameras and not get caught? That's the whole idea of it nob-heads! Please go and get speeding tickets elsewhere weirdos.

It's been good to see my friends again. They have three daughters and one son, I'm here for the oldest daughters wedding. The middle one is already married and the youngest isn't quite old enough get married.

We've been out to the pub and consumed moderate amounts of beer. Not too much because we've got an early start in the morning. Someone on the street has unsecured wireless internet so I've been using that to check my mail. For some reason I can't sleep. Why does that always happen when you've got an early start the next day?

And why are kebabs so good when you've had beer? The police could use that in leuie of a breath-tester:

PC: "Evening sir, I pulled you over because you were swerving a little in the road. Have you been drinking?"
Guy: "[hic] No occifer, of coursh not...."
PC: [Produces donna with chilli sauce and form] "Sir, could you tell on a scale of 1 to 10 how appetising this kebab looks?"
Guy: [dribble, drool] "Ooooh, that looks soooo good....."
PC: "Ha ha! You're nicked sunshine...."

I'm going to bed now. The title line relates to the kebab shop btw, It's a standard question at every food takeaway in Nottingham. It translates in English to "Would you like a bread roll with that mate?"

Woke up: Tewkesbury
Went to bed: Nr Nottingham
Done: 'bout 120 miles again


Double take at life...

Wasted breakfasts and not much else besides...

I woke up just too late for breakfast which is a shame for two reasons:

a) I'd already pre-paid for breakfast
b) I had dinner in the restaurant last night, and for a Brewers Fayre it was actually ok, if bode well for a decent breakfast!

I hate to think how much money I've wasted over the past 2 years or so by pre-paying for breakfast and then missing it. At £7 a go it's got to be a couple of hundred £ which is worrying really!

(Excuse me. Some one is playing a didgeridoo outside my window! Seriously! Tewkesbury Travel Inn and someone's playing a bloody didgeridoo! - brb, I've got to see this...!)

Anyway, back to wasted breakfasts. Sometimes people ask why I pre-pay when it costs the same to just go down in the morning and pay on the spot. The reason I pre-pay is that otherwise I'll wake up in the morning and think "Do I fancy breakfast or should I skip it and lay here for another half hour?"

Invariably I choose the latter cos I've got very bad eating habits. But, if I've already paid, then I force myself out of bed and go to eat. I'm tighter than I am lazy!

So, I missed breakfast this morning and as I didn't have to see any customers until just after midday I spent the morning chatting with tt on microsoft web messenger. Web messenger is a bit crap, it often fails to deliver messages for long periods (half an hour!) leading to both parties thinking they're being ignored by the other.

It was a pleasant way to spend the morning. Then I drove to see client near Pontypool. That was tedious, I was there to deliver some training but the trainee was very odd. She wanted me to go through the simplest parts in extreme detail and very small steps while she noted everything down very slowly. But then, at the more complicated procedures she just nodded and said "Yeah..." in athat'sts obvious, I wont make a note of that" kind of way.

After that I took a slow drive to Tewkesbury. It seems a pleasant enough town although I'm in a Travel Inn again, and a little way out of town centre. I was planning to go into town earlier, but I really can't be bothered. Sorry Tewkesbury, it's nothing personal.

I think the M5 motorway must be thquietestst motorway in the land. I drove along it today and betweejunctionon 3 and 1 I wasn't passed by a single vehicle, and I only passed one pick-up truck. And this was about 5pm.

And another bonus, I've got free internet access at this Travel Inn. They don't have the usual swisscom system, they've got a home grown one, and it's not overly secure. Tee hee.

I'll probably not post for a couple of days as I'm off to a wedding in Nottinghamshire tomorrow and probably wont be back for a couple of days. I predict beer in ridiculous quantities and a sore head upon my return. Have a great weekend y'all, if you're near nottingham leave a comment and I'll tell you where all the free beer is at....

Woke up: Wales
Went bed: Tewkesbury
Done: 120 miles (I'm a slacker today!)

Double take at life...

Planes on the M4 motorway

It was a pretty crap day. Against my wiser judgement I stayed at a Travel Lodge place last night. The lodges themselves aren't that bad. (A comparison between the budget ho/motels I stay in all the time in the UK will certainly be the subject of a future blog!)

The thing that makes Travel Lodge so bad is the lack of facilities - namely no pub and only crap food available via Little Chef/Thief restaurant next door.

Little chef places are notoriously crap. They combine the worst aspects of all fast food into a one-stop-shit-stop. They have long waits, bad service, inedible food, unhealthy options, extortionate prices, horrible diner-style seating, all at one hard-to-swallow outlet.

Anyone that drives much in the UK will already know this about Little Chef (and motorway services in general) and think that I'm metaphorically attempting to teach my granny to suck eggs. But listen mate, anyone outside the UK needs that kind of detail to realise just how bad the place is...

Anyway, for some reason that I'm still not sure about, I decided to have breakfast at Little Chef this morning. I don't need to tell you how the experience was. I did feel a little sorry for the one and only waitress on duty though. She was getting all the shit and none of the problems were her fault.

I always complain when I'm pissed off, but never to someone that obviously hasn't caused the problem or can't solve it. Whats the point?

Once I was done with my wholesome and nutritious cold greasy stuff, sorry, "olympic breakfast" (Please don't let Little Chef sponsor anything to do with the 2012 olympics - imagine our national debt after the legal / medical bill....), I went to see my first customer.

The job was some software training. It went fine. The last time I was with that client I was with tt though. So as I left their office and walked to my car I had a strange feeling of deja vu. The last time I was there, almost a year ago, I left the office with a sense of exhilaration - I was about to drive back to my girl! This time I was just going to the next appointment. That made me a bit sad.

I'm going on too much. The points I wanted to mention: (!)

Who knows the M4 well? What about aircraft over it? A few months ago tt and I were driving along it and we saw a plane ahead. And I know this sounds silly, but we couldn't decide whether it was a real plane or a model one! I'm sure it was a real one, but because the part of the M4 is so bland and has no features there was nothing to compare it against in terms of size. I think it was between swansea and reading, that stretch.

tt was sure it was a model because it was doing stunts, corkscrews, loops, etc. But I'm sure real planes can do that too! Today I saw a couple of fighter jet type planes in the same area and I'm sure there must be some sort of RAF base or similar in the area. If that's the case I'm sure the first planes we saw must have been real and not remote control.

I also want to tell you that Barlcays, the UK bank, are officially SHIT in my humble opinion. I've got a meeting with a big manager next week so I'll give you more info then.

Saw another customer near Cardiff which was also fine. That customer is a lovely lady who's about as old as my mum and she also treats me as such. She made me drink lots of tea and eat lots of cake. Could have worse customers I s'pose.

I'm in Wales now. It's lovely here (the written word can lose all sarcasm can't it? Just commenting...). Got lots to tell y'all but I've gone on so much I don't want to bore you with random thoughts on Welsh language, english road signs, etc. We can save that for another day - wont that be fun?!

Woke up: Southampton, south english coast
Went bed: Bridgend, south wales
Done: 150 miles


Double take at life...

Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, you need to employ guards to shoot these people

Why do some people leave shopping trolleys in parking bays at the supermarket?! That really pisses me off. I spot an "empty space", mirror (yeah), signal (if you're lucky!) and manoeuver (do that bit) into space. Then realise there's a bloody trolley stopping me pulling into it. In a "good" version of this there is no car in the space opposite so I can nudge the trolley out of the way with my car. In the normal situation there is a car on both sides and in front. So I have to switch to reverse, and by that time the impatient bastards behind me have invariably blocked my exit route. Bah! By the time someone finally pauses to let me out it's because they were so far back in the queue they didn't see me pull in, and they think I'm now leaving a "valid" parking spot. So the evil cycle continues.

Btw. If I ever do manage to nudge the offending bloody trolley out of the way in order to park, I DO then take the trolley into the shop with me or return it to a trolley park - I don't leave the problem in someone else's parking spot. Really. Believe what you want.

Also btw., If the cycle does start again with someone pausing to let me out of a "trolley polluted" spot I DO hand gesture frantically to try and let them know the spot is no good. Rooted. Useless. This usually results in concerned looks that suggest the wearer is thinking something like: "Should I abandon parking and inform the police that a loon is about to leave tesco/sainsbury/asda carpark...?"

Have a good night y'all. I'll try and post as often as possible even if it is shit like this....

"Let's get sensible!" - Rik Mayall(Guest House Paradiso)

I've been thinking about this more, and I've decided to go for it.

I've got stuff I want to write about most days, and I've also had a wonderful time the last year that I'd like to tell everyone about.

So I'm thinking about adding two posts a day. One about now, and one about this same day a year ago.

The trouble is, my big story started on 1st April last year (2005) and it's now the 25th April 2006. So for the next week or two I'll be putting my daily post on for NOW and also adding a few days for April 2005. That way I'll catch up soon and then just have to do two blogs a day.

Incase you're interested, the blog for last year will be done entirely from memory. It was such a good year I can remember almost every day of it. April 2005 was certainly the start of a very new life and now I'll start telling you all about it.

I'll reword this later to make more sense!

Woke up: Home by the sea
Went Bed: Southampton
Done: 250 miles

I wonder if this is a flash in the pan or will I still be doing it in more than a month?!

Only time will tell I guess. Pretty poor start eh?